WFNS logo ltrmark sticky 100px
WFNS logo ltrmark sticky 100px

Genre

Carol McDougall

Carol McDougall is a writer and  advocate for early literacy.  She was born in Northern Ontario and has been active in the Nova Scotia writing community for many years.

In 2005 she was awarded the Mayor’s Award for her contribution to literature and literacy and in 2010 received the Progress Women of Excellence Award for the Arts.

In 2012 Carol received the Beacon Award for Social Justice Literature for her novel Wake the Stone Man, which was inspired by her northern roots. The novel was published in 2015 by Roseway Publishing. Wake the Stone Man was awarded the 2017 Frye Acadamy Award.

Carol’s work includes writing for children, non-fiction, fiction, essays, book reviews and video scripts and her short fiction has been published in Room and presented on CBC radio.

Carol McDougall Read More »

Alison Smith

Alison Smith is the author of three books of poetry and one chapbook from Gaspereau Press. Her most recent collection, This Kind of Thinking Does No Good, was awarded the 2019 J.M. Abraham Award for Atlantic Poetry and was shortlisted for the 2020 Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award. She has written for radio, the stage, and has taught poetry workshops in prison, schools and other community settings. Alison lives in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia.

Alison Smith Read More »

Darryl Whetter

Dr. Darryl Whetter is the author of 4 books of fiction and 3 poetry collections. His collection of stories, A Sharp Tooth in the Fur, was named to The Globe and Mail’s Top 100 Books of 2003. His debut novel, The Push & the Pull, was released in Spring 2008. Origins, his 2012 collection of poems, concerns energy, evolution and extinction as they can be observed at Joggins, Nova Scotia. Professor Whetter edited the nomination dossier of the Joggins Fossil Cliffs in their successful bid for inclusion on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. He has published nearly 20 stories in journals and anthologies, including Best Canadian Stories, The Fiddlehead, PRISM, Prairie Fire,  The New Quarterly and Best Asian Short Stories 2020. In 2021, he won the Banff Centre Bliss Carman Poetry Award.

Darryl holds a PhD in English from UNB and has published or presented papers on contemporary literature in France, Sweden, Canada, Germany, the United States, India, Singapore, Australia and Iceland. Nearly 100 of his commissioned book reviews have appeared in venues such as The Toronto Star, The National Post, The Vancouver Sun, The Montreal Gazette, The Globe and Mail, and Detroit’s Metro Times. Darryl Whetter has been a professor of English and Creative Writing at various universities in Canada and was the coordinator of the creative writing program at Dalhousie from 2008-2010. In the mid-2000s, he was a regular panelist on the national CBC Radio program “Talking Books.”

His most recent books are the climate-crisis novel Our Sands, from Penguin RH (2020) and  the anthology Teaching Creative Writing in Asia, from Routledge (2021)

Darryl Whetter Read More »

Allison Maher

Allison Maher is a former manager of marketing for a company that invented “spy gear”. She now resides on a small farm in rural Nova Scotia.

I, The Spy is her first juvenile novel.  I the Spy has been short listed for a Red Cedar Reader’s Choice Awared and is listed on Kayak Magazine’s Recommended Reading List.

Her second novel. Time Flies When You’re Chasing Spies, was short listed for a Hackmatack Award.

Allison Maher Read More »

Karen Kelloway

Website: www.karenkelloway.com or facebook page.

Karen Kelloway has woven her passion for storytelling into a career that involves books, keynote addresses and classroom visits.

Karen’s middle school novel called KEEPERS OF THE PACT (Nimbus Publishing 2023) was shortlisted as a Junior Library Guild pick and the Hackmatack Children’s Choice book award. KEEPERS OF THE PACT is on the Approved List of Resources for Nova Scotia schools.

Karen lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, CANADA, with her husband, two teenagers and  their Havanese, Chewie.  Find her at www.karenkelloway.com.

 

Karen Kelloway Read More »

Jaime Forsythe

Jaime Forsythe is a writer living in Halifax. Her writing has appeared in a number of magazines and journals, including This Magazine, Geist, The New Quarterly, The Antigonish Review, Lemon Hound, Matrix, The Rusty Toque, and more. Her first full-length poetry collection, Sympathy Loophole, was published in Spring 2012 by Mansfield Press. Her second, I Heard Something, was released by Anvil Press’ A Feed Dog Book imprint in Spring 2018.

Jaime has twice been a mentor in the WFNS Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program, and has taught writing workshops in a variety of venues, including elementary schools, at Dalhousie University and Mount Allison University, and to youth and adults in the community.

