Freelance newspaper and magazine writer from 1994 to 2021
Lay worship leader, United Church of Canada, 2013-present
Substitute teacher, elementary and secondary
Bachelor of Arts (honours) English and Bachelor of Education from Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail specializes in telling hidden, inclusive histories for audiences of all ages. She’s done this for over a decade as a freelancer as well as through her books, which span adult narrative nonfiction, essays, and a best-selling nonfiction picture book.
Danielle is currently working on a follow-up to her debut picture book, along with a creative nonfiction book about the largest Indian Hospital in Canada based on her popular blog, www.ghostsofcamsell.ca. She’s also at work writing and revising fiction for adult and middle grade readers.
If you’re looking for a sharp-eyed cheerleader to help you with editing and coaching, Danielle will help you through the writing and publishing journey with empathy and encouragement. Please contact her directly to discuss working together or through the Coffee Chats program on this site.
I am an author, theatre artist and arts educator with more than four decades of professional experience. As a theatre artist, I have toured with Second City doing improv comedy, played the Witch in Hansel and Gretl with the Honolulu Symphony and told my original stories at the Toronto International Storytelling Festival. My arts education credits include work with Learning Through the Arts, World Vision, and the Storytellers School of Toronto.
I served as Artistic Director of KPH Theater Productions in Miramichi, N.B. from 2012 to 2016, and along with my husband, Beverly Glenn Copeland, completed half a dozen artist residencies* in N.B. schools. I was honoured to serve as Writer-in-Residence* for James M. Hill High School in 2015. (*Funding support through NB Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture.)
In February 2016 I was part of the faculty at the San Miguel Writers Conference (San Miguel de Allende, Mexico), and led the creative writing workshop at the Knowlton Literary Festival in Knowlton, Quebec in October.
In 2017, I returned to Mount Allison University to indulge myself in two years of full time study of eco-poetry, feminist philosophy, sustainability in education and medieval studies. Thanks to MTA, in the summer of 2017 I completed a residency to research and create a one-act spoken-word play entitled, “Bearing Witness”.
During my tenure as 2018 Writer-in-Residence at Joggins Fossil Institute, I researched and wrote — “Daring to Hope at the Cliff’s Edge: Pangea’s Dream Remembered”: an art/science collaboration and conversation between myself and the three-hundred million year old rock. The theme: how to find what Buddhist eco-philosopher, Joanna Macy calls Active Hope as we stand at this cliff’s edge in our evolution as a species. The book was launched in Sackville, N.B. on Sept. 29, 2019 by Chapel Street Editions.
Due to covid, my cross country tour to promote this book was cancelled, but late 2020 saw a resurgence of interest in the work and its message of hope. I participated in the Writing for Change series launched by The Rose Theater in Brampton, ON. An exciting variation on this theme will be happening virtually on March 21 at The Rose with spoken-word artist extraordinaire, Ian Keteku.
Since moving to Spencers Island in Jan. 2021, I am making new writing and peforming friends and will be part of the Shipwright Sessions (Ships Company Theater) in Aug. 2021.
Nina is a Canadian ecologist and novelist. She worked for 25 years as an environmental consultant in the field of aquatic ecology and limnology, publishing papers and technical reports on water quality and impacts to aquatic ecosystems. Nina has written over a dozen eco-fiction, science fiction and fantasy novels. An award-winning short story writer, and essayist, Nina currently lives in Toronto where she teaches writing at the University of Toronto and George Brown College. Her book “Water Is…” (Pixl Press)—a scientific study and personal journey as limnologist, mother, teacher and environmentalist—was picked by Margaret Atwood in the New York Timesas 2016 ‘The Year in Reading’. Nina’s most recent novel is “A Diary in the Age of Water”—about four generations of women and their relationship to water in a rapidly changing world—released in June 2020 by Inanna Publications.
Basma Kavanagh is a poet, visual artist, and letterpress printer who lives and works in Nova Scotia, in Mi’kma’ki. She produces artist’s books under the imprint Rabbit Square Books. She has published two collections of poetry, Distillō (Gaspereau, 2012), and Niche (Frontenac, 2015), which won the 2016 Lansdowne Prize for Poetry, and was a finalist for the 2019 NS Masterworks Arts Award. The book-length poem, Ruba’iyat for the Time of Apricots (Frontenac 2018), was shortlisted for the 2019 J.M. Abraham Poetry award, and won the Book Publishers Association of Alberta’s Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry Book of the Year. Basma has taught workshops and courses on poetry, printmaking, bookbinding, and letterpress, and has formally and informally mentored emerging artists and writers. She has been an artist in residence at the Penland School of Crafts, the Banff Centre, and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.
Leo J Deveau is a former public librarian, now author, freelance researcher, newspaper columnist, commentator and speaker. He is a director of the Halifax Military Heritage Preservation Society, a member of the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia, a member of the Creative NonFiction Collective (CFNC), the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society and the Royal United Services Institute (Nova Scotia branch).
John J. Guiney Yallop is a Two-Spirited writer and academic. His writing and research includes poetic inquiry and narrative inquiry. John is interested in stories of lived experience, identities, emotions, communities and gratitude. His most recent book is OUT of Place.
Gwen has been a writer and editor since Justin Trudeau was a babe in arms. Long ago, she published poems and short stories but did not make enough money to eat, let alone drink. She wrote three history books: Once Upon a Mine, For Love of Stone and Gesner’s Dream. Never heard of them? You’re not alone. It took a while, but Gwen finally realized that book royalties would not pay the rent.
She thereafter began a thirty-year career that saw her authoring or editing heavy scientific tomes, lively political speeches, boring government reports and million-dollar grant proposals for clients across Canada. These days, she conducts self-editing workshops for professionals and, as a sideline, writes essays that articulate the life-patterns she sees everywhere. She’s also writing a non-fiction book, The Solace of Stone©, that explores how rocks (which she feels are sentient beings with memories) embody our personal and collective yearning for mystery and transcendence.
Gwen has a B.Sc. from University of Toronto (geology) and diplomas from The Banff Centre (creative writing; arts journalism). Apart from that, her education has come from life: she’s been a ballet school piano player, seamstress, lounge singer, arts journalist, geo-magazine editor, desktop publisher, freight train jumper, prospector, geologist, project manager, executive director for a provincial writers’ federation, geotourism guide, writing/editing workshop facilitator, and science teacher. Gwen is also a professional member with The Writers’ Union of Canada and the Canadian Freelance Guild.
A writer, Queer activist and community historian of Acadian and Newfoundland heritage, Robin Metcalfe has published journalism, cultural criticism, short fiction and poetry in international periodicals and anthologies. He won the 2000 Evelyn Richardson Prize for Non-Fiction and was shortlisted for a National Magazine Award in 2004. He lives in Weijuik/Sheet Harbour Passage.
Pronouns: he, him
Jeff Miller is the author of Ghost Pine: All Stories True (Invisible Publishing). His stories have appeared in several anthologies and he frequently publishes cultural journalism. A longtime resident of Montreal, he recently moved to the Eastern Shore.
The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia is based in Kjipuktuk, in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. This territory is covered by the “Treaties of Peace and Friendship,” which Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) Peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1725.
The treaties do not deal with surrender of lands and resources but in fact recognize Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) title and establish the rules for an ongoing relationship between nations.
© Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, 2021. All rights reserved.
