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Dean Jobb

BIOGRAPHY
Dean Jobb is a true crime writer, book reviewer and a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of King’s College in Halifax, and a member of the faculty of the university’s MFA in Creatiive Nonfiction program.

He is the author of seven books. His latest, Empire of Deception, tells the stranger-than-fiction story of master swindler Leo Koretz, who hoodwinked the elite of 1920s Chicago before escaping to a new life of luxury and excess in Nova Scotia. It won the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award, was named the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year and was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. His previous books won the Evelyn Richardson and City of Dartmouth awards for nonfiction, and he was runner up for the National Business Book Award.

Dean writes a monthy column on true crime for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and is a contributing reviewer to the Chicago Review of Books. His articles, commentaries and reviews have appeared in The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post and Winnipeg Free Press. He also has written for numerous magazines, including Canada’s History, Canadian Lawyer and the Literary Review of Canada, and has been published in the Chicago Tribune, The Scotsman, The Irish Times and the Belfast Telegraph.

A reporter, editor and columnist during a 20-year career at The Chronicle Herald, Dean is a three-time winner of the Atlantic Journalism Award and a finalist for the National Newspaper and National Magazine awards.

AWARDS

Winner of the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award and the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award for Empre of Deception, which was also shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction

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Winner of City of Dartmouth Book Award and runner-up for the National Business Book Award, for Calculated Risk

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Winner of the Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award: Shades of Justice

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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 and 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.

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 information, strategies, and skills that suit their career stage. 

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 you’re uncertain of your experience level with regard to any particular workshop, please feel free to contact us at communications@writers.ns.ca