Fiction (adult)

Jill MacLean

Jill MacLean writes to stretch her limits and engage her curiosity. She writes to communicate, to be read. She writes because she loves being inhabited by characters and intertwining their stories in a balance of the intuitive and the rational, not always knowing where she’s going but steered by what feels true.

She has an honours degree in biology and is a keen naturalist. Her masters degree in theological studies, an agnostic’s search for answers, made her questions more sophisticated and encouraged her to write poetry. Her collection, The Brevity of Red (2003), was shortlisted for two awards. Poetry, she’s been told, requires the least number of best words, a good discipline for any writing.

While living in Prince Edward Island, she spent three years researching an 18th century French settlement. Her biography of Jean Pierre Roma, published by the PEI Heritage Foundation, was reissued in 2005.

Her grandson’s request that she write him a book led to three middle-grade novels and two young adult, four awards and numerous nominations, four of them international. Her YA novel, Home Truths, is on the Nova Scotia school curriculum.

She has participated in Writers in the Schools, Word on the Street, the Literacy for Life Conference, the TD Book Tour, Read by the Sea and a conference for the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) in London, England. She’s conducted workshops, school presentations and readings, many for the Canada Council, across the country.

She’s hiked the High Arctic tundra and the rainforests of St. Vincent, driven through a very long, one-way, unlit, water-dripping tunnel in the Faroe Islands, kayaked Johnstone Strait and been too close to a grizzly in the Mackenzie Mountains: a strong sense of adventure, in other words. Why else, after writing five contemporary novels for young readers, would she embark on a novel for adults set in 14th century England?

That novel – several years later! – is in the process of being self-published, with the help of a company in BC. She’s hoping to to have a book in hand by late spring.

She was a palliative care volunteer for several years, and has been a dog walker for the Winnipeg Humane Society and the Nova Scotia SPCA. She can often be found in her perennial gardens, a pastime she likens to writing: you start with a rough plan, then nature takes over and you’re left to weed and transplant and weed some more, always with an eye out for interesting suprises.

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Stephens Gerard Malone

Born in Ontario, educated in Montréal, Stephens Gerard Malone currently lives and writes on Canada’s east coast. In 1994, he published his first novel, Endless Bay (Mercury Press) under the pseudonym Laura Fairburn. His second novel, Miss Elva (Random House Canada), followed in 2005 and was short-listed for the Dartmouth Book Award. Malone’s next novel, I Still Have a Suitcase in Berlin (Random House Canada) made its debut in May 2008. Big Town (Nimbus Publishing/Vagrant Press) was published in 2011, The History of Rain (Nimbus Publishing/Vagrant Press) 2021, and Jumbo (Nimbus Publishing/Vagrant Press) 2023. Rights to his seventh novel The Unnameable have been sold to Nimbus Publishing/Vagrant Press for publication April 28, 2026. Malone is a past president of WFNS and was on the board of the Halifax Afterwords Literary Festival. (Photo Credit: Nikki Davison)

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Elaine McCluskey

Elaine McCluskey has written three novels and four short-story collections, all set in Atlantic Canada. Rafael Has Pretty Eyes won the Alistair MacLeod Award for Short Fiction in 2023. McCluskey’s latest novel, The Gift Child, was released by Goose Lane Editions in March 2024. McCluskey has published over seventy short stories nationally and internationally. Valery the Great won the Other Voices short fiction contest; Bad Boys won the Pottersfield Portfolio contest. The Watermelon Social was a finalist for The Journey Prize and Something Pretty, Something Nice placed second in the Fish international short-story contest in Ireland. McCluskey’s stories have appeared in The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, The Dalhousie Review, Gaspereau Review, Room, Other Voices, Pottersfield Portfolio, Riddle Fence, among others. She graduated from Dalhousie and the University of Western Ontario (MA) and lives in Dartmouth, with her husband, a photojournalist. They have two children.

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Ami McKay

As a writer of fiction, essays, musical theatre, radio documentaries and dramas, Ami is a dedicated artist who brings creativity and passion to her work. With over 15 years of experience in musical theater she has scored several productions, including The Clouds, Mother Courage, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest.

She believes that the power and magic of a good story can only come through the strength of the characters, plot and place. Her work has been described as “a balance of stories – observation and internal musings, matter of factness and fancy.” Her radio documentary for the CBC, Daughter of Family G won an Excellence in Journalism Award at the 2003 Atlantic Journalism Awards and her novel, Given, was awarded second place in the 27th annual Atlantic Writing Competition.

