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

Illustration

Eleonore Schönmaier

Eleonore Schönmaier’s Field Guide to the Lost Flower of Crete was published in 2021 (McGill-Queen’s University Press). Wavelengths of Your Song (MQUP) was published in German translation as Wellenlängen deines Liedes in 2020 by parasitenpresse (Cologne).  Dust Blown Side of the Journey (MQUP) was a finalist for the Eyelands Book Awards (Greece). Treading Fast Rivers (MQUP) was a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry in Canada. She has taught advanced fiction courses at St. Mary’s University, creative writing at Mount Saint Vincent University, and has worked as a poetry mentor for the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia. Her poetry has been set to music by Canadian, Dutch, Scottish, American and Greek composers and she has performed her poetry in concert with The New European Ensemble among others. She has won the Alfred G. Bailey Prize, the Earle Birney Prize, and the National Broadsheet Contest 2019. Published in League of Canadian Poets Poem in Your Pocket Day Brochure in 2018, 2019 and 2021, she has also been widely anthologised in the United States and Canada including in Best Canadian Poetry.  Her poetry was presented in a twelve page feature by The New Quarterly. “Live-Retrieved Memory:  the Poetry of Eleonore Schönmaier.”  https://eleonoreschonmaier.com

Eleonore Schönmaier Read More »

Josh MacDonald (he/him)

JOSH MacDONALD (he/him) is the writer of a theatrical adaptation for Robert Cormier’s classic novel I Am The Cheese. This adaptation is the winner of a Playwrights Guild of Canada Tom Hendy Prize, as well as a Theatre Nova Scotia Merritt Award for Outstanding Adaptation. Josh is also the writer of the stage plays Halo, Whereverville and The Mystery Play, which have been produced here at home and around North America, are published by Talonbooks, and are curriculum titles in high schools and universities. Josh is the winner of an AMD/Dell “Next Wave” Award for Best Screenplay from Fantastic Fest in Austin, TX, for his horror movie The Corridor (IFC Films). He is also the writer of the feature comedy Faith, Fraud & Minimum Wage (eOne Films). Josh writes for series television, is an actor for stage and screen, and has taught playwriting and screenwriting courses for Dalhousie University and the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design (NSCAD).

Josh MacDonald (he/him) Read More »

Virginia MacIsaac

Virginia writes from a coastal perch about the character of Atlantic Canada, it’s people and places.    She writes about Nova Scotia’s rich heritage – of challenges and celebrations, revealing pieces from the past that fit together, or sometimes don’t fit, that will open windows to the now.  Connecting historical and current,  articles and features, poetry and back-of-the-book indexes, and collaborating with other writers, rounds out her non-fiction. She contributes articles to a column at the Inverness Oran and has a short story published. You might hear her several times a year as a community correspondent on CBC radio. At other times she’s an archivist at a cultural centre and is a member of the Shean Poets & Writers.

Virginia MacIsaac Read More »

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.

Dr. George Burden Read More »

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.

Geoff Butler Read More »

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)

Jan L. Coates Read More »

Jenni Blackmore

A new season just beginning! Definitely time to upgrade my bio; even though some things never change life’s experience continually morphs and expands. Have to love that 🙂

Part of me is still the kid from Manchester, England, who always wanted to be a writer, a painter and a farmer, living by the ocean, and much to my amazement, here I am, living my dream on a small island just east of Halifax. Of course I’m greatly influenced by the coastal environment and references to this locale have a way of sneaking into most of my work. I love my reality but I usually can’t resist adding a twist or two of magic to my work, especially my favorite genres of poetry, adult short fiction and childrens fiction.

As an illustrator and writer, I like to combine both these forms of expression, especially in my books for children. Recently, however the denizens of QuackaDoodle Farm, who take up a fair amount of my attention, have been demanding their space on the page and this has resulted in, Permaculture for the Rest of Us (New Society Publishing) a factual account of life here at QuackaDoodle,  my blog site  QuackaDoodle.Wordpress.com and occassional posts on the Mother Earth News Site.

My latest book The Foodlovers’ Garden (New Society) is scheduled for release May 2017 and I was delighted to be able to illustrate this with thirty+ illustrations and forty digital images, all celebrating the wonders of homegrown food. Yum! And oh so colourful.

The second edition of Gully Goes to Halifax flew into my life recently. The story remains mostly unchanged but this edition has twice the page size and all the illustrations are in full colour, so I’m delighted about that.

I believe everyone is writer at heart because of course we all have things to say, ideas to share. This is one of the reasons why I particularly enjoy leading writing workshops for both children and adults but mostly, it’s about the stories that get shared. Surely story is the thread that binds us all together while, equally importantly, poetry tends to magnify and perhaps suggest a new way of seeing both the mundane and the magical.

Please visit me at: Quackadoodle.wordpress.com for sporadic but ongoing news of life down here on the farm

 Jenni has been mentioned in “Our Choice Book List” and “Outstanding Canadian Children’s Books” by the Children’s Book Centre, Toronto. Her recent novel Island of Dead Souls came first in the Atlantic Writing competition YA category.

Jenni Blackmore Read More »

Jo Treggiari

Jo Treggiari is the best-selling, award-winning author of six thrilling books for young adults. Her 2019 novel, The Grey Sisters (Penguin Teen), was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award, a finalist for the Crime Writers of Canada Award and a finalist for the Ann Connor Brimer Children’s Literature Award. Her most recent book, Heartbreak Homes, a murder-mystery, was the winner of the Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence, and a finalist for the 2023 Ann Connor Brimer Award and the 2023 Dartmouth Book Award.

Jo Treggiari Read More »

Emma FitzGerald

Emma FitzGerald was born in Southern Africa to Irish parents and grew up in Vancouver. She has studied both art and architecture, and is the author of Hand Drawn Halifax. She has also illustrated numerous children’s books; EveryBody is Different on EveryBody Street by Sheree Fitch, A Pocket of Time by Rita Wilson, City Streets are for People by Andrea Curtis, and Two Crows by Susan Vande Griek. She lives and draws in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

Emma FitzGerald 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