Ryan Turner’s short stories have been published in magazines such as the The New Quarterly, The Puritan, and Prairie Fire. His latest book, Half-Sisters & Other Stories, was shortlisted for the 2020 ReLit Award, and he has a story in Best Canadian Short Stories 2024, which will be published by Biblioasis in November. He is the co-founder and co-director of the AfterWords Literary Festival in Halifax.
Half-Sisters is comprised of “lovely, humane, gentle stories…very perceptive.” — Claire Armitstead, The Guardian Books Podcast
After graduating from NSCAD in the early 70’s, Norene worked in the not-for-profit sector with the elderly and persons with intellectual disabilities, and in the book publishing industry. She has been a bookseller, editor, writer, teacher, book reviewer, book publisher, publicist, event organizer and cultural administrator.
She belonged to a children’s writing group for over twelve years, during which two anthologies of writing for children were published. She has served on the boards of many arts organizations, regionally and nationally, primarily to do with books, writing or fine art. She was a founding member of the Nova Scotia Children’s Literature Award and the Ann Connor Brimer Award for Atlantic Children’s Literature. In 2002, she received the Mayor’s Award for Cultural Achievement in Literature.
After five years of facilitating The Word On The Street Book Festival and coordinating the Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award for another six, she moved to Pugwash NS where she has become involved in community development. She has been an organizer of Writing on Fire Youth Experience on the North Shore of NS and Art Jam! with Rita Wilson and Helen Castonguay since 2013. She received the Governor General’s Sovereign Medal for Volunteerism in 2019.
Besides writing for children, she is a visual artist, scriptwriter and filmmaker. In 2005/2006, she wrote, directed and edited a one-minute film, Saving the Best for Last, through the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative, and created a short digital mock-documentary, Urban Myths, with the help of a Media Arts Scholarship through the Centre for Art Tapes. Between 2017 and 2020, she wrote and co-produced a short film, Maurice, with collaborator Shannon Bell.
Despite school years in Halifax (Dalhousie ’63) and working years in Montreal (Dawson College) Ray Smith has always considered Mabou, Cape Breton, home. Retired from teaching in 2007, he now lives in Mabou in the house built by his grandfather – who also built as his store the building which is now The Red Shoe Pub. He has two exemplary sons, Nicholas and Alexander.
“A brilliant stylist” (Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature), he nonetheless has no Smith style: each of his seven books is unique. Somewhat over half the work is comic, often hilariously so. Although usually set in Canada with Canadian characters, the books reflect his extensive travel and international perspective. Important sections of his work are set in Iceland, Venice, Edinburgh, Paris, Zurich, and Germany, and other languages appear often. A dramatic performer, Smith has done over 250 readings of his work in North America and in a dozen European countries. Many of the stories and chapters have been published separately in journals and anthologies. Smith has also published criticism, reviews, travel pieces, etc, in newspapers, magazines, journals, and on radio in Canada and Europe. He was writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta (1986-87) and Canada-Scotland Writing Fellow in Edinburgh (1987-88). A Night at the Opera won the Hugh MacLennan Best Fiction Award in 1992. Charles Foran recently sent Century to the prime minister as number 78 on Yann Martel’s project, What is Stephen Harper Reading?
Anne Simpson has been a writer-in-residence at the University of British Columbia, the Saskatoon Public Library, the Medical Humanities Program at Dalhousie University, and the University of New Brunswick, among others. She has also been a faculty member at the Banff Centre.
She writes novels, poetry, and essays. Four of her ten books have been Globe & Mail Best Books. Her short fiction has been awarded the Journey Prize, while her third novel, Speechless, won the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Her second poetry collection, Loop, was awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize. She has also written two books of essays. The Marram Grass: Poetry and Otherness explores poetry, art, and empathy, while Experiments in Distant Influence: Notes and Poems looks at friendship, courage, and community.
Carol is writing a book entitled, The Darling Cannibals. She’s also an editor with Editors’ Association of Canada. Her forte is dialogue and character dynamic. She has been an actor and playwright in eight provinces for 35 years.
Recent projects are: The Last Bean Supper, about the loss of women volunteers with the closing of our churches, Far Flung, about immigrants setting up in rural Canada, and Vis Viva, about the women in early science. She was invited as Atlantic rep of the Canadian delegation to an international gathering of female playwrights in Mumbai, India, for her hard-hitting drama, Come Unto Me, about a social worker who turns vigilante when a kiddie porn pervert is publically named and then sent home to await trial.
