Genre

Sandra Phinney

Sandra Phinney is a professional writer and photographer who lives on the edge of the Tusket River in Southwest Nova Scotia. She’s had a few former lives including teaching, social work and farming. Now, instead of driving a tractor and growing vegetables, Sandra wields a camera and harvests stories.

Her articles have appeared in over 70 publications and many online line magazines. She’s also contributed to several travel guides including National Geographic’s Guide to Parks Canada. Over the years, her work has garnered several writing and photography awards (which help to keep her humble.) Part of her portfolio spills into the corporate world where she does everything from writing scripts for video, to advertorials, brochures, newsletters, and company profiles.

In the book writing realm, Sandra’s penned four non-fiction books: Risk Takers and Innovators—Great Canadian Business Ventures since 1950; Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The Prankster Who Never Flinched; Maud Lewis and the “Maudified” House Project; and Waking Up In My Own Backyard~Explorations in Southwest Nova Scotia. She’s currently working on two more non-fiction books.

To satisfy her craving to teach, Sandra gives writing workshops on various topics including narrative, writing memoir, how to start a freelance business and travel writing. In her spare time she does Tai Chi and paddles in the wilderness.

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Anna Quon

Middle -aged, mixed-race and Mad, Kjipuktuk (Halifax) writer Anna Quon got a late start as a novelist and poet. And though she’s travelled as far as Russia and the Czech Republic to work on her writing, she’s still not sure she’s got the hang of it.

Happily, her novel fist novel Migration Songs found a home with Invisible Publishing and was released in the Fall of 2009. Her second novel, Low, followed in 2013; and in 2022, Invisible published her third novel Where the Silver River End, making a trilogy with her first two unrelated stories by bringing their main characters together in Bratislava, Slovakia

As well as working with traditional publishers, Anna enjoys making her own poetry books and has self-published an adult colouring book, Kindness. in 20017. She also loves to make short animated films of her poetry, including in 2020 her climate grief poem, Polar Bear, thanks to a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts . Her first professionally published chapbook of poetry Body Parts was released in the Spring of 2021 by Gaspereau Press.

Before she decided to call herself a writer, Anna held a number of different jobs, including day care teacher, fundraiser/ outreach coordinator for a shelter for victims of family violence, volunteer coordinator of a disability organization, and communications assistant for a provincial not-for-profit. She currently facilitates a writers’ group and an arts-related guest speaker series for local mental health organizations. Anna hopes the jobs title of novelist, poet, filmmaker and writing workshop facilitator will stick longer than any of them.

For samples of her writing check out her blog, https://annaquon.wordpress.com/

Find examples of her visual art at https://ekeandutterarts.ca/ and check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP_kjrslJbw&t=66s

for an example of one of her poem films.

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Sherry D. Ramsey

Sherry D. Ramsey writes science fiction and fantasy for both adults and young adults, and is one of the founding editors of Cape Breton’s Third Person Press. She has published over thirty short stories nationally and internationally, and her award-winning debut novel, One’s Aspect to the Sun, launched in 2013 from Edmonton’s Tyche Books. The sequels, Dark Beneath the Moon and Beyond the Sentinel Stars (Tyche Books) followed in 2015 and 2017, and the fourth book in the Nearspace series, A Veiled and Distant Sky, released in March of 2022. She has also published the YA fantasy The Seventh Crow (Dreaming Robot Press, 2015), and the middle grade science fiction adventure, Planet Fleep (2018). Some of her short stories are collected in To Unimagined Shores (2011) and The Cache and Other Stories (2017). A collection of stories for young readers, Beacon and Other Stories, came out in 2019. She’s currently adding more titles to her urban fantasy Olympia Investigations series and working on a comic fantasy novel, as well as teaching English courses as a sessional instructor at Cape Breton University.

Sherry has co-edited six anthologies of regional short fiction with Third Person Press and conducted numerous writing workshops in person and online. A member of the Writer’s Federation of Nova Scotia Writer’s Council, Sherry is also a past Vice-President, Secretary-Treasurer, and Web Administrator of SF Canada. She is an active participant with Writers In The Schools and loves talking to students about writing and creativity. You can visit Sherry online, read her blog, follow her on Twitter and Instagram @sdramsey, and find some free fiction and sample chapters on her website.

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Darcy Rhyno

Darcy Rhyno writes novels, short stories, plays, non-fiction (travel, science, health, people profiles). His latest book is a memoir about life in post-communist Eastern Europe.

He is the author of the pre-teen fantasy novel set in 1950’s Halifax called THE UNDERWORLD MAGICIAN. He’s also the author of the YA novel MONSTERS OF SUBURBIA, which is a realism adventure story with themes of bullying, isolation, estrangement and myth. This novel is suitable for junior high readers. He has also published two collections of short stories, CONDUCTOR OF WAVES and HOLIDAYS. He’s been writing for Saltscapes magazine since 2007. He is an award-winning travel writer and a member of the Travel Media Association of Canada and has published hundreds of articles with Saltscapes, Canadian Geographic Travel, BBC Travel, Atlas Obscura, The Daily Beast, the Chronicle Herald and many, many more. His play Snowbirds, a comedy set at Christmas, has been produced twice in Nova Scotia.

