Nonfiction (adult)

Sue Goyette

Sue Goyette lives in Halifax and has published four books of poems, The True Names of Birds, Undone and outskirts from Brick Books, and Ocean, published by Gaspereau Press in April 2013. Her novel, Lures (HarperCollins), was published in 2002.

Sue has been nominated for several awards including the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, the Pat Lowther, the Gerald Lampert, the Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, the Dartmouth Book Award and the Acorn-Plantos Award for People’s Poetry. Selections of her work won the 2008 CBC Literary Prize for Poetry, the 2010 Earle Birney Award and the 2011 Bliss Carman Poetry Award. She is the recipient of a Nova Scotia Established Artist Award as well as the Pat Lowther and Atlantic Poetry Awards.

Her poetry has appeared on the Toronto subway system, in wedding vows and spray-painted on a sidewalk somewhere in St. John, New Brunswick. Sue has taught at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Sage Hill Experience and currently teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Dalhousie University.

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Monica Graham

Monica Graham is the author of several non-fiction books. Her newest, Senior Moment (Nimbus), an almost-humorous account of finding residential care for her aging mother, came out in the spring of 2021. In the Spirit, Reflections on Everyday Grace, is a collection of some of the best columns she wrote over eight years for the Chronicle Herald religion page. Cradle of Knowledge: Pictou Academy 1816-2016 tells the history of the 200-year-old school. A columnist as well as a freelance journalist and photographer, Monica has had her work published by the Halifax Chronicle Herald, Rural Delivery, Atlantic Business Magazine, The Pictou Advocate, Canadian Living, Trident, The Atlantic Fisherman, and other publications. She is a member of the Writers in the Schools program, and also presents writing and storytelling workshops for adults and literacy groups. Monica served as writer-in-residence at Pictou Antigonish Regional Library in 2011-12; and at Berton House in Dawson City, YT, in 2008. She lives in the woods in Pictou County, NS, with her husband, a dog, and visiting bears, deer and people. between She is working on an historical novel and a collection of short stories.

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Joyce Grant-Smith

Joyce Grant-Smith was born in Annapolis Royal and has spent most of her life in the beautiful Annapolis Valley. She took her B.A. and B.Ed. at Acadia University. She has enjoyed teaching in elementary and middle schools for many years; so many years, in fact, that she’s frequently taught the children of former students. She and her husband, Les, have been married for over thirty years. They have raised two children, Jesse and Alexis, and a large menagerie of animals.

Joyce remembers writing as a small child, composing little notes and poems for family members. Her love for writing grew as she did and she delighted in learning to hone her craft. As an adult author, she has derived special satisfaction from writing for young readers.

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Sylvia Gunnery

Sylvia Gunnery has published many books for teens and children as well as professional resources for teachers of writing. A recipient of a Prime Minister’s Teaching Award, she has presented at conferences, libraries, and schools across Canada. She also enjoys working virtually with adult writers and students through workshops, mentorships, and WITS visits. Road Signs That Say West is her most recent YA novel. Sylvia lives at Crescent Beach on the South Shore of Nova Scotia where she’s working on a YA series of linked stories, what I know about next. https://sylviagunnery.ca

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Sylvia D Hamilton

Sylvia D. Hamilton is a Nova Scotian filmmaker and writer. Through her work as a filmmaker and artist, she has brought the life experiences of African Nova Scotians to the mainstream of Canadian arts. Her first film, Black Mother Black Daughter, has been seen in over forty film festivals throughout North America and Europe, and her films have gone on to win awards and be screened in festivals in Canada, the United States, Europe and the Caribbean. Speak It! From the Heart of Black Nova Scotia received both the 1994 Maeda Prize awarded by the NHK-Japan Broadcasting Corporation, and a 1994-Gemini Award. Her most recent film is Portia White: Think On Me, a documentary about the extraordinary Canadian contralto who was known as Canada? Marian Anderson. It has been widely broadcast on VISION TV, BRAVO! and national and regional CBC TV.

Her writing (literary and non-fiction) has appeared in a variety of Canadian journals and anthologies. She was a contributor to and co-editor of We’re Rooted Here and They Can’t Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women’s History published by the University of Toronto Press in 1993.

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Renée Hartleib

Renée Hartleib is an author, writer, and writing mentor based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Her greatest passion is to help others connect with themselves and bring their creative dreams to life. Her first book, Writing Your Way: A 40-Day Path of Self-Discovery, was published in 2022. And her second book, Solo Camino: An Empowering Guide for Women was published in 2025.

As a writing mentor, Renée considers it an honour to work one-on-one with writers who are completing book drafts or who require a sensitive and thorough review of completed manuscripts.

