Habiba Diallo is the author of #BlackInSchool. She is the inaugural winner of the Senator Don Oliver Black Voices prize and was a finalist in the 2020 Bristol Short Story Prize. She was also one of six finalists in the 2018 London Book Fair Pitch Competition. She is a women’s health advocate passionate about bringing an end to a maternal health condition called obstetric fistula. You can find her on X, Facebook, and YouTube @haalabeeba
Joanne Gallant is a writer and registered nurse living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her debut book, A Womb in the Shape of a Heart: My Story of Miscarriage and Motherhood (Nimbus Publishing, 2021) was nominated for the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award. She’s had essays published in ‘Mutha Magazine’ (2021) and ‘Oh Reader Magazine’ (2021), and her book reviews have been featured in The Miramichi Reader.
Joanne was raised in Fall River, Nova Scotia by her parents, both schoolteachers, who created a home-life centered around curiosity and storytelling. Her father, a Guyanese immigrant, often shared memories from his childhood to Joanne and her siblings. He told stories about wild turtles and monkeys roaming the streets of Georgetown, and days spent eating stalks of sugarcane plucked from the side of the road. Joanne’s mother, an English teacher, made regular trips to the library where she could find the perfect book for anyone. A deeply creative person, she often crafted poems to make her family laugh and made beautiful paintings as gifts.
Joanne obtained a Biology degree from Mount Allison University in 2008 and a Nursing degree from the University of Alberta in 2011. She has been working as a registered nurse at the IWK Health Centre since 2012 and her work as a pediatric nurse continues to be challenging, fulfilling, and her experiences as a nurse teaches her so much about life.
Although Joanne went into nursing as her profession, she has always been a writer working on stories and poems that she mostly kept to herself. She kept a diary from the time she was nine years old until she was an adult, and writing has always been a way for her to process anything she was struggling with. Following a difficult journey to motherhood, having endured multiple miscarriages, Joanne turned to the familiar comfort of writing to cope with the grief and loss she experienced. It was these pages of writing that would later turn into her debut book. Since she began writing her story, Joanne has spoken about miscarriages on TV and radio interviews, podcasts, and online, hoping to give voice to others who may also struggling and to normalize the conversation about disenfranchised grief.
Joanne was an apprentice writer in the 2020 Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program and worked under the guidance of author and poet Carole Glasser Langille. She’s participated in workshops led by local writers including Stephanie Domet and Michelle Butler Hallett, and is always looking for ways to connect with the Atlantic Canada writing community. Some of her favourite books from local authors published in the last year include The Sister’s Tale by Beth Powning, Beneath Her Skin by C.S. Porter, and Alexander MacLeod’s latest collection, Animal Person.
Joanne has recently taken up sewing with her grandmother’s antique sewing machine and each spring she tries in vain to grow tomatoes from seed. She lives near the ocean with her husband, their five-year-old-son, and spirited dog, Maddy.
My interest is in researching and writing historical fiction and non-fiction. My book, William Forsyth: Land of Hopes and Dreams – a story from early Nova Scotia, was published in 2021 and my second book has the working title Traitors, Cannibals, Highlanders, and Vikings. It’s about the people who came to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in the 1700s and early 1800s. It is due to be published in March 2023.
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Joe Britto was born in the UK and now lives in Nova Scotia where he works as a writing and mindset coach.
Joe writes upmarket fiction about the complexity of the human condition, and explores themes such as self-deception, discrimination, and the beauty and tenderness that come from being human.
He has two books published: one novel: Worth, A Story of Love and Self-Esteem (New World Publishing, 2000); and one non-fiction business book, The Six Attributes of a Leadership Mindset (Crown House Publishing, 2019). He has also published articles on mindset for various magazines including Training Industry and HR Gazette.
Joe holds a BA in English with a minor in creative writing, and an MA in modern and contemporary literature. He has won the Jane Law Shaw Scholarship for demonstrated ability in the arts, and placed second in the Hisa-Marshall Literary Prize from St Mary’s University, Halifax.
He has presented work for the ILA and CIPD in the UK and given readings at Chapters/Indigo in Canada. A member of the Nova Scotia Writers’ Council, Joe is currently serving on the Board of the Afterwords Literary Festival. He is the founding member Writer’s Together and teaches creative writing for the Halifax Library.
Joe’s is currently shopping his newest novel, and is working on his second upmarket book club novel.
