Lesley Crewe
Lesley is the author of eight novels and a screenwriter for the movie Relative Happiness, based on her first novel. She is also a columnist for The Chronicle Herald. She lives in Homeville, Cape Breton.
Genre
Binnie Brennan
Binnie Brennan is the author of three books of fiction, Like Any Other Monday (Gaspereau Press), A Certain Grace and Harbour View (Quattro Books).
Co-winner of the 2009 Quattro Books’ Ken Klonsky Novella Contest, Binnie has also been published in several literary journals. Her novella, Harbour View, was published in the fall of 2009; in 2010 it was shortlisted for an Atlantic Book Award and longlisted for a ReLit Award. Her short story collection, A Certain Grace, was published in 2012. Binnie is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers, where she was mentored by M.G. Vassanji and Alistair MacLeod.
In 2007 Binnie’s story A Spider’s Tale was adapted for the stage in Halifax, where it received critical and popular acclaim. Since 1989 Binnie has enjoyed a career playing the viola with Symphony Nova Scotia. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Carol Bruneau
Carol Bruneau is the author of eleven books: four short story collections, After the Angel Mill (1995), Depth Rapture (1998), A Bird on Every Tree (2017), shortlisted for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the Dartmouth Book Award; and Threshold (2024); one nonfiction book, No Ordinary Magic: the Art of Laurie Swim (2023), shortlisted for the APA Best Book Published in Atlantic Canada Award; and six novels. These include Brighten the Corner Where You Are (2020), nominated for the IMPAQ Dublin Literary Award; A Circle on the Surface (2018), winner of the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction; These Good Hands, a novel based on the life and art of Camille Claudel; Glass Voices (2007), named a Globe and Mail Best Book, German translation Glasstimmen (2010); Berth (2005); and Purple for Sky (2000), US edition A Purple Thread for Sky (2001), winner of the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the Dartmouth Book Award.
In numerous starred reviews, Bruneau has been praised by Quill & Quire as a master of the short story form and “a first-class storyteller who uses words magically” (Quill & Quire), and by bestselling author Lesley Crewe as “a marvel.”
Giller-Prize shortlisted author Leo McKay Jr. calls Bruneau’s most recent collection “stories of great power and insight,” and says, “Bruneau illuminates her fictional world with a light so clear and bright that in it we can see into the shadows of our own world, into the usually unuttered spaces between human action and intent, between what we mean to each other and our usually inadequate attempts to articulate that meaning. And the source of that light,” he notes, “is Bruneau’s powerfully controlled language…every sentence perfect unto its purpose.”
She has been writing since childhood; her professional writing career spans thirty years. Her stories, reviews and articles have appeared nationwide in anthologies, print and online journals and newspapers.
She has appeared at various literary festivals including TIFA (Toronto International Festival of Authors), the Vancouver Writers’ Festival, Eden Mills, the Northrop Frye Festival, the Cabot Trail Authors’ Festival, the Lunenburg Literary Festival, the Margaree Literary Festival, Read-by-the-Sea, FogLit, AfterWords Literary Festival and the Winterset Festival.
The recipient of four Canada Council grants in support of her fiction, Bruneau has been Writer in Residence at Acadia and Dalhousie Universities, and taught writing for the arts for many years at NSCAD University. Having led workshops throughout the Maritimes and mentored new and emerging writers through the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program since the program’s inception, she continues to teach workshops in fiction writing at various levels for the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia.
Bruneau lives and works in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, Mi’kmaki/Nova Scotia.
Dr. George Burden
Dr. George Burden has had an active twenty five year career as a freelance writer, with a focus on travel, but with publications encompassing the gamut of medical-history, human interest, humour, poetry and fiction.
George has placed articles with markets as diverse as The Readers Digest, The Halifax Sunday Herald, The Medical Post, Funny Times, The Writer and Just For Canadian Doctors, among many others.
