Fiction (YA)

Pamela Ditchoff

Pamela Ditchoff was born in Lansing, Michigan on September 21, 1950. She received a BA in Communication Arts from Michigan State University (1982), and an MA in English/Creative Writing from Michigan State University (1985). In the mid-1980s, Ditchoff worked at WFSL-TV47 in Lansing as head copywriter/creative consultant and then as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Michigan State University.During this period, her early fiction and poetry was published in various literary magazines. She taught in elementary and secondary schools with the Writer’s In Schools program, and Interact Press published two of her texts for teachers. In 1993, Ditchoff was recognized in Who’s Who in Writers, Editors & Poets: United States & Canada, 1992-1993 for her significant literary contributions. Ditchoff moved to Liverpool in 2006, and has conducted classes there with WFNS and SCANS.

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Jan L. Coates

Jan Coates lives in Wolfville, NS with her husband and their Golden Irish, Charlie. She has two married children and four granddaughters and loves visiting schools through the Writers in the Schools (WITS) program. Jan’s interest in writing for children grew out of her own love of words and stories and a passion for helping kids become lifelong readers and writers.

In her free time, Jan can be found on the badminton or pickleball court, travelling, at the gym, the cottage, or thrift shopping. Her first picture book, Rainbows in the Dark (Second Story Press, 2005) has been translated into Spanish, Catalan, and Braille, with Korean and Brazilian rights also sold. She has also written 20 ESL illustrated chapter books for Caramel Tree, a Korean-based English Language School publisher.

Her debut novel, A Hare in the Elephant’s Trunk (Red Deer Press, 2010), was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award (Children’s Text) in 2011, as well as an Ann Connor Brimer Award finalist. She has also written five middle grade novels; The Hermit (Nimbus, 2020); Say What You Mean (Nevermore, 2019); Talking to the Moon (Red Deer, 2018),The Power of Harmony (Red Deer, 2013), also a Brimer finalist, and Rocket Man, a YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers (Red Deer, 2014). Jan’s picture books include: Jessie and Me: Hat People (author/illustrator, Camp Triumph, PEI), The Pocket Pig (author/illustrator) Pandamonium Publishing 2022), Anna Maria & Maestro Vivaldi (Red Deer, 2022), Dancing with Daisy (Running the Goat, 2019); Karissa & Felix (self-published, as both author and illustrator, 2019); A Halifax Time-Travelling Tune (Nimbus, 2018), Sky Pig (Pajama Press, 2016), The King of Keji (Nimbus, 2015), and Rainbows in the Dark (Second Story Press, 2005). Her current passion (other than learning to illustrate and creating soul smiles, her greeting cards) is a work of creative non-fiction for young readers about Canadian landscape painter (and all-around interesting person) Doris McCarthy (1910 – 2010) (Sutherland House, 2026)

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Carol Ann Cole C.M.

Carol Ann Cole is a best-selling author with four non fiction books and a growing number of novels in The Paradise Series. In July 2020 Paradise on the Morrow, third fiction in the Series was published by Moose House Press in Granville Ferry, Nova Scotia. www.moosehousepress.com .(Publisher Brenda Thompson/Editor Andrew Wetmore)

Paradise on the Morrow: Although they are half a world apart, Paradise and Thomas are joined by trouble after trouble. Will the mountain of troubles divide them forever?

Paradise has unpleasant discoveries about the police officers she works with in rural Nova Scotia, and puzzles to solve about her dad and daughter. Pops is acting increasingly mysterious, and Hope is in a tangle of teenage temptations.

In Hawaii, Thomas is single-parenting T.J. while trying to help Wikolia through her hospital stay and keep their private-detective business afloat. There is something odd going on among the crew at 2.0, too.

Carol Ann has received the Order of Canada, the Golden and Silver Jubilee Medals, the Terry Fox Citation of Honour, the elite Maclean’s Honour Role and numerous other awards. Carol Ann is profiled in ‘Canadian Who’s Who’ and in the 2005 edition of ‘1000 Great Women of the 21st Century,’ published by the American Biographical Institute in Raleigh, North Carolina. Carol Ann is the founder of The Comfort Heart Initiative and has raised over one and one half million dollars for cancer research through the Canadian Cancer Society.

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Christy Ann Conlin

Christy Ann Conlin’s debut novel, Heave, was a national bestseller and one of the Globe and Mail‘s top books of 2002. Her second adult novel, The Memento, will be published by Doubleday in April 2016. Her first YA novella, Dead Time, will be come out with Annick Press in 2011. Her fiction has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Best Canadian Stories. She has a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of British Columbia where she wrote and studied fiction, stage and screenplay writing. She also holds a Bachelor of Education from Acadia University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from the University of Ottawa. Her essays have appeared in numerous publications including Canadian Geographic, Geist and Chatelaine. Christy Ann is also a regular book reviewer for the Globe and Mail and is an online instructor with the University of Toronto. She lives in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

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Geoff Butler

Geoff Butler is a painter, writer and book illustrator. He was born on Fogo Island, Nfld., near Brimstone Head which has been designated by the Flat Earth Society as one of the four corners of the earth.