Conductor of Waves is a collection of 12 stories set in a fictional Nova Scotia fishing community. The Globe and Mail called it “a strikingly accomplished collection.” His first novel for children placed second in the Atlantic Writing Competition. As a columnist for Saltscapes magazine, Darcy writes the back page for each issue, prepares feature articles and writes for special publications about travel, food and other topics. He writes for other magazines and newspapers as well. One of the stories in his collection called Holidays was published in The Vagrant Revue of New Fiction, an anthology of work by the most promising writers in Atlantic Canada.

For much of his career, Darcy has worked in education and with children. A teacher and arts worker by profession, he has worked with many schools and teachers across the province, as well as with artists from all genres. For 16 years, he was an instructor in the graduate program of the Faculty of Education at Mount St. Vincent University where he taught courses in popular culture, reading, media and literature. His readings and workshops are always engaging, informative and entertaining. See his website at www.darcyrhyno.com

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donalee Moulton

donalee Moulton has been writing professionally for over 25 years. Her byline has appeared in more than 100 magazines and newspapers throughout North America – and beyond. Among the publications donalee has written for are The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Maclean’s, Canadian Business and The National Post.

donalee Moulton’s first mystery book Hung out to Die was published in 2023. A historical mystery, Conflagration!, was published in 2024. It won the 2024 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense (Historical Fiction). donalee has two new books in 2025, Bind and Melt, the first in a new series, the Lotus Detective Agency.

A short story “Swan Song” was one of 21 selected for publication in Cold Canadian Crime. It was shortlisted for an Award of Excellence. Other short stories have been published in numerous anthologies and magazines. donalee’s short story “Troubled Water” was shortlisted for a 2024 Derringer Award and a 2024 Award of Excellence from the Crime Writers of Canada.

As well, donalee is the author of the non-fiction book The Thong Principle: Saying What You Mean and Meaning What You Say, and co-author of Better Policy | Better Performance: The Who, Why, and What of Organizational Policy and Celebrity Court Cases: Trials of the Rich and Famous.

donalee has had poetry published in Arc Poetry Journal, Queen’s Quarterly, Prairie Fire, The Dalhousie Review, Atlantis, South Shore Review, Carousel, and Whetstone, among others. She is a former editor of The Pottersfield Portfolio and Atlantic Books Today.

donalee is a teacher. She has taught writing, editing, grammar and communications for the past 20 years in a variety of programs. She currently teaches numerous writing and editing courses as part of the Executive and Professional Development program at Saint Mary’s University, and has taught courses at Dalhousie University and Mount Saint Vincent University.

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Don MacLean

Don MacLean was born in Gabarus Lake on Cape Breton Island. He attended St.Francis Xavier University (BSc., 1976) and Memorial University (MSc., 1985). He works as a fisheries biologist in Nova Scotia.

Don writes on a variety of outdoor related topics as well as traditional crafts from wood carving to canoe building. His articles have appeared in Atlantic Salmon Journal, Saltscapes, Eastern Woods and Waters, Canadian Fly Fisher, Northwoods Sporting Journal, Outdoor Canada, Atlantic Boating News and Fly Tyer. He is the author of two books. Don’s weekly newspaper columns on sportfishing and the outdoors appears in the Cape Breton Post, New Glasgow News, Truro Daily News and the Antigonish Casket.

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Jill MacLean

Jill MacLean writes to stretch her limits and engage her curiosity. She writes to communicate, to be read. She writes because she loves being inhabited by characters and intertwining their stories in a balance of the intuitive and the rational, not always knowing where she’s going but steered by what feels true.

She has an honours degree in biology and is a keen naturalist. Her masters degree in theological studies, an agnostic’s search for answers, made her questions more sophisticated and encouraged her to write poetry. Her collection, The Brevity of Red (2003), was shortlisted for two awards. Poetry, she’s been told, requires the least number of best words, a good discipline for any writing.

While living in Prince Edward Island, she spent three years researching an 18th century French settlement. Her biography of Jean Pierre Roma, published by the PEI Heritage Foundation, was reissued in 2005.

Her grandson’s request that she write him a book led to three middle-grade novels and two young adult, four awards and numerous nominations, four of them international. Her YA novel, Home Truths, is on the Nova Scotia school curriculum.

She has participated in Writers in the Schools, Word on the Street, the Literacy for Life Conference, the TD Book Tour, Read by the Sea and a conference for the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) in London, England. She’s conducted workshops, school presentations and readings, many for the Canada Council, across the country.

