Nonfiction (adult)

Wanda Campbell

Wanda Campbell was born and grew up in Andhra Pradesh, South India. She completed a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing at the University of Windsor under the supervision of Alistair MacLeod, and a PhD in Canadian Literature at the University of Western Ontario. She now teaches Creative Writing and Literature at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

Wanda Campbell has published six collections of poetry, most recently Spring Theory (Pottersfield Press 2025), a title inspired by her poem “String Theory,” a finalist for the 2024 Montreal International Poetry Prize. Her other five collections are Kalamkari and Cordillera, Daedalus Had a Daughter, Grace, Looking for Lucy, and Sky Fishing, as well as a chapbook, Haw [Thorn]. Campbell’s debut novel Hat Girl, winner of the 2010 H.R. Percy Prize in the WFNS Atlantic Writing Competition, was published in 2013 by Signature Editions. Her work appears in several anthologies including the 2024 Montreal International Poetry Prize Anthology, Landmarks: An Anthology of New Atlantic Canadian Poetry of the Land, and Body Language, and in literary journals across Canada including Antigonish Review, Between the Lines, Contemporary Verse II, Dalhousie Review, Descant, Driftwood, existere, Fiddlehead, Gaspereau Review, Grain, Harpweaver, New Quarterly, Northern Cardinal Review, Queen’s Quarterly, Room, Vallum, Wascana Review, and Windsor Review. She has also edited books on Early Canadian Women Poets and on Bronwen Wallace. She has given readings from St. John’s to Victoria and always welcomes the opportunity to share her passion for poetry and fiction with others.

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Richard Charlton

Richard Charlton is originally from Newcastle upon Tyne, England. After five years in Nairobi, Kenya, in East Africa, he finally emigrated to Canada in 1975 with wife June and their three children: Joanne, John and James, settling in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Richard is a professional electrical engineer with a variety of extracurricular writing and dramatic productions to his credit, spanning many years with many published and performed works. He recently created the Kippernickker Adventure Stories for his grandchildren in California who asked for the stories so often he decided to write them all down. There are now ten stories in all, published through Little Fishes Publishing. Check the website for details

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Lesley Choyce

Lesley teaches part-time at Dalhousie University, runs Pottersfield Press and has published over 86 books for adults and kids. His Young Adult novels concern things like skateboarding, surfing, racism, environmental issues, organ transplants, and rock bands. Lesley surfs year round in the North Atlantic and is considered the father of transcendental wood-splitting. He’s worked as a rehab counsellor, a freight hauler, a corn farmer, a janitor, a journalist, a lead guitarist, a newspaper boy and a well-digger. He lives at Lawrencetown Beach overlooking the ocean. He also hosts a nationally syndicated TV talk show on Vision TV. His recent novel, Cold Clear Morning, is currently being developed as a feature length movie. In 2002, Goose Lane Editions published Choyce’s best-selling circumferential history book, The Coasts of Canada. That same year, his animal epic film, The Skunk Whisperer, was broadcast across Canada and heralded at the Maine International Film Festival. Along with the Surf Poets, he has released two poetry/music albums, Long Lost Planet and Sea Level.

To read excerpts from Lesley’s books and download free samples of his music, visit www.lesleychoyce.com.

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Carol Ann Cole C.M.

Carol Ann Cole is a best-selling author with four non fiction books and a growing number of novels in The Paradise Series. In July 2020 Paradise on the Morrow, third fiction in the Series was published by Moose House Press in Granville Ferry, Nova Scotia. www.moosehousepress.com .(Publisher Brenda Thompson/Editor Andrew Wetmore)

Paradise on the Morrow: Although they are half a world apart, Paradise and Thomas are joined by trouble after trouble. Will the mountain of troubles divide them forever?

Paradise has unpleasant discoveries about the police officers she works with in rural Nova Scotia, and puzzles to solve about her dad and daughter. Pops is acting increasingly mysterious, and Hope is in a tangle of teenage temptations.

In Hawaii, Thomas is single-parenting T.J. while trying to help Wikolia through her hospital stay and keep their private-detective business afloat. There is something odd going on among the crew at 2.0, too.

Carol Ann has received the Order of Canada, the Golden and Silver Jubilee Medals, the Terry Fox Citation of Honour, the elite Maclean’s Honour Role and numerous other awards. Carol Ann is profiled in ‘Canadian Who’s Who’ and in the 2005 edition of ‘1000 Great Women of the 21st Century,’ published by the American Biographical Institute in Raleigh, North Carolina. Carol Ann is the founder of The Comfort Heart Initiative and has raised over one and one half million dollars for cancer research through the Canadian Cancer Society.

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John Bell

John Bell is the author or editor of more than twenty books touching on various aspects of Canadian history and culture. A former editor of the poetry magazine Arc, he has contributed to a wide variety of periodicals, including Literary Review of Canada, Event, This Magazine, and Canadian Literature. His work has also appeared in numerous anthologies and collections. In addition, he has given readings and lectured on cultural history in many different venues and has served as the curator of several exhibitions and websites for the Canadian Museum of Caricature, the National Library, and the National Archives. He lives in Lunenburg.