Geoff practices his art daily so as not to fall over the edge. He has self-published five books: Art of War: Painting it out of the Picture (1990); The Look of Angels: Angels in Art (2004), a collection of poems, songs, stories, paintings and drawings; and With Every Breath We Take (2007), a modern fable in which a snowflake helps put an end to war; Our Own Little World: in paintings and verse (2013); and One Swallow Makes a Summer Meal: allegories in paintings and verse (2016). Every now and then, he strolls down Alphabet Soup Road to write and illustrate children’s books.

He is a graduate of Memorial University of Newfoundland and Syracuse University. He also studied at the Art Students’ League in New York City. His paintings have been exhibited at, and toured by, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. He has been a visual arts recipient of a Nova Scotia Arts Council Creation grant and a Canada Council Established Artist grant. In 2006, he was elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. He lives in the small village of Granville Ferry, N.S.

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Lesley Choyce

Lesley teaches part-time at Dalhousie University, runs Pottersfield Press and has published over 86 books for adults and kids. His Young Adult novels concern things like skateboarding, surfing, racism, environmental issues, organ transplants, and rock bands. Lesley surfs year round in the North Atlantic and is considered the father of transcendental wood-splitting. He’s worked as a rehab counsellor, a freight hauler, a corn farmer, a janitor, a journalist, a lead guitarist, a newspaper boy and a well-digger. He lives at Lawrencetown Beach overlooking the ocean. He also hosts a nationally syndicated TV talk show on Vision TV. His recent novel, Cold Clear Morning, is currently being developed as a feature length movie. In 2002, Goose Lane Editions published Choyce’s best-selling circumferential history book, The Coasts of Canada. That same year, his animal epic film, The Skunk Whisperer, was broadcast across Canada and heralded at the Maine International Film Festival. Along with the Surf Poets, he has released two poetry/music albums, Long Lost Planet and Sea Level.

To read excerpts from Lesley’s books and download free samples of his music, visit www.lesleychoyce.com.

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Don Aker

A former high school teacher, literacy mentor, and university instructor, Don Aker fell into writing in 1988 after attending the Martha’s Vineyard Summer Writing Workshops, where instructors encouraged participants to write with their students. Encouraged by winning the short fiction and nonfiction categories of the 1989 and 1990 WFNS Atlantic Writing Competitions as well as Canadian Living’s 1990 National Literary Competition, Don went on to publish numerous stories and articles and has written more than 20 books.

Because he taught hundreds of teenagers during his teaching career, it isn’t surprising that young adults are the focus of most of his work. What subjects does he choose to write about? “Things that bother me, that don’t go away,” he says. For example, Don wrote his first novel after a student shared with him that she was being physically abused by her father. Of Things Not Seen tells the story of sixteen-year-old Ben Corbett, who, along with his mother, is physically abused by his domineering stepfather. Besides domestic violence, Don’s novels have focused on peer pressure, bullying, youth crime, suicide, sexuality, teen gambling, and a variety of other social issues. However, he is quick to point out that the strongest stories are never about issues or events–“They’re about how characters are affected by those issues and events.”

Don holds a Master of Education from Acadia University and, besides working as an educator and writer, he has been a freelance reviewer and consultant for various educational publishers, including Nelson Education, Pembroke Publishers, and Pearson Education. He has written several books for classroom use, among them Hitting the Mark: Assessment Tools for Teachers (Pembroke, 1995) and a series of language arts texts for grades 8 to 11 (Nelson Education), and he has had articles and fiction published in The International Journal of Reading, Quill & Quire, Books in Canada, Canadian Living, The Toronto Star, Our Family Magazine, The Pottersfield Portfolio, Dandelion Magazine, The Chronicle Herald, and various anthologies.

The father of two daughters, Don lives with his wife in Bedford.

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Michael Bawtree

Michael Bawtree was born in Australia, raised and educated in Britain, and came to Canada in 1962. Michael has worked in Canadian theatre and television for over forty years. Founding artistic director of the Atlantic Theatre Festival in Wolfville, he has also served as associate director of the Stratford Festival and was for many years director of drama at Acadia University. He is the author of a number of plays, including The Last of the Tsars, as well as a book on music theatre, The New Singing Theatre, and a young person’s novel, Joe Howe to the Rescue. He was the executive director of the Joseph Howe Initiative, celebrating Joe Howe in his two hundredth year birthday. His young adult novel, Joe Howe to the Rescue, was released by Nimbus in 2004. Today’s Joe Howe – “the greatest Nova Scotian” written by Trevor J. Adams and Michael Bawtree, was published by the Joseph Howe Initiative in 2004.

Other published works include a DVD about D-Day, and CDs of ‘Three Men In A Boat’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’.

He went on to write the first volume of his memoirs, As Far As I Remember, which was published by Like No Other Press in 2015. His latest publication is the second volume of his memoirs, The Best Fooling, published by Like No Other Press in 2017.

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Laura Best

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.

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Tom Ryan

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

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