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Fiction (children's)

Janice Walsh-Cruddas

“Play” is one of Janice Walsh-Cruddas’ favourite words and learning tools and she incorporates it in her writing, teaching, and performance for children and young adults. Her book, Bird’s the Word!, has elicited giggles, questions, and yays from hundreds of budding wonders. She has written and directed over 20 plays, including the NS Human Rights Commission’s award-winning project ARC (Action, Responsibility, Choice), The Kerplunk in the Kingdom, and the Atlantic Fringe Festival hit, A Wee Drop of Aesop. As a children’s programmer with Halifax Public libraries for over 20 years, a former co-host of the radio show “Music for Young Earth Citizens” (with her 6-year-old son), and the founder of MITE Theatre, “Jan-Jan” has helped youth discover delight in Shakespeare, singing, theatre games, and the joyful act of communicating.  She is humbled and grateful to be a Treaty person who writes, sings, reads, and plays in Punamu’kwati’jk (Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.)

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Sarah Butland

Biography:

Sarah Butland is a thriving freelance writer and reporter, an author loved by enough readers to make it worthwhile and a discombobulated conundrum who loves to hear new music, tell new tales and meet new authors. The recipient of a Writers Federation of New Brunswick competition with Blood Day the Short Story, her love of writing knows no genre. With articles and book reviews published in Maritime (EDIT), AH! At Home on the North Short, Atlantic Books Today, with some work with Pictou Advocate, Butland thrives through deadlines and diversity.

As a full time employee besides, and a mother to one young book lover, Butland volunteers with the Read by the Sea Literary Festival committee, hosts local workshops and manages the Pictou County Writers – New and Experienced Facebook group, highlighting the vast amount of talent on the North Shore.

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Lori Weber

Lori Weber is the author of nine young adult novels, including The Ribbon Leaf (Red Deer Press), a historical novel set in WWII, which won the 2023 Canadian Jewish Literary Award and was nominated for the Red Maple Award and the Geoffrey Bilson Award; Yellow Mini (Fitzhenry & Whiteside), a novel in verse; and Deep Girls (Dancing Cat Books), a short-story collection. She has also published two middle grade novels, Lightning Lou (Dancing Cat Books) and Picture me (James Lorimer), as well as one picture book, My Granny Loves Hockey (Simply Read Books). She has also published short fiction, poetry, and non-fiction in several Canadian literary journals. She holds a BA in Creative Writing and English from Concordia University, an MA in English from Acadia University, and a Diploma in Education from McGill. A native Montrealer, she lived for several years in Atlantic Canada where she taught English in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Upon returning to Montreal in 1994, she taught English at Vanier College before moving to John Abbott College in 1996, a position she retired from in 2020. She has delivered workshops in writing for teens through the Quebec Writers’ Federation, and has been their young adult fiction mentor for many years. She has represented Quebec twice for TD Canadian Book Week and has been offering classroom workshops around Quebec as a member of the Culture-in-the-Schools and Artists Inspire Programs since 2005. After retiring, Lori returned to Nova Scotia, where she currently lives in Dartmouth.

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Andy Tolson

Andy Tolson has been a boy magician, drummer, propmaker, photojournalist, and a filmmaker. He lives in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, in a big old house with his family and two cats named Olive and Ottoline. How to Kidnap a Mermaid is his debut middle-grade fantasy, and the sequel, How to Rescue a Unicorn, will be released fall 2025.

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Sarah Sweeney

Sarah Sweeney was always a writer, but her big chance came while she was a teacher working in Istanbul, Turkey. She became frustrated that she didn’t have the right kinds of books to help her students learn English, so she started making her own materials. After a bit of pushing from a colleague she started working with a publisher, and they brainstormed what kinds of books were needed and how they could make them. Sarah is not just an author but also has illustrated many of her books. She has written 20 books with Turkish publishers Redhouse Kidz and Fono Publishing. She also taught herself digital artwork in order to illustrate two of her books

Sarah has since moved back to her home province of Nova Scotia, and continues to write. Since she will always be a teacher at heart, she teaches as a substitute in the nearby elementary schools and junior high. She is often inspired by the students she meets in all the different classrooms she gets to teach in.

