Fiction (adult)

Paul MacDougall

Paul is the author of Distinction Earned, (2011) published by Cape Breton University Press. Paul researched the boxing era in Cape Breton and collected dozens of interviews from participants, enthusiasts and their heirs. The book’s title is taken from a citation of Cape Breton boxers at a Canadian Boxing Hall of Fame investiture in 1987. It was a Nova Scotia best selling book for five months.

In 2019 he worked with documentary film director Charles Currie to make a film based on his book, “Distinction Earned, Cape Breton Boxing’s Golden Era” which was shown at numerous venues, on Eastlink TV and can now be found on YouTube.

Paul also writes short fiction, book reviews, newspaper and magazine articles and one-act plays. He has four plays and co-written three plays all of which were originally produced at the Elizabeth Boardmore One Act Play Festival and five have won the Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script. His three most recent plays are The Venetian Gardens (2013), Wraslin (2015) and Solstice (2018).

In 2020 he completed writing the script for Donair, the Musical with songs and music by Duncan Wells. It was released as a 78 minute audio in December 2021 and hopefully will find a home on stage in the summer of 2022 (CoVID permitting) in Sydney and Halifax.

He conducts outdoor writing workshops in unique locations, and in local high schools, taught a number of introductory non-credit writers’ class at Cape Breton University, has organized a book club for the CBU Seniors College, and was a member of the local CBC radio book panel for a number of years.

He writes a monthy column for the Cape Breton Post entitled “The Sporting Life” and is the host of “The Good Sentence” an almost weekly radio program on “Dialogue” on The Coast 89.7 FM (Bell FibreOp station 773 and streaming online) in which he interviews local authors and arts community members about their recent works.

He also gives lectures and presentations on his work to interested groups.

Paul is a registered microbiologist and a Senior Instructor in the Health Sciences Department at Cape Breton University.

WRITING AWARDS

Geist Magazine Time Zones short story writing contest. Made short list. 2015

The Venetian Gardens (play) Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script 2013.

Rockabye Baby (play) Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script 2009.

Ave Maria (play) Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script 2008. Co-written with Ken Chisholm.

All Souls’ Eve (play) Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script 2007. Co-written with Ken Chisholm.

O Night Divine (play) Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script 2005. Co-written with Ken Chisholm.

Chemical Difference (play) Best Play from another source (a short story of mine) Boardmore One-Act Play Festival 2003. Co written with Ken Chisholm.

Gambit (short story) Indigo Books contest 2nd place winner 2003

Double Double (short story) WFNS 2nd Place winner 1992

Some interesting online publications of Paul’s

The Sporting Life, my monthly column in CB Post

https://www.capebretonpost.com/lifestyles/local-lifestyles/paul-macdougall-living-among-the-mikmaq-527202/

http://www.capebretonpost.com/section/2016-01-25/article-4415095/Cycling-with-the-Italians/1

http://www.capebretonpost.com/Sports/2015-05-15/article-4147050/Sydney-Millionaires-on-Stanley-Cup-forever/1

Local history pieces

http://www.shunpiking.com/bhs/longwalk.htm

http://www.shunpiking.com/bhs/Marcus-gar.htm

Book reviews

Off the Rack

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Heather Jessup

Heather Jessup teaches fiction in the creative writing program at Dalhousie University. She is the author of the novel The Lightning Field, and a book on truth, lies, and art called This Is Not a Hoax: Unsettling Truth in Canadian Culture. She is the co-curator of the national exhibition Make Believe: The Secret Library of M. Prud’homme – A Rare Collection of Fakes, which toured across Canada in 2019 with funding from a Canada Council New Chapter Grant. Her work has been nominated for the Journey Prize, New American Voices, two Atlantic Book Awards, and the Dublin Literary Award. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia on the unceded territories of Mi’kma’ki.

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Gloria Wesley

Gloria Ann Wesley is an African Nova Scotian writer. She is a graduate of St. Francis Xavier University and has taught at all grade levels. She holds an Honorary Doctorate from Mount St. Vincent University. She resides in Halifax, Nova Scotia. To My Someday Child (1975), enables her to hold the distinction of being the first published Black Nova Scotian poet. Wesley’s poetry appears in three Canadian anthologies. Her novel’s include Chasing Freedom (2011), short-listed for the Ann Connor Brimer Award. If This Is Freedom(2013) One Book Nova Scotia Award 2016. Abagail’s Wish, 2016) and Righting Canada’s Wrongs Africville (2019) Ontario Library Association’s Best Bets Award. Bringing a unique and interesting perspective about African Nova Scotians, her Black Loyalist history presentation and readings are exciting and designed for students from Grades 3-12.

