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Nonfiction (adult)

Jessica Joy Hiemstra

Jessica Joy Hiemstra is a visual artist, writer and designer living in Gunning Cove, Shelburne County, Mi’kma’ki.  When she’s not gardening or writing, she’s drawing. She especially loves to make hand-drawn animations.  At the moment she’s making drawings to accompany 41 short poems from writers across the country. These poems, edited by herself and Gillian Sze, will be published by Baseline Press in 2027. A book of essays, written in conversation with the art of Claire Wilks, is expected with Exile Editions in 2026. On the back of that book it says: don’t tell me I cannot love. 

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Shelagh Meagher

My work was first published in 1995 with a garden design book. I subsequently studied fiction at Humber College in their summer course and through a writers workshop in Geneva. My first two novels, ‘Colour Studies’ and ‘Pearls in the Ashes’ were mentored by Sarah Sheard and Karen Connelly, respectively, through the Humber College 8-month mentorship program available at that time.

My writing skills have been developed through the writing, editing, and completion of my first three novels with invaluable feedback given by editors, mentors and readers for each one.

I’m an experienced presenter at all levels, including a TEDX talk (viewable on my website).

I’ve lived in Toronto, London (England), Milan, Geneva and Detroit. I moved to LaHave, Nova Scotia in 2015.

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Kathy Mac

Kathy Mac (she/her) has published three books of poetry (Roseway Publishing), two books on the craft of writing (Wording Around Press), and, as Dr. Kathleen McConnell, a book of essays (Wolsak and Wynn Publishers). Her work has been a finalist for several Canadian national and regional awards, and even won some of them.

 

After 22 years teaching creative writing at St Thomas University in Fredericton New Brunswick, Mac is delighted to be back in Nova Scotia. She lives in Nme’kaqnuk (Sambro Head) near Halifax in the unceded traditional territory of the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy peoples.

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Melissa Kuipers

Melissa Kuipers (she/her) is a writer of fiction and creative non-fiction. Her book, The Whole Beautiful World, was published in 2017 with Brindle & Glass. Her fiction has been published in literary journals such as Joyland, Ryga, Ex-Puritan, and The Rusty Toque. She has personal essays in publications like The New Quarterly, Room, Plough, and The Ottawa Arts Review. She has taught creative writing extensively, both in high school and universities, has mentored emerging writers and has led multiple writing workshops. She received her Masters in the Field of Creative Writing from University of Toronto.

Raised on a chicken farm in Southern Ontario/Anishinabewaki, Melissa now resides in eastern Nova Scotia/Epekwitk aq Piktuk with her husband and two children.

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Norma Shephard

‘Why We Remember‘

The personal and domestic side of war is often revealed in War letters. My presentations on the importance of firsthand accounts and the digitalization of hand-written accounts is ideal for Remembrance Day observations and/or Canadian History studies. Access to my full media kit on the book Dear Harry; A Canadian War Story Told Through Letters, can be found here.

‘Social History Relevance Revealed Through Material Artifacts’ 

As the director of the Mobile Millinery Museum, I have been educating students, seniors, and others on Canadian Social History through the use of those most personal of historic artefacts: clothing and accessories. Examples of the available presentation topics, which we adapt for student audiences, can be seen in the Museum Presentations Information Kit.

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Gina N. Brown

Gina N. Brown has written three novels: Pickled in Love (2025), The Sugar Bowl Feud (2024) and Lucy McGee’s Moment of Truth (2021). She also edited and published a memoir for her late husband, Robert Crockett.

A graduate of the Mount St. Vincent University public relations program, she pursued a career in music, film, advertising, museums, education and special events. Her freelance writing includes travel and lifestyle articles in Canadian Living Magazine, the Globe and Mail, the Chronicle Herald and Saltwire. Examples of her published pieces can be found at novaheartmedia.com.

Gina has attended writing workshops and retreats at the Arvon Foundation in England; Taddle Creek at the University of Toronto; and Master Classes at the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto. She also co-founded writer groups in Toronto, and in Halifax, now in its 12th year. As a creative writer, she’s placed as a finalist or notable entry in five international writing competitions.

In 2019, after a lengthy career as a marketing specialist, she launched an independent publishing platform, NovaHeart Media. In addition to her writing, she offers writing workshops for new and established writers and provides consulting services for independent writers. As a way of giving back and engaging with the community, she has mentored more than a dozen youth and emerging writers.

Gina has traveled to 35 countries and has lived in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Birmingham, England. In 2004, she returned to her home port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she loves to swim, skate, canoe, hike, cycle, and do yoga.

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Claire Horn

Claire Horn is a Dartmouth-based writer and researcher. She has a PhD in law and has researched and taught in the area of law and policy governing sexual and reproductive health, rights, and technologies for six years. Her nonfiction work has appeared in Aeon, Narratively, Entropy, the Walrus, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Nursing Clio, and the Penguin young adult anthology Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and Other Lies. Her first book, Eve: The Disobedient Future of Birth, was longlisted for the Science Writers and Communicators of Canada Book Award.

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Clare Goulet

Writer of essays, poems, stories and hybrid forms; editor/consultant for academic and literary manuscripts in arts and sciences. My latest book is Graphis scripta: writing lichen (Gaspereau Press 2024). Research passions are metaphor, biopoetics, polyphony, & hybrid scholarly-creative-botanical forms.

I teach undergrad courses in creative writing and editing at the Mount, where I run its Writing Centre and collaborate with diverse partners on and off campus. First adjunct faculty to win its university-wide faculty teaching award. As an educator I aim for transformative, inclusive learning experiences.

As a British/québécoise hybrid, raised in a mixed-race family, schooled in different countries, please don’t ask me where I’m from! I survive my writing deadlines with wildly bad dancing. Total lichen obsessive.

In my writing workshops for adults and youth, I love renewing a person’s relationship to their own writing practice.

I live in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, Nova Scotia, on a road that escapes into trail and woods and ocean along the Northwest Arm.

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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