Sarah traded in the city, for a little house by the sea, surrounded by trees. She lives there with her husband and two young daughters.

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Michelle Robinson

Michelle Robinson is the bestselling author of over 50 children’s books including ‘The World Made a Rainbow’, ‘She Rex’, ‘There’s a Lion in my Cornflakes’, ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Bearspotting’, ‘Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry’, the ‘Goodnight Spaceman’ series and many, many more. Her books are published all over the world and feature in Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and the BookTrust Book Start scheme.

Michelle moved to Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia from England in 2021. She is a hugely popular author in the UK, where she spent over a decade regularly performing in schools, libraries and at literary festivals. She loves visiting schools and is passionate about nurturing a love of literacy through encouraging reading and writing for pleasure.

“The kids got so much out of it – and the staff were buzzing, too!”
– Heronswood Primary School

“Thank you SO much for an amazing, interactive, ​exciting and inspiring morning. We LOVED it!”
– St Pius-X Catholic Primary School

“All the children and staff thought you were just beyond AMAZING.
They couldn’t believe what a fantastic experience it was. You are the best author we have ever had! THANK YOU so much!”
– Woodbank Primary School

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Habiba Diallo

Habiba Diallo is the author of #BlackInSchool. She is the inaugural winner of the Senator Don Oliver Black Voices prize and was a finalist in the 2020 Bristol Short Story Prize. She was also one of six finalists in the 2018 London Book Fair Pitch Competition. She is a women’s health advocate passionate about bringing an end to a maternal health condition called obstetric fistula. You can find her on X, Facebook, and YouTube @haalabeeba

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Mere Joyce

Mere Joyce is an author of books for young adults. Her writing includes contemporary tales, high-action mysteries, fairy-tale fantasies, and her personal favorite–ghost stories. When she’s not writing, Mere can be found teaching library studies, or spending time at home with her family outside of Antigonish. She’s also been known to be a selective, yet highly enthusiastic fangirl.

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Sue MacLeod

Sue MacLeod is the author of one YA novel, Namesake, and three poetry collections. Since 2022 she has been working on picture book manuscripts. In 2024 she was a picture book mentee with Whale Rock Workshops, won an Arts Nova Scotia grant to write a picture book trilogy about lighthouse children, and placed as a finalist in a US-based contest, PBParty. In 2025 she signed with an agent, Abigail Samoun of Red Fox Literary. Her debut picture book (soon to be announced) will be published in fall 2027.

Sue has made her home in Halifax, where she was the city’s first poet laureate (2001 to 2005) and in Toronto and Montreal. She has read from her work across Canada and has taught creative writing at Dalhousie University, the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Quebec Writers’ Federation.

Her poems have been described as “necessary and cherishable” (George Elliott Clarke); and Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang, writing in Open Book Toronto, said, “I wandered around town quoting her poetry out loud to myself until I noticed how many people crossed the street to avoid me.” Reviewing Sue’s YA novel, Canadian Children’s Book News wrote, “without a misstep .. this book is a gem” and CM Magazine agreed: “In every way, this book is a triumph.”

Sue now lives in south end Halifax, working on new picture book manuscripts and taking frequent strolls along the boardwalk.

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Experience Levels

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) uses the following terms to describe writers’ experience levels:

  • New writers: those with less than two years’ creative writing experience and/or no short-form publications (e.g., short stories, personal essays, or poems in literary magazines, journals, anthologies, or chapbooks).
  • Emerging writers: those with more than two years’ creative writing experience and/or numerous short-form publications.
  • Early-career authors: those with 1 or 2 book-length publications or the equivalent in book-length and short-form publications.
  • Established authors: those with 3 or 4 book-length publications.
  • Professional authors: those with 5 or more book-length publications.

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