Coffee Chats advisor
Nancy Rose
Nancy is the author/photographer of 4 picture books in the Secret Life of Squirrels series, and two board books featuring Oakley the Squirrel. She is a retired high school Family Studies teacher and Guidance Counsellor. In 2010 she started making squirrel size props (a barbecue, mailbox, washer and dryer, etc) and dioramas, and she captured photos of backyard squirrels when they explored her sets to find the hidden nuts. Her humorous photos of the squirrels appeared online and in newspapers and magazines world-wide. In 2014 her first children’s book, The Secret Life of Squirrels, was published in Canada, U.S., Japan and South Korea.
For classroom visits, Nancy brings along a big tote box filled with a variety of her homemade props and she talks about the challenges of writing a story that is illustrated with photos of her backyard squirrels as well as the fun of creating her props with found, recycled and dollar store materials. She invites students to think about what the next adventures of her squirrels could be if they were writing the next book and how they would make the props and get the squirrels to interact.
Nancy is available for live classroom presentations and also for Google Meet/ Zoom sessions, which went over very well in the 2020-2022, and with schools in other provinces.
Margo Wheaton
Margo Wheaton is an award-winning poet and editor and is the author of Rags of Night in Our Mouths (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022) and Wild Green Light (with David Adams Richards, Pottersfield Press, 2021). She lives and writes in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the traditional and ancestral territory of the Mi’kmaq.
Her debut poetry collection The Unlit Path Behind the House (McGill-Queen’s, 2016) won the Fred Kerner Award (Canadian Authors’ Association) for Book of the Year and the Alfred G. Bailey Award from the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick. It was also shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award, the J.M. Abraham Award, the Fred Cogswell Award for Literary Excellence, and the Relit Award.
Margo holds a Masters degree in English and a Certificate in Adult Education, both from Dalhousie University. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in a number of publications, including The Fiddlehead, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, the Guernica Series on Writers, Pottersfield Portfolio, The Antigonish Review and The Coast.
Her poetry has appeared in magazines and literary journals across the country including The Literary Review of Canada, The Antigonish Review, Event, The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, and Prism International. Her poems have been set to choral music and performed at the University of Toronto.
Comments about Rags of Night in Our Mouths (McGill-Queen’s, 2022):
”Rags of Night in Our Mouths is a haunting masterpiece of intimate negotiation. Harnessing all powers of the senses, these poems reach out to feel their way through darkened rooms, wild weather, and lost landscapes of the past and present. This is an unforgettable performance, and perhaps the most viscerally honest book of poetry to come out of Atlantic Canada in the last decade.” – Alexander MacLeod, author of Animal Person and Light Lifting
”Margo Wheaton’s poetry of brooding hours and raw intensities is polished by phrasing of rare precision. In places both outer and inner, we hear a ‘primal/speech of branches clanking’ and learn that ‘family’s/an old night, its chaos Miltonic.’ Readers will find themselves riveted, their lives expanded by this strong-hearted book packed with truthfulness, tenderness, and music.” – Brian Bartlett, author of Daystart Songflight: A Morning Journal
Shelley Thompson
Shelley Thompson is an actor, screenwriter, and activist based in Wolfville, in Mi’kma’ki (NS). She trained at The Royal Academy of Drama.c Art, the Canadian Film Centre, Women in the Directors’ Chair, the New York Writers’ Lab, and the Whistler Producer’s Lab.
As an actor she’s received and been nominated for Gemini and ACTRA awards for her work in film and television, including THE TRAILER PARK BOYS, and feature films SPLINTERS, and THE CHILD REMAINS among others.
Her short films have screened internationally with the most
recent, DUCK DUCK GOOSE, winning Best Atlantic Short at FIN Halifax. It was selected by Telefilm Canada’s Not Short on Talent at Clermont-Ferrand, and was a finalist in CBC’s Short Film Faceoff.
Her first feature film, Dawn, Her Dad & The Tractor premiered at Inside Out Film Festival in Toronto (BFI Flare), screened in Whistler, BC, where it was nominated for the Borsos Prize, and in Halifax. It played across Europe, and won the 2022 Nova Scotia MasterWorks Award.
