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Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail

BIOGRAPHY
Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail is an award-winning, multi-genre author of eight books who loves telling inclusive stories for audiences of all ages.

Danielle’s latest books are a middle grade nonfiction title called Children of the SS Atlantic (Nimbus) and a nonfiction picture book Flying High on PEI (Acorn). Her other children’s books include Freddie the Flyer (Tundra), co-authored with Fred Carmichael, the first Indigenous commercial pilot in the Arctic. It is part of the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, was shortlisted for the Hackmatack nonfiction award, and won the First Nations Communities Reads Award and Atlantic Book Awards Readers’ Choice prize in 2024. This followed on her bestselling picture book Alis the Aviator (Tundra), which was selected as a CBC Books best of list.

Her other books include Polar Winds (Dundurn), For the Love of Flying (Robin Brass Studio), and the Canadian bestselling essay anthology, In This Together: Fifteen Stories of Truth and Reconciliation (Brindle & Glass), which features a conversation between Shelagh Rogers and Senator Murray Sinclair.

Danielle is currently working on several fiction and nonfiction projects while juggling work, editing and coaching contracts, and her family. She is most at home in the worlds of memoir, history, commercial and upmarket fiction, contemporary romance, and children’s literature. She has undertaken training around anti-oppression, trauma awareness, reconciliation, and inclusivity, and will ensure your privacy is respected. Danielle is represented by Elizabeth Copps at Confluence Literary.

If you’re a writer looking for a compassionate, encouraging, and solutions-focused chat about research, writing, publishing, book promotion, and more, please get in touch. Please see testimonials from author she’s worked with on her website at www.daniellemc.com.

 

PUBLICATIONS

  • Flying High on PEI (Acorn, 2026)
  • Children of the SS Atlantic (Nimbus, 2026)
  • Freddie the Flyer (Tundra Books, 2023)
  • Fever on the Forgotten Coast (Rockwater Books, 2023)
  • Alis the Aviator: An ABC Aviation Adventure (Tundra Books, 2019)
  • In This Together: Fifteen Stories of Truth and Reconciliation (Brindle & Glass, 2016)
  • Polar Winds: A Century of Flying the North (Dundurn, 2014)
  • For the Love of Flying: The Story of Laurentian Air Services (Robin Brass Studios, 2009)
AWARDS
  • First Nations Communities Read Award (Children’s Literature)
  • Atlantic Book Awards – Readers’ Choice Award
  • Shortlisted for the Hackmatack Award (English nonfiction)
  • Freddie the Flyer selected for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and TD Summer Reading Program
  • Selected author for Canadian Children’s Book Week
  • Recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Arts NS, Access Copyright, the Edmonton Arts Council, and the Edmonton Heritage Council
  • 2010 Berton House Writer in Residence
  • Houston Literary Award Finalist
  • Emily Awards YA Romance category finalist
  • Chatelaine Maverick of the Year
  • Avenue Magazine Top 40 under 40
  • Sizzling 20 under 30

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Experience Levels

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) uses the following terms to describe writers’ experience levels:

  • New writers: those with less than two years’ creative writing experience and/or no short-form publications (e.g., short stories, personal essays, or poems in literary magazines, journals, anthologies, or chapbooks).
  • Emerging writers: those with more than two years’ creative writing experience and/or numerous short-form publications.
  • Early-career authors: those with 1 or 2 book-length publications or the equivalent in book-length and short-form publications.
  • Established authors: those with 3 or 4 book-length publications.
  • Professional authors: those with 5 or more book-length publications.

Please keep in mind that each form of creative writing (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, writing for children, writing for young adults, and others) provides you with a unique set of experiences and skills, so you might consider yourself an ‘established author’ in one form but a ‘new writer’ in another.

Occasionally, WFNS uses the phrase “emerging and established writers/authors” to mean ‘writers and authors of all experience levels.’

The “Recommended experience level” section of each workshop description refers to the above definitions. A workshop’s participants should usually have similar levels of creative writing and / or publication experience. This ensures that each participant gets value from the workshop⁠ and is presented with info, strategies, and skills that suit their experience. 

For “intensive” and “masterclass” workshops, which provide more opportunities for peer-to-peer feedback, the recommended experience level should be followed closely.

For all other workshops, the recommended experience level is just that—a recommendation—and we encourage potential participants to follow their own judgment when registering.

If uncertain about your experience level with respect to any particular workshop, please feel free to contact us at communications@writers.ns.ca