The late Malcolm Ross, one of Canada’s most renowned literary scholars, offered the following description of John’s work: “John Bell is a unique figure in our literary landscape. He goes his own way and is more likely to create fashions than to follow them.”

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Paul W Bennett

Paul W. Bennett, Ed.D. (OISE/Toronto) is a Halifax author, professor, and commentator. He is the author of ten books, most recently The State of the System: A Reality Check on Canada’s Schools (2020). He’s an education columnist for Saltwire Network and Brunswick News and a regular contributor to The National Post, The Globe and Mail, and Post Media regional papers across Canada. His book reviews appear regularly in The Literary Review of Canada.

Paul is founding Director of Schoolhouse Institute, and Adjunct Professor of Education at Saint Mary’s University. Over a career spanning four decades in three different provinces, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia, Dr. Bennett has written or co-authored ten b ooks, sixteen major education policy studies, and dozens of articles in both the popular media and the academic press.

Dr. Bennett is a widely recognized leader and commentator in Canadian education. From 1997 until 2009, Paul served as Headmaster of two of Canada’s leading independent coeducational day schools, Halifax Grammar School and Lower Canada College. Since 20009, he’s devoted his time and energy to the cause of public education reform. His Blog, Educhatter, was honoured as the Top Education Blog in Canada in 2018 and 2022.

Paul is also a public-spirited and active citizen. He served as Chair of the Board of the Halifax Public Libraries (2010-17) and guided the development and opening of Halifax Central Library. From 2011 to 2016, he served as President of the Halifax Branch of the Canadian International Council, then as Board Chair at Churchill Academy in Dartmouth (2016-2022). For the past six years, he’s been National Coordinator of researchED Canada, guiding its development from coast-to-coast.

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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.

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Søren Bondrup-Nielsen

Søren Bondrup-Nielsen was born in Denmark, but at the age of 13 his family immigrated to Canada. After a year in Toronto they moved into the country, and as a teenager, Søren spent as much time as he could outdoors. His outdoor interests eventually led to a PhD in Zoology from the University of Alberta. Søren moved to Nova Scotia in 1989 where he joined the Biology Department at Acadia University, teaching Ecology and Conservation Biology.

Søren is passionate about the outdoors and how we humans relate to nature. With many scientific articles and edited books dealing with ecology and conservation, Søren tackled writing for the general public with the publication of “Winter on Diamond: An encounter with the Temagami Wilderness”, which was published through Res Telluris in December 2004. In 2008 Gaspereau Press published Winter Nature. Common Mammals, Birds, Trees and Shrubs of the Maritimes. In 2009 Gaspereau Press published Søren’s third book A Sound Like Water Dripping: In Search of the Boreal Owl.

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Don Aker

A former high school teacher, literacy mentor, and university instructor, Don Aker fell into writing in 1988 after attending the Martha’s Vineyard Summer Writing Workshops, where instructors encouraged participants to write with their students. Encouraged by winning the short fiction and nonfiction categories of the 1989 and 1990 WFNS Atlantic Writing Competitions as well as Canadian Living’s 1990 National Literary Competition, Don went on to publish numerous stories and articles and has written more than 20 books.

Because he taught hundreds of teenagers during his teaching career, it isn’t surprising that young adults are the focus of most of his work. What subjects does he choose to write about? “Things that bother me, that don’t go away,” he says. For example, Don wrote his first novel after a student shared with him that she was being physically abused by her father. Of Things Not Seen tells the story of sixteen-year-old Ben Corbett, who, along with his mother, is physically abused by his domineering stepfather. Besides domestic violence, Don’s novels have focused on peer pressure, bullying, youth crime, suicide, sexuality, teen gambling, and a variety of other social issues. However, he is quick to point out that the strongest stories are never about issues or events–“They’re about how characters are affected by those issues and events.”

Don holds a Master of Education from Acadia University and, besides working as an educator and writer, he has been a freelance reviewer and consultant for various educational publishers, including Nelson Education, Pembroke Publishers, and Pearson Education. He has written several books for classroom use, among them Hitting the Mark: Assessment Tools for Teachers (Pembroke, 1995) and a series of language arts texts for grades 8 to 11 (Nelson Education), and he has had articles and fiction published in The International Journal of Reading, Quill & Quire, Books in Canada, Canadian Living, The Toronto Star, Our Family Magazine, The Pottersfield Portfolio, Dandelion Magazine, The Chronicle Herald, and various anthologies.

The father of two daughters, Don lives with his wife in Bedford.

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John Wall Barger

After a few years in the U.S., John Wall Barger grew up in Nova Scotia, and then moved away to Vancouver, Ottawa, Rome, Prague, and Dublin. He lived in the north end of Halifax for many years.

He is the author of six collections of poems. His book of essays on poetics and film, The Elephant of Silence, comes out in spring 2024 with LSU Press. He’s a contract editor for Frontenac House, lives in Vermont, and lectures in the Writing Program at Dartmouth College.

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