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Syr Ruus

Syr Ruus was born in Tallinn, Estonia during the Second World War. As a small child, she escaped with her mother to Germany and subsequently immigrated to the United States where she earned an MA in English, an MS in Education and taught briefly in the English Department of Illinois State University. Since 1970, she has lived in Crescent Beach, Nova Scotia where she worked as an elementary school teacher while raising her three children before devoting herself full-time to writing. Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies and journals. In 2009 her novel “Lovesongs of Emmanuel Taggart” was published by Newfoundland’s Breakwater Press. Since then she has independently published three books of fiction inspired by the South Shore of Nova Scotia: “Devil’s Hump” (2013), “The Story of Gar” (2014), and “In Pleasantry” (2016). These are available in local stores or can be purchased directly from the author. “Krambambuli,” a memoir of her childhood years was published by Inanna Press (York University) in 2018. A novella, “Walls of the Cave,” was published by Quattro in 2020.

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Sheree Fitch

www.shereefitch.com

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Paul Zann

Paul is a versatile author: adult novel: A Real Son of a ‘Vitch; children’s books: The Aussie Six in Canada, The Aussie Six in Australia, The Aussie Six in Spain, and The Weirdest Class; book of satirical essays: You’ve Gotta be Kidding!; plays: Strike! and The Parasite/s; poetry book: Crouching at the Keyhole; numerous poems and stories in Canadian, U.S., Australian, and Spanish journals.

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Susan Zetell

“Keen unsparing observation expressed in palpable shimmering prose.” – Jim Bartley, Globe and Mail
“Zettell has a passion for careful, sensuous detail. While reading the title story (Holy Days of Obligation), I held my breath.” – Frances Itani
“Zettell writes with skill and understated grace, depicting the many surprises, illuminations and losses of daily life.” – Virginia Beaton, Chronicle Herald
“As is the case with great art, [her stories] touch the reader unexpectedly, reaching toward the deep centre of the human heart.” – Alistair MacLeod

Author of the “compelling” novel The Checkout Girl, two collections of award winning short stories, and with works included in anthologies and collections, Susan Zettell’s novel-in-progress is titled The Lazarus Maple. Born and raised in Kitchener, Ontario, and after having lived in Cambridge, Vancouver, Halifax, Ottawa and Whitehorse, Susan and her husband Andy Watt have made their home along the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

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Steve Vernon

Steve Vernon has been writing and telling stories for over 40 years. He’s read on CBC radio, Breakfast Television, Global Noon and at schools and libraries across Canada. Steve was a great hit with the kids at the inaugural FUNNY PAGES festival at the Halifax Central Library.

He has released five ghost stories collections, one young adult novel, one children’s picture book, and one collection of historical maritime murder tales, Maritime Murder with a second collection, More Maritime Murder due out in the fall of 2022 from local publisher Nimbus.

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J.A. (Andy) Wainwright

Andrew was born in Toronto and has lived in NS since 1972. He is McCulloch Emeritus Professor in English, with a speciality in Canadian and contemporary literature. His influences include Patrick White, Lawrence Durrell, and Bob Dylan. He has received Canada Council grants for poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. He lives in Halifax with his partner Marjorie Stone.

In 2019 he won the Guernica Literary Prize for his unpublished manuscript This Cleaving and This Burning, which will be published by Guernica editions in 2020.

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Julie Vandervoort

Julie Vandervoort writes creative non-fiction and memoir. She has worked with mentors Isabel Huggan (Humber School for Writers), Carol Bly and Philip Lopate (Vermont Studio Centre, creative non-fiction intensive) and David Carpenter (Sage Hill Writing Experience, advanced fiction program). She produced a piece called “Moving from Coping to Creating” at a national law conference and presented at the 2003 Canadian Conference of the Arts as part of the program “The Creativity Gap: How the Arts Inspire an Innovative Society”. In 2009, her essay “Measures” was chosen as a keynote presentation at the conference Imagining Amsterdam: Visions and Revisions. Julie has given many public readings across Canada and at PalabrArte in Mexico, served on grants juries, on the board of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, and as associate fiction editor of The Antigonish Review. She has worked extensively in human rights law and as an environmental activist and singer with the international Gaia Project. This project coordinated the production of a double CD in 2003 (O Beautiful Gaia: Love Songs to Earth) and a 2007 CD of music inspired by the Earth Charter (My Heart is Moved).

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