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Joseph Howse

BIOGRAPHY
Joseph Howse writes fiction and poetry, as well as technical books on computer programming and image analysis. He lives in a Nova Scotian fishing village, where he chats with his cats and nurtures an orchard of hardy fruit trees.

Joseph’s debut novel, The Girl in the Water, has won the 2023 Independent Press Award for Literary Fiction and the 2023 IAN Book of the Year Awards for Outstanding Multicultural Fiction. The sequel, The Circus and the Atom, has won the 2026 NYC Big Book Award for World Literature and for Audiobook Fiction, as well as the 2026 Independent Press Award for Literary Fiction and for World Literature. These novels are the start of a multigenerational saga called Next Year’s Snow, which hinges on the friendship and strife of two families in the Soviet/post-Soviet world.

Joseph’s fiction and poetry have also appeared in South Africa’s Sunday Times, Sunspot Literary Journal, Litbreak Magazine, Humana Obscura, paint me (37th Anthology of the New Zealand Poetry Society), Haiku Canada Review, and The Poetry Lighthouse Anthology (Volume II).

Joseph has experience doing business, volunteer work, and speaking engagements on six continents. He has won several awards from Bpeace (a pro bono consulting group) for his work on business mentorship projects in El Salvador and Guatemala.

As a graduate of Dalhousie University, Joseph holds a BA in French, MBA in International Business, MA in International Development Studies, and Master of Computer Science.

PUBLICATIONS

Novels:

  • The Circus and the Atom (Nummist Media, 2025), with audiobook read by Annette Chown (Nummist Media, 2026)
  • The Girl in the Water (Nummist Media, 2022), with audiobook read by Annette Chown (Nummist Media, 2025). Translated into French by Elisabeth L. Guillerm as Submergée (Nummist Media, 2026).

Technical books:

  • Learning OpenCV 4 Computer Vision with Python 3, Third Edition (Packt Publishing, 2020)
  • OpenCV 4 for Secret Agents, Second Edition (Packt Publishing, 2019)
  • iOS Application Development with OpenCV 3 (Packt Publishing, 2016)
  • OpenCV 3 Blueprints (Packt Publishing, 2015)
  • Python Game Programming by Example (Packt Publishing, 2015)
  • Android Application Programming with OpenCV 3, Second Edition (Packt Publishing, 2015)
AWARDS

Accolades for The Circus and the Atom:

  • Winner, 2026 NYC Big Book Award for World Literature
  • Winner, 2026 NYC Big Book Award for Audiobook Fiction
  • Winner, 2026 Independent Press Award for Literary Fiction
  • Winner, 2026 Independent Press Award for World Literature
  • Best of Novel (category winner), 2025 Sunspot Lit Solar Flare Contest

Accolades for The Girl in the Water:

  • Winner, 2023 Independent Press Award for Literary Fiction
  • Winner, 2023 IAN Book of the Year Awards for Outstanding Multicultural Fiction
  • Bronze Medal, 2023 IPPY Awards for Best Regional Ebook (Fiction)
  • Honorable Mention, 2024 Eric Hoffer Book Award for E-Book Fiction

Accolades for poetry:

  • Second Prize, 2025 Poetry Lighthouse Prize
  • Third Prize, New Zealand Poetry Society’s 2024 International Poetry Competition, Haiku Section
  • Honorable Mention, 2024 Sejong International Sijo Competition

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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