Born in Indiana, Ami currently lives in an old farm house in Scots Bay, Nova Scotia. She’s an avid blogger and is an active member of PEN Canada as well as an Associate Editor of Fiction for The Antigonish Review.

Her first novel, The Birth House was published by Knopf Canada in 2006 as their New Face of Fiction’s 10th anniversary title (publication by Luitingh Sijthoff – Holland, and Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag -Random House Germany to follow).

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Adele Megann

Adele Megann is a Newfoundlander based in Halifax. Her short fiction has been published in Canadian and US periodicals and anthologies. She has won several awards–including the Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award–and has given many readings and interviews. She has been told that her accent is charming. She thinks everyone else’s accents are charming.

Adele lived several years in Calgary, where she was part of the Pack of Liars writing workshop, and she was a fiction editor of Dandelion magazine. Over the years, Adele has been involved in the writing community by organizing readings, and teaching and judging creative writing.

After returning eastwards by moving to Nova Scotia in 1999, Adele became acquainted with her new home by participating in Writers in the Schools throughout the province. She performed at Playwrights in Performance Cabarets. She coordinated school matinees and wrote curriculum guides for Exodus Theatre Society.

In addition to her literary publications, she has also contributed several articles to an Irish magazine called Set Dancing News.

Adele’s day jobs usually involve teaching. She has taught diverse subjects–including music, drama and literacy–to children and adults, including those with disabilities. She sings, and plays several instruments, usually in the context of traditional Irish music. She lives with an assortment of humans and animals.

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Joanne Merriam

Joanne Merriam is a science fiction writer, poet, and editor. Her debut novel, Aether and Ego (Inanna Publications, 2026), is a steampunk retelling of Pride and Prejudice with the addition of space travel, dogs, and accidental death.

A former staff member of WFNS (1997-2001), she used to write a regular column for WFNS’ Eastword called “Caught in the Web.” In 2001, she left her position as Executive Assistant of WFNS to travel Canada by train, and then parts of the Northeastern and Southern United States. Her book of poetry, The Glaze from Breaking (Stride, 2005; Upper Rubber Boot, 2011), was written, in part, about those travels. In 2004, she immigrated to the USA, residing primarily in Nashville, Tennessee. From 2011 to 2019, she was the Publisher at Upper Rubber Boot Books, which is now on permanent hiatus. URB published numerous anthologies, perhaps most notably the first English-language anthology of solarpunk, Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk & Eco-Speculation (eds. Phoebe Wagner and Bronté Wieland). She became an American citizen in 2019, and returned to Nova Scotia in 2024.

Her poetry and fiction has appeared in dozens of magazines and periodicals including The Antigonish Review, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Canadian Literature, Feux chalins, The Fiddlehead, Pottersfield Portfolio, and Strange Horizons, as well as the anthologies Ice: new writing on hockey and To Find Us: Words and Images of Halifax.

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Shandi Mitchell

Shandi Mitchell is an author and filmmaker. Her debut novel Under This Unbroken Sky was simultaneously published by Penguin Canada, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (UK) and Harper Collins (US). It has sold in nine countries, including translation rights for Chinese, Hebrew, Dutch and Italian. Under This Unbroken Sky won the 2010 Commonwealth regional Prize for First Book (Canada/Caribbean), the Thomas Head Raddall Fiction Award, and the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award. Her award-winning short films and feature film, The Disappeared, have played worldwide and garnered awards in cinematography, design, sound, performance, and direction. In 2008, she was awarded the Canada Council’s Victor Martin-Lynch Staunton Endowment in Media Arts. She has taught Introductory Screenwriting, Directing, and Fiction Writing Workshops. She has been a mentor for the AFCOOP and WFNS programs and a script consultant for Equinoxe International. She is currently teaching 4th year Creative Writing-Fiction at Dalhousie University, while completing her next novel.

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Carol Moreira

Novelist, journalist, editor, poet

Carol is a multi-genre novelist and a prize-winning journalist. She has published four young adult novels, three adult novels, and has a soon-to-be-released fantasy for adults. She is a contributor to the non-fiction immigration anthology Coming Here, Being Here (Guernica Editions).