Jaime Forsythe Read More »

Daphne Greer

Daphne, a mother of four girls has worked with individuals with special needs for over 16 years. Her first novel, Maxed Out was a nominee for the 2013 Best Quick Read by the American Library Association. Before having children she volunteered on the Adult Help Phone in Halifax which provided her with the ability to use the Kids Help Phone in Maxed Out. She loves spreading the word about this amazing service that they provide for kids in Canada. She is very comfortable working with kids and will put people at ease very quickly.  Her second YA novel, Jacob’s Landing, 2016- 2017 Hackmatack Nominee and a 2016 Silver Birch finalist is published by Nimbus. Her third novel, Camped Out sequel to Maxed Out) will be published by Orca in the fall of 2017. She has a Bachelor of Child Studies from Mt St Vincent University.

Daphne Greer Read More »

Lisa Harrington

Lisa Harrington graduated from MSVU with a degree in Education. Rattled, her first novel, was published by Nimbus in 2010 and her short story, ‘A Nanna Mary Christmas’, was published in A Maritime Christmas. Lisa lives in Bedford, NS with her family. For more info visit www.lisaharrington.ca

Lisa Harrington Read More »

Paul MacDougall

Paul is the author of Distinction Earned, (2011) published by Cape Breton University Press. Paul researched the boxing era in Cape Breton and collected dozens of interviews from participants, enthusiasts and their heirs. The book’s title is taken from a citation of Cape Breton boxers at a Canadian Boxing Hall of Fame investiture in 1987. It was a Nova Scotia best selling book for five months.

In 2019 he worked with documentary film director Charles Currie to make a film based on his book, “Distinction Earned, Cape Breton Boxing’s Golden Era” which was shown at numerous venues, on Eastlink TV and can now be found on YouTube.

Paul also writes short fiction, book reviews, newspaper and magazine articles and one-act plays. He has four plays and co-written three plays all of which were originally produced at the Elizabeth Boardmore One Act Play Festival and five have won the Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script. His three most recent plays are The Venetian Gardens (2013), Wraslin (2015) and Solstice (2018).

In 2020 he completed writing the script for Donair, the Musical with songs and music by Duncan Wells. It was released as a 78 minute audio in December 2021 and hopefully will find a home on stage in the summer of 2022 (CoVID permitting) in Sydney and Halifax.

He conducts outdoor writing workshops in unique locations, and in local high schools, taught a number of introductory non-credit writers’ class at Cape Breton University, has organized a book club for the CBU Seniors College, and was a member of the local CBC radio book panel for a number of years.

He writes a monthy column for the Cape Breton Post entitled “The Sporting Life” and is the host of “The Good Sentence” an almost weekly radio program on “Dialogue” on The Coast 89.7 FM (Bell FibreOp station 773 and streaming online) in which he interviews local authors and arts community members about their recent works.

He also gives lectures and presentations on his work to interested groups.

Paul is a registered microbiologist  and a Senior Instructor in the Health Sciences Department at Cape Breton University.

WRITING AWARDS

Geist Magazine Time Zones short story writing contest. Made short list. 2015

The Venetian Gardens (play) Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script 2013.

Rockabye Baby (play) Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script 2009.

Ave Maria (play) Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script 2008. Co-written with Ken Chisholm.

All Souls’ Eve (play) Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script 2007. Co-written with Ken Chisholm.

O Night Divine (play) Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script 2005. Co-written with Ken Chisholm.

Chemical Difference (play) Best Play from another source (a short story of mine) Boardmore One-Act Play Festival 2003. Co written with Ken Chisholm.

Gambit (short story) Indigo Books contest 2nd place winner 2003

Double Double (short story) WFNS 2nd Place winner 1992

Some interesting online publications of Paul’s

The Sporting Life, my monthly column in CB Post

https://www.capebretonpost.com/lifestyles/local-lifestyles/paul-macdougall-living-among-the-mikmaq-527202/

http://www.capebretonpost.com/section/2016-01-25/article-4415095/Cycling-with-the-Italians/1

http://www.capebretonpost.com/Sports/2015-05-15/article-4147050/Sydney-Millionaires-on-Stanley-Cup-forever/1

Local history pieces

http://www.shunpiking.com/bhs/longwalk.htm

http://www.shunpiking.com/bhs/Marcus-gar.htm

Book reviews

Off the Rack

Paul MacDougall Read More »

Scroll to Top
WFNS logo ltrmark sticky 100px

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