Thompson is working on a second novel Murmurations. She has TV and cinema projects in development under the banner of her emerging production company, Rusty Tractor Productions Inc which in 2023, produced a documentary series TRANSLATIONS presently on CBC Gem, and Bell Fibe TV1
A committed LGBTQ+2SP ally, Thompson is proud parent to singer/ songwriter T. Thomason, a trans man who inspires her, every day.
ROAR, her first novel, was published by Nimbus/Vagrant Press in Nova Scotia, in October 2023, was nominated for the Margaret and John Savage first novel prize, and won the OLA’s Evergreen prize in 2025.
WINTER SKY, her second book was published by Nimbus/Vagrant in Oct 2025, and in 2026 was nominated for the Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction.
Sal Sawler
Sal Sawler is the award-winning author of three non-fiction books: 100 Things You Don’t Know About Nova Scotia; 100 Things You Don’t Know About Atlantic Canada – For Kids; Be Prepared: The Frankie MacDonald Guide to Life, the Weather, and Everything; and one picture book: When the Ocean Came to Town (illustrated by Emma FitzGerald).
Be Prepared was nominated for both Hackmatack and Forest of Reading Awards, and won a Moonbeam Children’s Award. 100 Things You Don’t Know About Atlantic Canada – For Kids was also nominated for a Hackmatack Award.
When they’re not writing books, Sal is working as a publicist for graphic novel publisher Conundrum Press, reviewing children’s literature, and writing web content for tech companies. They live in Nova Scotia with their partner, two kids, two dogs, and two cats.
Sarah Mian
Sarah Mian’s debut novel, When the Saints (HarperCollins) won the Jim Connors Book Award, the Margaret & John Savage First Book Award, and was a top-three finalist for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. She has written for the screen and stage, and is currently completing her second novel, The World in Awful Sleep.
Francene Gillis
Welcome to my profile. I am who I am, or am I… a paradoxical enquiry worth pondering. “What is most personal is most universal,” –Alistair MacLeod, yet another truth. And the mosaic—picking up pieces and putting them back together again into people who are stronger and better than before—those are the fulcrums, the wheels, and philosophies that drive my writing. I hope you will find information of interest that leads to a partnership or invitation. In brief…I am looking for publishers, freelance writing projects, possible editing depending on genre, and educational and human-interest writing for a fair fee of course as I am now retired, not through choice but injury. That you can read about in my upcoming memoir plus published by OC Publishing this June 22, 2025. Lots more on that on my Facebook page, instagram and soon to be website. I love writing and have been doing so since the tender age of 14. My first poem written at 16 was dedicated to my nine-year-old brother who drowned below our house. I am a professional writer living in Cape Breton, and I am working on several writing projects with the hope of being published in a much bigger circle. Following are highlights of my career thus far: Columnist: 30 plus years with a weekly newspaper: The Inverness Oran; Author: A Rose In November, collection of human interest stories, (1994); English teacher and Educator: 30 plus years, high school for the last 23 and as a substitute prior, while working in adult education and literacy; Masters in Education: Multicultural Diversity, Administration & Leadership, St. Francis Xavier University, 2013; Tribes Trained & Piloted …(2013–2015) Program created by Dr. Jeanne Gibbs, 2006 to help educational institutions and businesses become more successful; Winner of several national, regional writing and educational awards; Reviewer Pearson Canada of educational materials designed for grade nine students; Freelance Editor of several weekly and monthly rural magazines; Worked on several Nova Scotia Department of Education committees…Literacy Success 11 & 12, Advanced English 12 Pilot, Provincial Advisory Board, Grade 12 Provincial Exam; Presenter: Numerous conferences through Literacy, Adult Education, and Public School System such as ATENS Conference 2013, Strait Regional Inservices, Provincial Literacy Conferences; Consultant: (1994–1997) through my own business prior to coming back into the public education system, specializing in education, literacy, editing, and writing; Worked with CCLOW (Canadian Congress Learning Opportunities for Women) writing a chapter in a collective resource for female adult learners across Canada on issues such as self-esteem, confidence, motivation, and upgrading; Mentored by author Alistair MacLeod; I am presently working on a war book that tells the story of four brothers who fought in the Second World War from the time they were boys in rural Canada their struggles after enlisting as boys who become soldiers, and