Michelle Wamboldt was born and raised in Truro, Nova Scotia. She is a graduate of Dalhousie University and the Humber School of Journalism in Toronto.
Her debut novel, Birth Road, won the 2024 Margaret & John Savage First Book Award. Michelle’s short fiction has appeared in The Dalhousie Review and Moose House Publication’s, Blink and You’ll Miss It, Vol II.
Michelle lives on the beautiful South Shore of Nova Scotia.
Denise Flint is a freelance journalist by day and romance writer by night (under the pen name Barbara Burke). Since her early days working for a rural weekly newspaper she has written hundreds of articles for newspapers and magazines across the country. A true dilettante she refuses to be tied down to one subject and has learned a little bit about a whole lot of things while admitting general ignorance about pretty much everything.
She’s lived in the heart of a big city, the middle of nowhere and, for a brief spell, the suburbs. She gave up her last home, a cedar shack overlooking the North Atlantic, for a 160 year old farm house on the north shore of Nova Scotia. She has lived in three countries and five provinces and will never miss an opportunity to jump on a plane or train. She also loves road trips and cats (although not together).
Morgan Murray (he/him) is a settler from the same backwoods central Alberta village as figure-skating legend Kurt Browning (Caroline, AB in Treaty 6 territory). He now lives in the backwoods of Cape Breton (Unama’ki) with his wife, cartoonist Kate Beaton, Mary the toddler, Agnes the dog, Reggie the cat, Peggy the ditch kitten, and Thelma, Louise, Lavern, Shirley and Heidi the chickens.
In between, he has been a farmer, a rancher, a roustabout, a secretary, a reporter, a designer, a Tweeter, a tour guide, a schemer, a variety show host, and a student in Caroline, Calgary, Paris, Prague, Montreal, Chicoutimi, and St. John’s.
He has a BA in Canadian Studies from the University of Calgary, a Certificate in Central and Eastern European Studies from the University of Economics, Prague, a MPhil in Humanities from Memorial University of Newfoundland, and a participation ribbon for beef calf showmanship (incomplete) from the Little Britches 4-H Club, Caroline, Alberta.
Born in England to a teamster’s son and a coal miner’s daughter, G. M. (Mark) Baker now lives in Nova Scotia with his wife, no dogs, no horses, and no chickens. He prefers driving to flying, desert vistas to pointy trees, and quiet towns to bustling cities. As a reader and as a writer, he does not believe in confining himself to one genre. He writes about kind abbesses and melancholy kings, about elf maidens and ship wreckers and shy falconers, about great beauties and their plain sisters, about sinners and saints and ordinary eccentrics. In his newsletter Stories All the Way Down, he discusses history, literature, the nature of story, and how not to market a novel.
F.B. Nobles, author of She-Wolfe in the Shadows, lives with her partner, Ron and two chihuahuas, Lucy and Joey, in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. She enjoys all the Maritime provinces have to offer—breathtaking scenery, delicious food, and friendly people. She finds inspiration in everything and everyone around her.
She loves to read; it started at an early age when she read the local papers, The Chronicle-Herald and The Mail-Star with her father at about age four. This trend continued when her mother introduced her to Nancy Drew Mysteries. Reading came naturally because everyone in her home was an avid reader. There were many books of different genres to whet her appetite and begin a life-long love of the written word.
She has always worked in structured disciplines that required superior attention to detail; writing became one of her creative outlets. Frances’ colourful imagination provides the backdrop of her story which she skillfully weaves with a mysterious tale of her crafting.
Her favourite authors are Sydney Sheldon, Harper Lee and Truman Capote to name a few. She has devoured their words. Her favourite director, producer and screenwriter is Alfred Hitchcock for allowing her imagination to create the ending.
Frances’ interests include travel, reading, writing, cooking, cooking shows, documentaries, reality shows, crafting, sewing, creating, research for her book, new learning experiences. All these things have helped shaped her writing. Frances favourite novels take her to a time or place unlike her own. She enjoys well-written novels of almost any genre.
She has traveled extensively in Europe from where the inspiration for the opulence in her book came. Frances enjoyed seeing many of the places she had only read about. Her favourite city is Amsterdam and her favourite country is the Netherlands. Their relaxed way of life is something she admires. Frances has also seen much of her own country. Canada has so much to offer. Upon her return to Canada, Frances lived in Montréal, Québec for seven years and took a job working for her first millionaire boss. She was fascinated by the millionaire lifestyle and brought parts of that lifestyle to her book.
The inspiration for this book came from many places and many persons. Sometimes a sight, sound or smell triggers a memory and a story for Frances. She also took inspiration from anyone who ever said to her, “You should write a book” although it may not be the book they envisioned. Prior to writing She-Wolfe in the Shadows, her writing style was satire with a humourous edge.
Frances describes her work as a mystery sprinkled with moments of romance. Her mystery has love, hate deception, extreme wealth, superior intelligence, revenge and a most unlikely gold digger. Frances’ readers can expect an entertaining and mysterious escape.
Frances’ engaging characters are fictional and are in no way based on any individual(s), living, or dead.
Michelle has an MFA in creative non-fiction from the University of King’s College, a degree in journalism, and training and experience in community social work. She combined her journalism skills with her love of history and passion for social justice to write her first non-fiction book, Enriched by Catastrophe: Social Work and Social Conflict after the Halifax Explosion, published by Fernwood in 2007. The Toronto Star named her debut novel, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic (Vagrant 2024), one of the 20 ‘Must Read’ books of Summer 2024. Her debut memoir, A Good Girl’s Guide to Lying: Losing my Memories, Searching for Truth, & Living with Dissociative Amnesia, will be published by Nimbus in Fall 2026.