Carol has combined writing and performance for TV as an issue satirist on Rita Deverell’s Skylight Series for Vision TV. Three early years at Second City forged her conviction that humour propels message. Screenplays of her all-female cast comedy Idyll Gossip and the highly romantic comedy, The Summer of the Handley-Page have been funded by Ontario Film Development and Telefilm. The latter script was also produced for national radio by CBC, as was her one-woman tour de force, Brownie from Hell. She has been, for fourteen years, director of Sinc Ink. She is currently fund-raising to produce her adaptation of ScotiaGiller prize-winner Linden MacInyre’s novel, Causeway.
Ship’s Company Theatre premiered her play, Ferry Tales, her play, Share, and her large-cast comedy, The Summer of the Handley-Page. Another huge-cast piece, Firefly, was staged at Dal Theatre as well as the Blyth Festival.
She has been writer in residence at St. FX, and with Dalhousie’s Medical Humanities, where she wrote Défense de Fumer, which toured Nova Scotia, Ottawa, Vancouver, Charlottetown, Saint John, and Arviat, Rankin Inlet and Iqaluit, Nunavut.
A multiple recipient of awards from Canada Council’s Writing and Theatre Sections, and the Provincial Councils of Ontario and NS, and the Municipality of the District of Guysborough, her other professionally produced plays include Young Hate (GG nominated) Brownie From Hell (Crow’s Theatre, Toronto), Firefly (Blyth Festival, Blyth, ON) Idyll Gossip, Presents and Old Boots (Mulgrave Road Theatre, NS), Hansel & Gretel & Handsome & Grateful (Festival Antigonish).
Professional productions have been as far-reaching as Toscana, Italy; Galway, Ireland; Perth, Australia; Cape Town, South Africa; London, England; Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia; and in Cincinnati, US, as well as in every province in Canada and Nunavut. Carol is a member of WIF-T Atlantic, the Editors’ Association of Canada, Canadian Actors’ Equity Association and ACTRA.
Gary Saunders was born in tiny Clarkes Head, Newfoundland, in 1935, some 30 years before electricity and road traffic arrived, and when sea and river were still the only avenues to the outside world. He received a B.Sc. in Forestry from the University of New Brunswick in 1959, and a B.F.A. from Mount Allison in 1965.
“Growing up in this place and time, to leave at the age of ten for town and city, left a vacuum that I filled with stories and visual imagery from my childhood. From these come my books and paintings.”
Since the sixties he has published articles in magazines like Nature Canada, Canadian Living, and American Forests, and 13 books.
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Marjorie Simmins is the author of four non-fiction titles: Coastal Lives (2014); Year of the Horse (2016), Memoir: Conversations and Craft (2020), and Somebeachsomewhere: The Harness Racing Legend from a One-Horse Stable (2021).
Simmins began her career as a freelance journalist in Vancouver, appearing regularly in the Vancouver Sun and writing for trade magazines. She also published numerous essays and articles in magazines and newspapers across Canada, and in the United States, and has stories in Canadian and American anthologies. She has won a Gold Medal at the National Magazine Awards for “One-of-a-Kind Journalism,” and two Gold Medals at the Atlantic Journalism Awards for Best Atlantic Magazine Article, and in Arts and Entertainment, Any Medium.
In November 2020, she was awarded the prestigious Established Artist Recognition Award by Arts Nova Scotia.
Among the magazines Simmins has written for are: Canadian Living, Magazines Canada, United Church Observer, Halifax Magazine, Progress, Atlantic Business, and Saltscapes. She is a regular reviewer for The Antigonish Review and Atlantic Books Today. She has also written feature interviews for The Reporter, the community newspaper in Port Hawkesbury, NS.
Marjorie Simmins has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of British Columbia, a Certificate in Adult Education from Dalhousie University, and a Research Master of Arts in Literacy Education, at Mount Saint Vincent University. She teaches memoir writing across Canada, at venues such as at the UBC Alumni Centre, in Vancouver, BC (2016); at StoryFest, in Hudson, QC (2017); at Thinkers Lodge, Pugwash, NS (2014-2019); and the Fortress of Louisbourg, NS (2019). Recently, she has begun to teach coast to coast (still waiting for the north coast!) Zoom workshops.
In September 2020, Simmins took part in the Cabot Trail Writers Festival, as a panellist and workshop leader. The following spring of 2021, Simmins was honoured to serve as a reader for the 2021 CBC Non-Fiction Prize.