Inside Information, Carol’s most recent novel for older teens, was published by Hippie Hill Press in August 2023. Riptides, a novel for younger teens, was published by Moose House Publications in 2021. Membrane, her YA fantasy, was first published by Fierce Ink Press in July, 2013 and has recently been re-issued by Hippie Hill Press. Her YA novel, Charged, was published by James Lorimer in 2008.

Carol is also the author of three adult novels: Too Good, published by Hippie Hill in 2023, Culture Shock, published by Hippie Hill in 2024 and The Pet-Sit, published by Hippie Hill in 2025. Her adult fantasy, Terminal Indicators, will be published by Hippie Hill in 2026. She is one of more than 20 writers to participate in a group novel-writing adventure called Less Than Innocent published by Moose House in 2022.

UK-born Carol has also worked as a magazine and newspaper reporter and editor in Canada, England and Asia. She is a former editor of Celtic Life International magazine and is currently a partner in the Atlantic Canadian business news site www.entrevestor.com.

Carol has an English degree from London University and also studied Mandarin Chinese in Taipei, Shanghai and London’s Ealing School of Languages.

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Donna Morrissey

Donna Morrissey is originally from The Beaches in Newfoundland. Donna left this small outport on the west coast of the island when she was sixteen. She studied at Memorial University in St. John’s and lived in various parts of Canada before settling down in Halifax, where she now lives.

She has written 7 best selling novels, and has received awards in Canada, the U.S., and England.

She has translations in six different languages.

She was nominated for a Gemini for best writing in a Drama for the film Clothesline Patch.

Her latest novel, The Fortunate Brother, was six weeks on the National best seller list, It WON the Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel of the year, and The Thomas Raddall for best in Atlantic Fiction.

Her Novel Livvy Higgs was recently nominated for the Master Arts Award of NS. and was chosen for the One Book Nova Scotia, and Donna was celebrated by Adsum House as its Sucessful Woman of the Year.

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Philip Moscovitch

I am a freelance writer, editor, and audio producer with a passion for tellng stories.

My book Adventures in Bubbles and Brine (Formac, 2019) explores Nova Scotia fermentation traditions (everything from craft beer to sauerkraut) and the people reviving and reinventing them. Mollie Katzen, author of The Moosewood Cookbook and The Heart of the Plate, says it is a “beautifully written book – which is at once a travel memoir, a weave of lore, histories, and personal tales, and an inspiring recipe collection.” Author and fermentation revivalist Sandor Katz (The Art of Fermentation) calls it “a beautiful window into the culture of fermentation in Nova Scotia! Philip Moscovitch introduces us to old timers carrying on traditions, and to leaders of the province’s contemporary fermentation revival.”

I have been publishing non-fiction for more than 25 years. My work has appeared in dozens of publications, including The Walrus, Saltscapes, Reader’s Digest, The Globe and Mail, The Gazette (Montreal), Halifax Magazine, East Coast Living, The Halifax Examiner, DAL Magazine, The Coast, Atlantic Books Today, My Halifax Experience, American Craft, Atlantic Co-operator, Canadian Co-operator, Tablet, Best Health, Shambhala Sun, Concordia Magazine, Maroon and White (SMU), Queen’s Alumni Review, York U Magazine, Equinox (remember Equinox?), Farm Credit Canada Express, OpenFile, Optimyz, Canadian Screenwriter, Playback, The Big Frame, Canadian Bar Association National magazine, Les carrières de l’ingénierie, and Les carrières du droit.

I have contributed essays to the non-fiction books Dogs With Jobs, Saltlines, and Look Ahead, Get Ahead: Growing Career Opportunities for Technicians and Technologists (this one was a lot more fun than it sounds).

For five years, I was the editor of Canadian Screenwriter magazine, and I’ve been a writer and story editor for several documentaries. As an audio producer, my work has aired both regionally and nationally on CBC Radio.

While my focus is mostly non-fiction, I have also published short fiction and poetry, and for 14 years I wrote the beloved Daisy Dreamer comic for Chickadee magazine.

My interests are broad. I’ve written about everything from professional wrestling to mental health, and from food to art. My short feature Small-town Smackdown,written for The Walrus, was a National Magazine Award finalist.

I recently graduated from the University of King’s College MFA in Creative Non-fiction program, and am working on a book about new understandings of serious mental illness, as well as a longer upper-elementary fantasy graphic novel series.

In addition to my work in fiction and non-fiction, I am also available to write for organizations in the corporate, government, and non-profit sectors. My clients have included the National Film Board, the Canadian Labour Congress, and numerous independent film producers.

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