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Ray Cronin

BIOGRAPHY

I am a writer, curator and arts consultant living in Elmsdale, Nova Scotia. My first publication was an art review in a magazine in 1989 and I have been writing for publication ever since.

From 2001-2015 I worked at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia as Curator (2001-2007) and as Director and CEO (2007-2015). I am the founding curator of the Sobey Art Award, Canada’s premiere award for the Visual Arts. A graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (Bachelor of Fine Arts) and the University of Windsor (Master of Fine Arts), I am the author of numerous catalogue essays and articles for Canadian and American art magazines, including Canadian Art, Border Crossings, Sculpture and Espace art actuel. In 2000 I received the Christina Sabat Award for Critical Review in the Arts. I was the Visual Arts Columnist for The Daily Gleaner (Fredericton) and Here (Saint John). I am now the visual arts blogger for Halifax Magazine, with two columns a month, and the editor of Billie: Visual Culture Atlantic.

I am the author of six books of non-fiction, including Our Maud: The Life, Art and Legacy of Maud Lewis, Alex Colville: A Rebellious Mind, and Gerald Ferguson: Thinking of Painting.  I have contributed essays to over a dozen books on artists, including: Mary Pratt, John Greer, David Askevold, Graeme Patterson, Colleen Wolstenholme, Ned Pratt and Gary Neill Kennedy, among others. My e-book, Alex Colville: Life & Work, was published by the Arts Canada Institute in 2017. In 2020 they will publish two e-books by me, Mary Pratt: Life & Work and an art history of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Also in 2020, Nimbus Publishing will publish my book Nova Scotia Folk Art: An Illustrated Guide. I am the author of three Gaspereau Field Guides to Canadian Artists, with numbers 4 and 5 of that series scheduled to be published in 2019, and 6 and 7 in 2020.

My complete list of publications can be found on my website, www.raycronin.ca.

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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