Jane Baskwill is an author, educator, and poet living in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley. She writes middle grade novels in verse and picture books that celebrate the power of story, imagination, and place. When not writing, she enjoys exploring local history and folklore—the sparks that often find their way into her books. You can learn more at www.janebaskwill.com
Laura lives in East Dalhousie, Nova Scotia with her husband, Brian. A member of the Parkdale/Maplewood Museum Society, Laura has a strong interest in local history, and participates in the school group program at the museum. At the age of ten, she wrote her first play and she’s been writing ever since. She is also a member of CANSCAIP.
Laura’s first young adult novel, Bitter, Sweet, was published in 2009 and was short listed for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People. It also made the “Best Books for Kids and Teen 2011” list. Her middle grade novel, “Flying With a Broken Wing,” was name one of Bank Street College of Educations Best Books for 2015. Her book “Cammie takes Flight” was nominated for a 2018 Silver Birch Award and made the Best Books for Kids and Teens 2018 list. In 2020, Laura’s first novel for adults,“Good Mothers Don’t” was published.
A new season just beginning! Definitely time to upgrade my bio; even though some things never change life’s experience continually morphs and expands. Have to love that 🙂
Part of me is still the kid from Manchester, England, who always wanted to be a writer, a painter and a farmer, living by the ocean, and much to my amazement, here I am, living my dream on a small island just east of Halifax. Of course I’m greatly influenced by the coastal environment and references to this locale have a way of sneaking into most of my work. I love my reality but I usually can’t resist adding a twist or two of magic to my work, especially my favorite genres of poetry, adult short fiction and childrens fiction.
As an illustrator and writer, I like to combine both these forms of expression, especially in my books for children. Recently, however the denizens of QuackaDoodle Farm, who take up a fair amount of my attention, have been demanding their space on the page and this has resulted in, Permaculture for the Rest of Us (New Society Publishing) a factual account of life here at QuackaDoodle, my blog site QuackaDoodle.Wordpress.com and occassional posts on the Mother Earth News Site.
My latest book The Foodlovers’ Garden (New Society) is scheduled for release May 2017 and I was delighted to be able to illustrate this with thirty+ illustrations and forty digital images, all celebrating the wonders of homegrown food. Yum! And oh so colourful.
The second edition of Gully Goes to Halifax flew into my life recently. The story remains mostly unchanged but this edition has twice the page size and all the illustrations are in full colour, so I’m delighted about that.
I believe everyone is writer at heart because of course we all have things to say, ideas to share. This is one of the reasons why I particularly enjoy leading writing workshops for both children and adults but mostly, it’s about the stories that get shared. Surely story is the thread that binds us all together while, equally importantly, poetry tends to magnify and perhaps suggest a new way of seeing both the mundane and the magical.
Please visit me at: Quackadoodle.wordpress.com for sporadic but ongoing news of life down here on the farm
Jenni has been mentioned in “Our Choice Book List” and “Outstanding Canadian Children’s Books” by the Children’s Book Centre, Toronto. Her recent novel Island of Dead Souls came first in the Atlantic Writing competition YA category.
Tom Ryan is an internationally best selling, award winning author, screenwriter and producer. His adult mystery debut THE TREASURE HUNTERS CLUB (2024) was an instant USA Today, Globe & Mail, and Toronto Star bestseller and a 2025 Edgar Award nominee. His YA mystery KEEP THIS TO YOURSELF (2019) was the winner of the 2020 ITW Thriller Award for Best YA Thriller, the 2020 Arthur Ellis Award for Best YA Crime Book, and the 2021 Ann Connor Brimer Award. His followup YA mystery I HOPE YOU’RE LISTENING (2020) was the winner of the 2021 Lambda “Lammy” Award for Best LGBTQ Mystery. Tom’s latest novel, WE HAD A HUNCH, was released in October 2025.