She’s hiked the High Arctic tundra and the rainforests of St. Vincent, driven through a very long, one-way, unlit, water-dripping tunnel in the Faroe Islands, kayaked Johnstone Strait and been too close to a grizzly in the Mackenzie Mountains: a strong sense of adventure, in other words. Why else, after writing five contemporary novels for young readers, would she embark on a novel for adults set in 14th century England?

That novel – several years later! – is in the process of being self-published, with the help of a company in BC. She’s hoping to to have a book in hand by late spring.

She was a palliative care volunteer for several years, and has been a dog walker for the Winnipeg Humane Society and the Nova Scotia SPCA. She can often be found in her perennial gardens, a pastime she likens to writing: you start with a rough plan, then nature takes over and you’re left to weed and transplant and weed some more, always with an eye out for interesting suprises.

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Stephens Gerard Malone

Born in Ontario, educated in Montréal, Stephens Gerard Malone currently lives and writes on Canada’s east coast. In 1994, he published his first novel, Endless Bay (Mercury Press) under the pseudonym Laura Fairburn. His second novel, Miss Elva (Random House Canada), followed in 2005 and was short-listed for the Dartmouth Book Award. Malone’s next novel, I Still Have a Suitcase in Berlin (Random House Canada) made its debut in May 2008. Big Town (Nimbus Publishing/Vagrant Press) was published in 2011, The History of Rain (Nimbus Publishing/Vagrant Press) 2021, and Jumbo (Nimbus Publishing/Vagrant Press) 2023. Rights to his seventh novel The Unnameable have been sold to Nimbus Publishing/Vagrant Press for publication April 28, 2026. Malone is a past president of WFNS and was on the board of the Halifax Afterwords Literary Festival. (Photo Credit: Nikki Davison)

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Paul Marriner

Born in Halifax in 1944, Paul went to Dalhousie and Nova Scotia Tech and graduated in Mechanical Engineering. He taught at the Royal Military College in Kingston, where he also received a Master’s Degree. Paul now owns and operates Gale’s End Press. A member of the Outdoor Writer’s Association of Canada and the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia, his articles have appeared in magazines on five continents, and number in the hundreds. Paul’s books include: Fly Patterns of Canada, Modern Atlantic Salmon Flies (2000 Outdoor Writers Book Award), Atlantic Salmon: A Fly Fishing Reference, Fly Fishing in Lakes & Ponds, How to Choose & Use Fly-tying Thread, Stillwater Fly Fishing: Tools & Tactics, Atlantic Salmon – A Fly Fishing Primer (1994 Outdoor Writers Book Award), The Ausable River Journal, The Miramichi River Journal, and Mahone Bay Mornings. Several of the above are available in digital format. He has also contributed to several anthologies. In 1991 Paul won the Gregory Clark Award for outstanding contributions to the arts of fly fishing, and in 2008 won the Jean-Guy Côté Award for continuous contributions to the arts of fly tying. In 2008 he was also a member of the Outdoor Canada team of writers, who won a gold medal at the National Magazine Awards.

Now living in Mahone Bay, NS, Paul continues his association with the writing/publishing world via Gale’s End Press. Besides his own titles, he has edited and published two by other authors and created the design and layout for a third.

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Kathleen Martin

Kathleen Martin was born in Toronto, lived in Sudbury, Ontario, until she was 12 and then moved to Spring Valley in Illinois, a place that has been home to her father’s family for five generations. Her mother’s family has been rooted in Halifax for almost as long, and although her parents and older brother are still in Illinois, and she still misses hot summers and fields of corn stretching to the horizon, Halifax is where Kathleen is very happy to have ended up.

Kathleen came to Halifax by way of the University of Toronto, where she earned her BA (Honours) in English, and Queen’s University in Kingston, where she earned her master’s degree in English. She moved to Nova Scotia when Mike, now her husband, came to study the endangered leatherback sea turtle.

Kathleen is the author of six non-fiction books for children: Sturdy Turtles, Building Beavers, Floating Jellyfish, Gentle Manatees, Soaring Bald Eagles and Swimming Salmon (Lerner Publishing Group). She is also the author of Kamakwie: Finding Peace, Love and Injustice in Sierra Leone (Red Deer Press) for teenagers and adults. She is the Nova Scotia representative for the Canadian Children’s Book Centre, has edited children’s fiction books for Front Street/Cricket Books in Chicago, and was an acquisitions editor for the Cricket Magazine Group.

Kathleen also writes for adults. She was the Atlantic correspondent for Marketing Magazine for a decade. She edits fiction, poetry and non-fiction books for publishers in Canada and the United States, and has written for a variety of magazines and newspapers. She previously taught communications at Acadia University.

When she isn’t freelancing, Kathleen is the executive director of the Canadian Sea Turtle Network, which allows her to spend a lot of time with fishing community members across Nova Scotia and a lot of time learning about and attempting to help sea turtles, her favourite animals.

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