Michelle Wamboldt was born and raised in Truro, Nova Scotia. She is a graduate of Dalhousie University and the Humber School of Journalism in Toronto.
Her debut novel, Birth Road, was released in April 2022. In 2024 Birth Road was nominated for the Nova Scotia Book Award’s Margaret & John Savage First Book Award. Michelle’s short fiction has appeared in The Dalhousie Review and Moose House Publication’s, Blink and You’ll Miss It, Vol II.
Michelle lives on the beautiful South Shore of Nova Scotia.
Denise Flint is a freelance journalist by day and romance writer by night (under the pen name Barbara Burke). Since her early days working for a rural weekly newspaper she has written hundreds of articles for newspapers and magazines across the country. A true dilettante she refuses to be tied down to one subject and has learned a little bit about a whole lot of things while admitting general ignorance about pretty much everything.
She’s lived in the heart of a big city, the middle of nowhere and, for a brief spell, the suburbs. She gave up her last home, a cedar shack overlooking the North Atlantic, for a 160 year old farm house on the north shore of Nova Scotia. She has lived in three countries and five provinces and will never miss an opportunity to jump on a plane or train. She also loves road trips and cats (although not together).
Born in England to a teamster’s son and a coal miner’s daughter, G. M. (Mark) Baker now lives in Nova Scotia with his wife, no dogs, no horses, and no chickens. He prefers driving to flying, desert vistas to pointy trees, and quiet towns to bustling cities. As a reader and as a writer, he does not believe in confining himself to one genre. He writes about kind abbesses and melancholy kings, about elf maidens and ship wreckers and shy falconers, about great beauties and their plain sisters, about sinners and saints and ordinary eccentrics. In his newsletter Stories All the Way Down, he discusses history, literature, the nature of story, and how not to market a novel.
Rebecca Rose is the author of Before the Parade: A History of Halifax’s Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Communities (1972-1984), published by Nimbus Publishing. Before the Parade is a narrative non-fiction account of 2SLGB community and activism of 1970s and 80s Halifax/K’jipuktuk and features over 30 interviews with local 2SLGB elders. Rebecca was shortlisted for The Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award for Before the Parade in 2021.
Rebecca is a sought after speaker and has hosted workshops or given keynote speeches for groups including: The MacPhee Centre For Creative Learning, the Nova Scotia Secondary School Students’ Association (NSSSA), the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the Toronto Metropolitan University School of Journalism, the Canadian Association of Labour Media (CALM), the Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Project, the Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group (NSPIRG), and the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
A graduate of the Toronto Metropolitan University School of Journalism, Rebecca has written for publications such as: The Coast, Xtra, OurTimes magazine, Rabble.ca, and OUT: Queer Looking, Queer Acting Revisited. In 2018, The Coast named the 2016 article “Before the Parade” one of the 30 most important things they’ve ever published.
Born in Cape Breton and raised in Dartmouth, Rebecca now lives in the hills of Dartmouth with her partner and cat.
Michelle has an MFA in creative non-fiction from the University of King’s College, a degree in journalism, and training and experience in community social work. She combined her journalism skills with her love of history and passion for social justice to write her first non-fiction book, Enriched by Catastrophe: Social Work and Social Conflict after the Halifax Explosion, published by Fernwood in 2007. The Toronto Star named her debut novel, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic (Vagrant 2024), one of the 20 ‘Must Read’ books of Summer 2024. Her debut memoir, A Good Girl’s Guide to Lying: Losing my Memories, Searching for Truth, & Living with Dissociative Amnesia, will be published by Nimbus in Fall 2026.
Michelle combines her social work and writing skills to offer services for writers. This includes supporting memoirists as they write about difficult subjects, helping writers struggling with imposter syndrome or writer’s block, and guiding writers to go deeper into themselves and their stories. Find out more at her website, michellehebertwrites.com
Michelle lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia/Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. She posts about writing, mental health, cake, and her cats on Bluesky (@hfxwordy) and Instagram (michelle.hebert.writes).
Author of a children’s picture book and two books of nonfiction for adults
Freelance magazine writer
Substitute Teacher, elementary school
Licensed lay worship leader, United Church of Canada
Bachelor of Arts (honours) English and Bachelor of Education from Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) uses the following terms to describe writers’ experience levels:
Please keep in mind that each form of creative writing (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, writing for children and 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.
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 information, strategies, and skills that suit their career stage.
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 you’re uncertain of your experience level with regard to any particular workshop, please feel free to contact us at communications@writers.ns.ca
