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Nonfiction (adult)

Chris Benjamin

Chris Benjamin is a freelance journalist and an author of fiction and non-fiction.

He is the author of Chasing Paradise, a memoir, and The Art of Forgiveness: Short Fiction. His previous collection of short stories, Boy With a Problem, was shortlisted for the Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction. His nonfiction book, Indian School Road: Legacies of the Shubenacadie Residential School, won the Dave Greber Freelance Book Prize before being published, was listed by librarians as a Book of Influence, and recently became a Nova Scotia bestseller.

His previous book, Eco-Innovators: Sustainability in Atlantic Canada, won the 2012 Best Atlantic-Published Book Award and was a finalist for the Richardson Non-Fiction Prize. A series of short video documentaries has been made based on the book.

Chris’ novel, Drive-by Saviours, won the H.R. Percy Prize, was longlisted for a ReLit Prize and made the CBC Canada Reads Top Essential Books List.

Chris has written for a long list of magazines and newspapers in Canada and the United States. A few highlights include The Globe and Mail, Science Friday, Z Magazine, Saltscapes, Halifax Magazine, Progress Magazine, and The Coast.

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Emma FitzGerald

Emma FitzGerald was born in Southern Africa to Irish parents and grew up in Vancouver. She has studied both art and architecture, and is the author of Hand Drawn Halifax. She has also illustrated numerous children’s books; EveryBody is Different on EveryBody Street by Sheree Fitch, A Pocket of Time by Rita Wilson, City Streets are for People by Andrea Curtis, and Two Crows by Susan Vande Griek. She lives and draws in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

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Pauline Dakin

I am a journalist who started my career in print with The Telegraph Journal in Saint John, NB and spent most of my career as a health reporter with CBC National News and as the host of the documentary program Atlantic Voice at CBC Nova Scotia. I now teach in the School of Journalism at the University of King’s College in Halifax.

Run, Hide, Repeat: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood (Viking/Penguin Random House Canada: 2017) is my first book. It won the 2018 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction. It was also named one of the best 100 books of 2017 by The Globe and Mail, and was shortlisted for the BC Book Prize, the Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award, the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award – Non-Fiction.

As part of the book tour to support the launch of Run, Hide, Repeat I was able to do readings across the country.

I am on Twitter at @paulinedakin and look forward to connecting!

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Cate Carlyle

Cate Carlyle is an author and librarian living in Prospect, Nova Scotia. Cate began her career as a teacher and eventually transitioned to work in elementary school, academic and public libraries. Currently the Curriculum Resource Coordinator in the Faculty of Education Library at Mount Saint Vincent University, Cate also reviews children’s and young adult books for CM Magazine: Canadian Review of Materials. Cate’s first book, “Your Passport to International Librarianship” (ALA 2018) chronicled her international volunteer work and she has also had her fictional short stories published with one shortlisted by the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia Nova Writes competition. Cate’s young adult novel “#NotReadyToDie” (Common Deer Press) was relased in 2019.

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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