His adventures have taken him to the shores of all seven continents and into the waters of all five oceans. He has ventured from shipwrecks in the depths of the Atlantic to the cockpit of an airborne F-18 fighter jet, from the crater of an active Antarctic volcano to a private audience with the King of the Ashanti at his palace in Kumasi.
Dr. Burden is a past recipient of the Governor General’s Medal. He has served with the venerable Explorers Club as regional chairman for Quebec/Atlantic provinces and in the role of Director at Large for the organization. George became a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in 2012. In 2014 George succeeded his father as the 31st Baron of Seabegs (Seybeggis-traditional), Stirlingshire, Scotland. He is currently an associate member of the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs in Edinburgh as well as the Canadian Commissioner for the Scottish Clan Lamont.
George published his first book, Amazing Medical Stories, co-authored with Dorothy Grant, in May of 2003 with Goose Lane Editions. He was also the recipient of the Travel Media Association of Canada’s:
Choice Hotels Award of Excellence for Best Canadian Story-2005
Days Inn Canadian Family Travel Writing Award-2007
He won 3 awards at the 2010 North American Travel Journalism Awards.
Gold – Category 143: Resorts – “Chilling Out at Quebec City’s Le Chateau Entente”
(Published at Life As A Human on July 30th, 2010)
Silver – Category 128: Intergenerational and Family Travel – “Princess for a Day”
(Published at The Medical Post, April 6, 2010 Issue)
Bronze – Category 150: Cultural, Educational, Self-Improvement Travel – “Having a Ball, Vienna Style”
(Published at Life As A Human on June 12th, 2010)
At present his interest is focused on producing articles for the travel and adventure market.
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.
Jonathan Campbell
Jonathan Campbell is the author of short stories, plays, and television dramas. Born in Montreal, raised in Cape Breton, he received a B.A. from Acadia University and an English M.A. from Dalhousie University. He lives in the Annapolis Valley with his wife, painter Lindee Climo.
Wanda Campbell
Wanda Campbell was born and grew up in Andhra Pradesh, South India. She completed a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing at the University of Windsor under the supervision of Alistair MacLeod, and a PhD in Canadian Literature at the University of Western Ontario. She now teaches Creative Writing and Literature at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.
Wanda Campbell has published six collections of poetry, most recently Spring Theory (Pottersfield Press 2025), a title inspired by her poem “String Theory,” a finalist for the 2024 Montreal International Poetry Prize. Her other five collections are Kalamkari and Cordillera, Daedalus Had a Daughter, Grace, Looking for Lucy, and Sky Fishing, as well as a chapbook, Haw [Thorn]. Campbell’s debut novel Hat Girl, winner of the 2010 H.R. Percy Prize in the WFNS Atlantic Writing Competition, was published in 2013 by Signature Editions. Her work appears in several anthologies including the 2024 Montreal International Poetry Prize Anthology, Landmarks: An Anthology of New Atlantic Canadian Poetry of the Land, and Body Language, and in literary journals across Canada including Antigonish Review, Between the Lines, Contemporary Verse II, Dalhousie Review, Descant, Driftwood, existere, Fiddlehead, Gaspereau Review, Grain, Harpweaver, New Quarterly, Northern Cardinal Review, Queen’s Quarterly, Room, Vallum, Wascana Review, and Windsor Review. She has also edited books on Early Canadian Women Poets and on Bronwen Wallace. She has given readings from St. John’s to Victoria and always welcomes the opportunity to share her passion for poetry and fiction with others.
Richard Charlton
Richard Charlton is originally from Newcastle upon Tyne, England. After five years in Nairobi, Kenya, in East Africa, he finally emigrated to Canada in 1975 with wife June and their three children: Joanne, John and James, settling in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Richard is a professional electrical engineer with a variety of extracurricular writing and dramatic productions to his credit, spanning many years with many published and performed works. He recently created the Kippernickker Adventure Stories for his grandchildren in California who asked for the stories so often he decided to write them all down. There are now ten stories in all, published through Little Fishes Publishing. Check the website for details
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.
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)