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

Genre

Renée Belliveau

Renée Belliveau is a writer and archivist living in Punamu’kwati’jk (Dartmouth). She is the Re-Lit shortlisted author of The Sound of Fire, a novel based on the true story of the devastating 1941 fire that destroyed a residence at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, and a memoir about her father’s battle with cancer entitled Les étoiles à l’aube.

A proud acadienne, Renée grew up in New Brunswick. She is a graduate of Mount Allison University, the University of Waterloo, and the University of Toronto.

Renée Belliveau Read More »

Norma Shephard

‘Why We Remember‘

The personal and domestic side of war is often revealed in War letters. My presentations on the importance of firsthand accounts and the digitalization of hand-written accounts is ideal for Remembrance Day observations and/or Canadian History studies. Access to my full media kit on the book Dear Harry; A Canadian War Story Told Through Letters, can be found here.

‘Social History Relevance Revealed Through Material Artifacts’ 

As the director of the Mobile Millinery Museum, I have been educating students, seniors, and others on Canadian Social History through the use of those most personal of historic artefacts: clothing and accessories. Examples of the available presentation topics, which we adapt for student audiences, can be seen in the Museum Presentations Information Kit.

Norma Shephard Read More »

Mireille Messier

Mireille Messier is a Montreal-born, Ottawa-raised and now Nova Scotia-based children’s author with a background in theatre and broadcasting. She has published over thirty picture books and chapter books, some in French, some in English. Some have even won awards!

When she is not writing books, Mireille works in children’s television as a scriptwriter for various programs. She also enjoys doing translation and corporate writing of youth-oriented material for such clients as the Dairy Farmers of Canada, General Mills, Scholastic Canada, TFO, Kraft Foods and Via Rail.

On average, Mireille gives one hundred in-person and virtual school presentations per year to French, French immersion and English groups across Canada.

Mireille Messier Read More »

Gina N. Brown

Gina N. Brown has written three novels: Pickled in Love (2025), The Sugar Bowl Feud (2024) and Lucy McGee’s Moment of Truth (2021). She also edited and published a memoir for her late husband, Robert Crockett.

A graduate of the Mount St. Vincent University public relations program, she pursued a career in music, film, advertising, museums, education and special events. Her freelance writing includes travel and lifestyle articles in Canadian Living Magazine, the Globe and Mail, the Chronicle Herald and Saltwire. Examples of her published pieces can be found at novaheartmedia.com.

Gina has attended writing workshops and retreats at the Arvon Foundation in England; Taddle Creek at the University of Toronto; and Master Classes at the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto. She also co-founded writer groups in Toronto, and in Halifax, now in its 12th year. As a creative writer, she’s placed as a finalist or notable entry in five international writing competitions.

In 2019, after a lengthy career as a marketing specialist, she launched an independent publishing platform, NovaHeart Media. In addition to her writing, she offers writing workshops for new and established writers and provides consulting services for independent writers. As a way of giving back and engaging with the community, she has mentored more than a dozen youth and emerging writers.

Gina has traveled to 35 countries and has lived in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Birmingham, England. In 2004, she returned to her home port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she loves to swim, skate, canoe, hike, cycle, and do yoga.

Gina N. Brown Read More »

Claire Horn

Claire Horn is a Dartmouth-based writer and researcher. She has a PhD in law and has researched and taught in the area of law and policy governing sexual and reproductive health, rights, and technologies for six years. Her nonfiction work has appeared in Aeon, Narratively, Entropy, the Walrus, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Nursing Clio, and the Penguin young adult anthology Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and Other Lies. Her first book, Eve: The Disobedient Future of Birth, was longlisted for the Science Writers and Communicators of Canada Book Award.

Claire Horn Read More »

Clare Goulet

Writer of essays, poems, stories and hybrid forms; editor/consultant for academic and literary manuscripts in arts and sciences. My latest book is Graphis scripta: writing lichen (Gaspereau Press 2024). Research passions are metaphor, biopoetics, polyphony, & hybrid scholarly-creative-botanical forms.

I teach undergrad courses in creative writing and editing at the Mount, where I run its Writing Centre and collaborate with diverse partners on and off campus. First adjunct faculty to win its university-wide faculty teaching award. As an educator I aim for transformative, inclusive learning experiences.

As a British/québécoise hybrid, raised in a mixed-race family, schooled in different countries, please don’t ask me where I’m from! I survive my writing deadlines with wildly bad dancing. Total lichen obsessive.

In my writing workshops for adults and youth, I love renewing a person’s relationship to their own writing practice.

I live in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, Nova Scotia, on a road that escapes into trail and woods and ocean along the Northwest Arm.

Clare Goulet Read More »

Donna Jones Alward

Since 2006, New York Times bestseller Donna Jones Alward has enchanted readers with stories of happy endings and homecomings that have won several awards and been translated into over a dozen languages. She’s worked as an administrative assistant, teaching assistant, in retail and as a stay-at-home-mom, but always knew her degree in English Literature would pay off, as she is now happy to be a full-time writer. Her new historical fiction tales blend her love of history with characters who step beyond their biggest fears to claim the lives they desire.

Donna currently lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, with her husband and cats. You can often find her near the water, either kayaking on the lake or walking the sandy beaches to refill her creative well.

Donna Jones Alward Read More »

Vivian Zhou

Vivian Zhou is a Chinese-Canadian cartoonist and story artist. She is a graduate of Sheridan College’s Bachelor of Animation program. After working on a multitude of animated shows and award-winning short films as storyboard artist and occasionally director, she is now following her dream of making her own comics. Her debut graphic novel “Atana and the Firebird” released in 2023; book two of the Atana duology, “Atana and the Jade Mermaid”, is releasing in May 2025.

 

Visit her at https://vivianzhou.ca/

Vivian Zhou Read More »

Lindsey Harrington

Lindsey Harrington is a Nova Scotian writer with Newfoundland roots. Her fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry are deeply influenced by both places and her place within them. She’s a regular organizer and host of the dART Speak monthly writers’ open mic and other fun, local literary events. She’s also a professional facilitator, covering topics such as therapeutic writing, developing your personal writing strategy, performing your pieces, authors online, and ekphrasis, prompt, and response poetry.

In 2023, she was longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize, shortlisted for the Fiddlehead Creative Nonfiction Prize, and received a Canada Council grant to work on her childfree memoir. She’s excited to see what 2024 brings.

Lindsey Harrington 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