Nonfiction (adult)

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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Deanna Foster

Deanna Foster currently works at Dalhousie University, where she received her BA in History and English. Her first published work, A History of Hangings in Nova Scotia (Pottersfield Press), was a local bestseller. She has also written three novels, Broken Ivy (paranormal), Raven’s Blood (fantasy), and Fortunes of Madness (mystery). Her poetry, articles, short stories and book reviews have been published through Canadian media outlets. She lives with her two boys in Halifax

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Melanie Furlong

Melanie Furlong is full-time journalist who writes for Fine Lifestyles magazines across Canada and the U.S. She freelanced for nearly 15 years for a wide range of North American publications including the Canadian Healthcare Network, The Rotarian, Latitudes In-Flight Magazine, Canadian Contractor, Meetings and Incentive Travel, The Chronicle Herald, The Medical Post, East Coast Living, Atlantic Progress, Nature Canada and Living Healthy in Atlantic Canada.

She was mentored in the 2009/2010 Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia’s Mentorship program by Stephens Gerard Malone. She has studied fiction with Gwen Davies, Russell Barton, Valerie Compton and the Gotham Writers Workshop in NYC.

Melanie holds a Bachelor of Arts from Acadia University, where she majored in Spanish, as well as a Bachelor of Education Teaching English as a Second Language from Brock University. She taught English to adults and children in Finland, England, the Czech Republic and Canada for more than five years before embarking on a writing career.

She published her first novel, The Last Honest Man in Havana, with CreateSpace in August 2015.

She blogs at melaniefurlong.wordpress.com.

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Carolyn Rose Gimian

Carolyn Rose Gimian has made her home in Nova Scotia since 1986. A freelance writer and editor of nonfiction, Carolyn has been published in both magazines and books, including The Best Buddhist Writing 2006, 2007 and 2008; Finding Your Inner Mama: Women Reflect on the Challenges and Rewards of Motherhood; and The Shambhala Sun, Inquiring Mind and other periodicals. In 2008, she co-authored Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa with Diana J. Mukpo. This memoir by the widow of a well-known North American Buddhist teacher received critical praise from the international Buddhist press.

Carolyn is a senior editor of the work of Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa [1939-1987], and in that capacity, she has written hundreds of pages of biographical and textual commentary, which is included in his books. She is the editor of the eight volume Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa, as well as Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior and many other titles. In 2009, two posthumous books by Chogyam Trungpa that Carolyn edited are being published for the first time: Mishap Lineage: Transforming Confusion into Wisdom and Smile at Fear: Awakening the True Heart of Bravery.

Carolyn is the director emeritus of the Shambhala Archives, an institution she helped to establish as a repository for the archival records of many Buddhist teachers in North America. She is a past president of the Council of Nova Scotia Archives and retains an interest in all things archival, with emphasis on the archiving of audio-visual records.

Carolyn’s areas of writing interest include: publishing; biography and memoir; Eastern religion and Buddhism; book reviews; story editing for television and film; archives, conservation and information technology, especially for audio visual records; magazine interviews and profiles, and Atlantic Canadian stories. Carolyn is particularly interested in working with memoir as a vehicle to help people communicate their unique stories and insights. She also enjoys reviewing manuscripts, helping aspiring and seasoned writers to improve their writing skills, and assisting writers in formulating proposals for publications. Her media skills include: copy writing and copy editing, grant and report writing, press releases, publicity and promotion.

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Joyce Glasner

Joyce studied silversmithing at the New Brunswick school of Craft and Design before going on to earn her BA, with honours in English, from Saint Mary’s University. She is a Halifax-based freelance writer, editor and the author of four non-fiction books including The Halifax Explosion: Surviving the Blast that Shook a Nation (Altitude 2003), The Halifax Explosion: Heroes and Survivors (James Lorimer and Company 2011) and Pirates and Privateers: Swashbuckling Stories of the East Coast (James Lorimer and Company 2013). Her creative non-fiction has been included in the anthologies Holiday Misadventures: Tragedy, Murder and Mystery (Altitude 2006), Country Roads: Memoirs from Rural Canada (Nimbus 2010) and Still Point Arts Quarterly (July 2011). Her cover stories, profiles, travel articles and reviews have appeared in regional, national and international publications such as Atlantic Books Today, Canadian Gardening, Canadian Geographic, East Coast Gardener, Harrowsmith Country Life, Lifestyle Nova Scotia, Oferta de Viajes, The Beaver: Canada’s History Magazine, The Coast, The Chronicle Herald and The New Brunswick Reader, among others. Joyce’s interests include art, architecture, fine craft, history, photography, nature, the environment, and travel.

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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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