Michelle combines her social work and writing skills to offer services for writers. This includes supporting memoirists as they write about difficult subjects, helping writers struggling with imposter syndrome or writer’s block, and guiding writers to go deeper into themselves and their stories. Find out more at her website, michellehebertwrites.com
Michelle lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia/Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. She posts about writing, mental health, cake, and her cats on Bluesky (@hfxwordy) and Instagram (michelle.hebert.writes).
Charlene has a Bachelor of Arts Honours (English) from Crandall University, a Master of Arts (English) from Dalhousie, and a Bachelor of Journalism from University of King’s College. After travelling the globe and working a number of years in various (mostly writing related) jobs, she left employed work to start a Communications business with the naïve hope of having more flexibility and time to finish her first full-length novel. She eventually did. And after her husband’s career took her to Newfoundland, she put aside her Communications work to focus exclusively on novel writing.
Since then, Charlene has independently published nine novels, and a novella. Her first traditionally published novel, Hold My Girl, pitched for fans of Celeste Ng and Liane Moriarty, is her first agented book and was published by HarperCollins Canada, Sourcebooks Landmark (US) and Welbeck Publishing (UK) in two-book deals, and is forthcoming from Alma Littera (Lithuania). It has also been optioned for television adaptation by Blink49 Studios in partnership with Groundswell Productions.
Charlene recently received grants from both Arts Nova Scotia and Canada Council for the Arts to write, research, and revise her next book, We Rip The World Apart, which will publish in 2024.
Kelly S. Thompson is a writer and retired officer in the Canadian Armed Forces. Kelly has a Honours Bachelor degree in Professional Writing from York University, a certificate in Publishing from Ryerson University, a master’s in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and is completing a PhD in Literary and Critical Studies, Creative Writing, at the University of Gloucestershire in the UK, where she examines representations of grief and trauma in memoir.
Kelly’s work has won awards in a variety of genres. She won the House of Anansi Press Golden Anniversary Award for Fiction, the 2014 and 2017 Barbara Novak Award for Personal Essay, and was shortlisted for Room magazine’s 2013 and 2014 Creative Nonfiction awards, placing 2nd in the 2019 contest. Her essays have appeared in anthologies across Canada, including Boobs, by Caitlin Press, Embedded on the Home Front, with Heritage House and Everyday Heroes with Simon & Schuster.
Her work has appeared in literary magazines across the country and her professional writing has been printed in Chatelaine, Maclean’s, The Globe and Mail, and more. Her article on military sexual harassment titled “Battle Fatigue,” was runner up for Feature Article of the Year with the Professional Writers Association of Canada. She was also nominated for a National Magazine Award in 2022.
Her memoir Girls Need Not Apply: Field Notes from the Forces with Penguin Random House Canada, was an instant Globe and Mail bestseller and declared one of the top 100 books of 2019 by the Globe and Mail.
Kelly also teaches writing to all levels, having run after-school writing programs for teenage girls, creative writing classes for children, and taught Creative Writing and Communications at Trent University. She now teaches at the University of King’s Creative Non Fiction. She also developed and runs classes for Royal Roads University and Loyalist College.
Kelly’s next memoir, Still, I Cannot Save You, will release with McClelland & Stewart in January, 2023.
Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail is a multi-passionate, multi-genre author of six books who loves telling inclusive stories for audiences of all ages.
Danielle’s latest co-authored picture book, Freddie the Flyer came out in Fall 2023 from Tundra Books. It features the life story of Fred Carmichael, the first Indigenous commercial pilot in the Arctic, and illustrations were created by Inuvialuit artist Audrea Loreen-Wulf. It is part of the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, TD Summer Reading Program, shortlisted for the Hackmatack nonfiction award, and won the Atlantic Book Awards Readers’ Choice Award in 2024.
Both Freddie the Flyer and her first picture book, Alis the Aviator, were selected as CBC Books’ best of picture books, and Danielle toured them as part of Canadian Children’s Book Week in spring 2024.
Danielle’s other books include Fever on the Forgotten Coast (Rockwater Books), Polar Winds (Dundurn), For the Love of Flying (Robin Brass Books), and the Canadian bestselling essay anthology In This Together: Fifteen Stories of Truth and Reconciliation (Brindle & Glass).
Danielle is currently revising a creative nonfiction book called Winterburn with the assistance of Canada Council and Arts NS grants, as well as her first book club project, The 500 Year Flood. She is represented by Elizabeth Copps at Copps Literary, who is finalizing contracts on two kidlit projects in spring 2024.
If you’re a writer looking for a sharp-eyed believing mirror to help you with editing and coaching, Danielle will help you through the writing and publishing journey with empathy and encouragement. Please see testimonials from authors she’s worked with (along with rates) on her website at www.daniellemc.com and contact her directly to discuss whether she’s a good fit for you and your work.
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After a long career teaching at Acadia University and writing sociology, social thought, and criminology, Tony has pivoted to fiction. His debut novel, About Face: A Mystery was released on September 1st by Moose House Publications in Annapolis Royal.
Tony was born in Halifax’s Hydrostone district and raised on Lawrencetown Beach. He graduated from Graham Creighton High School in Cherry Brook NS and Dalhousie University, Halifax, and has a PhD in social and political science from the University of Cambridge. He is Professor Emeritus at Acadia.
Among other projects, he has researched small-town and rural policing in the Annapolis Valley.
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