For more information, visit www.tomryanauthor.com
David Huebert’s writing has won the CBC Short Story Prize, appeared several times in Best Canadian Stories, and was a finalist for the 2020 Journey Prize. Huebert’s first story collection, Peninsula Sinking, won a Dartmouth Book Award and was runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, among other accolades. His second story collection, Chemical Valley, won the Alistair MacLeod Short Fiction Prize, received glowing reviews, and was a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the ReLit Award. His first novel, Oil People, will be published by McClelland & Stewart in August 2024. David teaches in the MFA in Fiction at the University of King’s College in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), where he lives with his partner and their two children.
Chris Benjamin is a freelance journalist and an author of fiction and non-fiction.
He is the author of Chasing Paradise, a memoir, and The Art of Forgiveness: Short Fiction. His previous collection of short stories, Boy With a Problem, was shortlisted for the Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction. His nonfiction book, Indian School Road: Legacies of the Shubenacadie Residential School, won the Dave Greber Freelance Book Prize before being published, was listed by librarians as a Book of Influence, and recently became a Nova Scotia bestseller.
His previous book, Eco-Innovators: Sustainability in Atlantic Canada, won the 2012 Best Atlantic-Published Book Award and was a finalist for the Richardson Non-Fiction Prize. A series of short video documentaries has been made based on the book.
Chris’ novel, Drive-by Saviours, won the H.R. Percy Prize, was longlisted for a ReLit Prize and made the CBC Canada Reads Top Essential Books List.
Chris has written for a long list of magazines and newspapers in Canada and the United States. A few highlights include The Globe and Mail, Science Friday, Z Magazine, Saltscapes, Halifax Magazine, Progress Magazine, and The Coast.
Hugh R. MacDonald is a writer of fiction, and a singer/songwriter. Hugh has been a member of the Writers Union of Canada and the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) for many years. His YA novel, Trapper Boy was published by Cape Breton University Press, and the sequel entitled Us and Them waas released in October 2016. Hugh is a graduate of Cape Breton University, and worked in the human services field for 25 plus years, and is now happily retired.
September 2017 — “Trapper Boy” was included in the Reading Nova Scotia publication of “150 Books of Influence” in Nova Scotia–see the link below, which will redirect you to the site. You may have to copy and paste the link.
https://www.nsla.ns.ca/150-books-of-influence
Hugh’s song, “Trapper Boy,” that he wrote prior to the novel of the same name, has been added to the repertoire of the world famous Men of the Deeps, and was included on their 50th Anniversary Compilation CD, which was released in April 2016. Hugh’s version of his song, “Trapper Boy” can be found here: https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=37GBaudAgZA&t=4s
Hugh’s song “A Cape Breton Lament” (written and performed by Hugh) was included on the CD Cape Breton Songs of Steel, Coal and Protest, produced by Dr. Richard MacKinnon (Cape Breton University). See the Youtube link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZpCDIqbZ20.
Trapper Boy was selected by Dr. Patrick Howard of Cape Breton University’s Education Department as a novel around which to develop a Teacher Resource. The resource is currently available at no charge for teachers using Trapper Boy.
Hugh is a member of the Writers in the Schools (WITS) program through WFNS. Hugh enjoys going into schools to meet with young people and sharing his passion for writing. His presentation includes readings from his work, using his songs and his videos to share thoughts on his writing process, and encouraging young people to try their own hand at writing. WITS grade levels P-12.
Author, Teacher, Mother, Farmer
Charlotte Mendel is a four times-published, award-winning author. For more information on her books, the prizes she has won, media coverage and reviews, you can visit her website.
She has published three literary fiction books and one YA novel:
“Turn Us Again”
“A Hero”
“Reversing Time”
“A Hostage”
Charlotte Mendel has taught Creative Writing at Dalhousie for the past seven years. She has also facilitated many writing workshops in her community, both for adults and in the schools. Charlotte also delivers the Climate Simulation Game to environmental organizations, schools and universities in NS and England, and has been invited by Consultants from the NS Ministry of Education to introduce the game to teachers at the Summer Learning Academy this summer.
The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) uses the following terms to describe writers’ experience levels:
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