Renée has also worked as a professional writer and editor for nearly 20 years. Her client list is long and has included the CBC, the National Film Board, the IWK Health Centre, Farmers Cooperative Dairy Limited, The Shaw Group, Saint Mary’s University, and Dalhousie University.

If you join Renée’s online community, you’ll receive inspiring blog posts on a variety of topics.

As a current member of the WFNS Board of Directors and a graduate of both the Humber School of Writers and the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program, Renée is proud to be part of the vibrant writing community of Atlantic Canada.

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Penny Ferguson

Born in 1957 in Storeytown, New Brunswick, Penny Ferguson attended Nova Scotia Teachers College (A.Ed.) and Acadia University (B.Ed., & B.A.). While studying at Acadia, Penny edited Alpha Arts Magazine for three years. She taught full and part-time in public and private schools in Nova Scotia, served as the Writer-in-residence at the N.S.T.C., and visited numerous schools and colleges to give writing workshops. She also participated in many public readings and offered workshops in Canada and in England.

Her poetry, short stories and art work have appeared in publications in Canada, the US and England in The New Quarterly, Room of One’s Own, The Antigonish Review, Cormorant, A Maritime Christmas, New Stories and Memories of the Season (2008), In The Open(Roseway, 1996), The Nashwaak Review, Pottersfield Portfolio, Canadian Author, Minus Tides, Shout and Speak Out Loud, Tulane Review, Poetechniciens, The Gentle Reader and other journals.

Her work has been broadcast on Bragg Community Network TV; CBC Radio Weekend (Nfld.); Ashes, Paper and Beans (radio, NB); Ryerson Radio (Toronto); University of Toronto Radio and BBC (Newcastle, England).

A founding member of The Amethyst Review, Penny also freelanced with Truro Magazine, judged provincial and national poetry and short story competitions and edited two books of poetry. Penny is a past president of the Canadian Poetry Association. She also writes gospel songs, with four CDs to her credit (Going to Live Forever; Let the Rafters Ring; Oh, How the Angels Sang; and On that Day). Let the Rafters Ring (2006), Oh, How the Angels Sang (2006) and On that Day (2007) were nominated by Music Nova Scotia for Inspirational Recording for the Year. She has also published a Senior Adult Choir Christmas Musical (SATB), Follow the Star to Calvary.

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Trudy Fong

Trudy left her native Nova Scotia home for a three year round-the-world journey, writing travel articles all the way. She got sidetracked in Hong Kong and spent over a year working for The Hong Kong Standard, an English language daily in Hong Kong. Finally, she decided to abandon the glitter and tinsel of Asia’s boomtown for downhome hospitality and the good life. Trudy has a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism, a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Bachelor of Arts in French. She speaks several languages.

Trudy has written for a number of regional and national publications, as well as a wide variety of other projects, everything from medical research compendiums and assorted ghost writing/public relations projects, to short stories and a travel book, entitled Off the Beaten Path in the Maritime Provinces. The sixth edition was released in the spring of 2007.

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Greg Cook

Gregory M. Cook was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. As one of three poets in his immediate family, he has made writers and their survival a personal and a professional study. His biography of his close friend of twenty years, One Heart, One Way/ Alden Nowlan: A Writer’s Life, was undertaken following a two-year appointment as writer-in-residence at the University of Waterloo. More recently he has lived in Toronto, Fredericton, and Saint John, New Brunswick, where he is writing a biography of his friend, novelist Ernest Buckler (1908-1984).

Cook has read from his works in schools and universities in all Canadian provinces, and the Yukon where he was in residence at Berton House Writers’ Retreat – as well as in Maine and Georgia, USA; England; the Netherlands; and Germany. He is a member of Writers’ Union of Canada, The League of Canadian Poets and the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick, and an honourary member of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia.

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Wayne Curtis

Wayne Curtis was born near Blackville, New Brunswick in 1943. He was educated at the local schoolhouse and St. Thomas University, majoring in English. He started writing prose in the late sixties. His work has been described by Books in Canada as “a pleasure to read, for no detail escapes his discerning eye.”

He has been a contributor to several newspapers including The National Post and The Globe and Mail, as well as commercial magazines; Quill and Quire, Outdoor Canada, Fly Fishermen, Atlantic Insight, The Atlantic Advocate, The Atlantic Salmon Journal and The New Brunswick Reader. Winner of the David Adams Richards and George Woodcock awards, Wayne’s stories have appeared in literary journals: The Cormorant, Pottersfield Portfolio, Nashwaak Review, Antigonish Review, Origins, Atlantica and New Maritimes. His short stories have been dramatized for CBC Radio and CBC Television. In the spring of 2005 he recieved an Honorary Doctrine Degree (letters) from St. Thomas University. Wayne Curtis has lived in Southern Ontario with stints in Cuba nad the Yukon. He now divides his time between his cabin on the Miramichi and the city of Fredericton.

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