men, and which unlike other war books follows them to their deathbed whether in the war or after. The stories are funny, and serious, and devastating, and deal with battles on and off the frontlines. Called Momma Cried, it will be published this fall by Cape Breton Soul Food Publishing. I also have a fictional manuscript that evolved from true feature stories with men who were sexually abused called Truth Be Told looking for a home and publication in 2026. It is necessary for those silenced too long to be heard. It carries and awareness and educational piece that needs coverage. I also have collections of short stories, educational materials for high school students and teachers, a collection of poems, and several book length manuscripts. I would very much like to work with other professional writers or editors, and to fine a reputable agent for my writing. I would like to branch out as a columnist for human-interest or educational magazines. I guess now that I’m feeling better I wanna do everything because for eight years I could not until I found the right therapies and support and education, thus the memoir where did I go coming out in June. My intent, my hope with all of these books is to be a voice for those silenced too long because of invisible injuries, being different, and those who are called to step up to the plate and be courageous when they are anything those but. Please check me out on my other social platforms. Take care, Francene Gillis
Laurie Glenn Norris
Laurie is a writer of historical fiction and non-fiction, and is particularly interested in nineteenth-century Canadian history and the lives of girls and women during that period. She is the author of Found Drowned (Vagrant, 2019), Haunted Girl: Esther Cox & the Great Amherst Mystery (Nimbus, 2012; and Cumberland County Facts and Folklore (Nimbus, 2009).
Currently she is working on two projects, a biography of the Amos “King” Seaman family of Minudie, Nova Scotia, and an historical novel set in London, England.
She holds a B.A. in Anthropology, a B.Ed. in Social Studies and Language Arts and an M.A. in Art History.
Her first novel, Found Drowned, in 2024, was optioned by the Langley Fine Arts School, Langley, BC, and produced into a one-act play. In November of that year, it was performed at a Langley Theatre Festival.
Laurie lives in River Hebert, Nova Scotia, with her husband, Barry Norris, and kittycat Dinah.
Laurie Glenn Norris Read More »
Janet Barkhouse
Janet Barkhouse retired from professional theatre in 1982, and from teaching high school English in 2005. She’s written and directed plays for children from ages 8 to 18, written innovative English curriculum for the Province of Nova Scotia, and given workshops and readings for young people, teachers and writers across the Province.
In 2006 she fell in love with writing poems. Since then she has studied with many extraordinary poets, at universities in Halifax, and at the Banff Centre. Her debut book of poems, Salt Fires (Pottersfield, 2018) follows on two chapbooks, Silence and Sable Island Fieldnotes. In 2013-14, through their Humanities-HEALS program, she was Artist in Residence (Writing) at Dalhousie University’s Medical School.
Janet lives near Mahone Bay on Nova Scotia’s South Shore.
Darryl Whetter
Dr. Darryl Whetter is the author of 4 books of fiction and 3 poetry collections. His collection of stories, A Sharp Tooth in the Fur, was named to The Globe and Mail’s Top 100 Books of 2003. His debut novel, The Push & the Pull, was released in Spring 2008. Origins, his 2012 collection of poems, concerns energy, evolution and extinction as they can be observed at Joggins, Nova Scotia. Professor Whetter edited the nomination dossier of the Joggins Fossil Cliffs in their successful bid for inclusion on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. He has published nearly 20 stories in journals and anthologies, including Best Canadian Stories, The Fiddlehead, PRISM, Prairie Fire, The New Quarterly and Best Asian Short Stories 2020. In 2021, he won the Banff Centre Bliss Carman Poetry Award.
Darryl holds a PhD in English from UNB and has published or presented papers on contemporary literature in France, Sweden, Canada, Germany, the United States, India, Singapore, Australia and Iceland. Nearly 100 of his commissioned book reviews have appeared in venues such as The Toronto Star, The National Post, The Vancouver Sun, The Montreal Gazette, The Globe and Mail, and Detroit’s Metro Times. Darryl Whetter has been a professor of English and Creative Writing at various universities in Canada and was the coordinator of the creative writing program at Dalhousie from 2008-2010. In the mid-2000s, he was a regular panelist on the national CBC Radio program “Talking Books.”
His most recent books are the climate-crisis novel Our Sands, from Penguin RH (2020) and the anthology Teaching Creative Writing in Asia, from Routledge (2021)