Magi Nams is an award-winning nature writer, aspiring novelist, and author and indie publisher of the travel memoir trilogy Cry of the Kiwi: A Family’s New Zealand Adventure. She holds a B.Sc. in zoology and an M.Sc. in plant ecology and has published scientific papers, written wildlife-related material for government agencies and conservation organizations, and published dozens of magazine articles in the children’s nature magazine Ranger Rick. She has also published poetry and has broadcast personal essays on CBC Radio.
Magi is a keen gardener, birder, hiker, traveller, and piano student. Check out her books and latest travel and outdoor adventures at maginams.ca. Magi lives in a 177-year-old farmhouse near Tatamagouche with her wildlife biologist husband.
Books: Cry of the Kiwi trilogy: Once a Land of Birds, This Dark Sheltering Forest, Tang of the Tasman Sea
Lorri Neilsen Glenn is the author and editor of fourteen books of poetry, creative nonfiction and scholarly work. Her latest books include The Old Moon in Her Arms: Women I Have Known and Been (Nimbus, 2024), a hybrid memoir about age and identity, and an updated edition of Threading Light: Explorations in Loss and Poetry (Nimbus, 2024, first published in 2011), essays on grief.
Following the River: Traces of Red River Women, a mixed-genre historical memoir published late in 2017 (Wolsak and Wynn) is now in its third printing. The book explores Lorri’s Métis and Cree grandmothers’ lives and was short-listed for the Evelyn Richardson Nonfiction award and won The Miramichi Reader’s award for nonfiction.
Untying the Apron: Daughters Remember Mothers of the 1950s (Guernica Editions, 2013) explores the lives of 1950s mothers (now in its third printing). Other works include Lost Gospels (Brick Books, 2010), Combustion (Brick Books, 2007), Saved String (Rubicon Press, 2007), All the Perfect Disguises (Broken Jaw Press, 2003), and several academic titles. With Carsten Knox, Lorri edited Salt Lines, a collection of writers’ wisdom from Nova Scotian authors.
Since 2013, Lorri has served as a mentor in The University of King’s College MFA program in creative nonfiction and is Professor Emerita at Mount Saint Vincent University.
Workshops: Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, Great Blue Heron workshop, St. Peter’s Writing Program, Los Parronales Writers’ Retreat, Creative Nonfiction Collective, MSVU, The University of Auckland, Edith Cowan, James Cook, Queensland, and Murdoch Universities, among other organizations and locations.
Lorri’s workshops on memoir/life writing grief and loss have been held across Canada, including Northern Canada, as well as in Ireland, Greece, Chile, Australia, and New Zealand. She has worked with writers in Indigenous communities, government and social services, educators, engineers, lawyers, women’s groups, youth groups, and many other communities. Lorri works as a developmental editor for others’ memoir, creative nonfiction and poetry.
As Halifax’s first Métis Poet Laureate (2005-2009), Lorri worked with new Canadians, seniors, and launched the spoken word youth group Wordfishing. She has worked extensively with writers who are new Canadians. In 2023, Lorri was awarded Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee medal for her work in the writing community. Lorri’s poetry has been adapted several times for libretti and was most recently performed in the City of Song celebration for Winnipeg’s 150th anniversary. Lorri was burn in Winnipeg, raised on the prairies and moved to Nova Scotia in 1983.
A frequent reader/juror/judge for national and regional writing awards, Lorri was President of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (2020-21) and has served four terms on its board over the years. She is a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada, the League of Canadian Poets, and the Creative Nonfiction Collective. Lorri’s poetry and creative nonfiction appear in several anthologies including Bad Artist, Sharp Notions, Good Mom on Paper, Sweetwater, Love me True, among others.
Reviews of The Old Moon in Her Arms can be found here:
https://freefallmagazine.ca/review-of-lorri-neilsen-glenns-the-old-moon-in-her-arms/https://freefallmagazine.ca/review-of-lorri-neilsen-glenns-the-old-moon-in-her-arms/
https://miramichireader.ca/2024/04/the-old-moon-in-her-arms-by-lorri-neilsen-glenn/
“A gift of storytelling magic” — Shelagh Rogers
Threading Light:
“Glenn explores questions about spirituality and place – places including the Prairies, where she was raised, and the East Coast, where she now works – in these stunning poems that show us how to pay attention and find the wonder in song and nature.” – Prairie Books Now
“lyricism at its most brilliant” – The Malahat Review
Lorri Neilsen Glenn Read More »
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
