Nonfiction (adult)

Basma Kavanagh

Basma Kavanagh is a poet, visual artist, and letterpress printer who lives and works in Nova Scotia, in Mi’kma’ki. She produces artist’s books under the imprint Rabbit Square Books. She has published two collections of poetry, Distillō (Gaspereau, 2012), and Niche (Frontenac, 2015), which won the 2016 Lansdowne Prize for Poetry, and was a finalist for the 2019 NS Masterworks Arts Award. The book-length poem, Ruba’iyat for the Time of Apricots (Frontenac 2018), was shortlisted for the 2019 J.M. Abraham Poetry award, and won the Book Publishers Association of Alberta’s Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry Book of the Year. Basma has taught workshops and courses on poetry, printmaking, bookbinding, and letterpress, and has formally and informally mentored emerging artists and writers. She has been an artist in residence at the Penland School of Crafts, the Banff Centre, and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.

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Leo J. Deveau

Leo J Deveau is a former public librarian, now author, freelance researcher, newspaper columnist, commentator and speaker. He is a director of the Halifax Military Heritage Preservation Society, a member of the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia, a member of the Creative NonFiction Collective (CFNC), the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society and the Royal United Services Institute (Nova Scotia branch).

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Suzanne Stewart

Having completed a Ph.D. in English literature (with a specialization in the Romantic Period) at the University of Saskatchewan, Suzanne also holds an M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from the University of King’s College in Halifax.  She lives and writes in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where she teaches (part-time) at St. Francis Xavier University in the Department of English, as she shares her delight and passion for books with young readers and writers. When not writing, reading, or teaching, Suzanne spends her time outdoors; her journeys into the countryside, during all four seasons, inspire and shape her aesthetic experience of the world.

 

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Chad Lucas

Chad Lucas has been in love with words since he attempted his first novel on a typewriter in the sixth grade. He has worked as a newspaper reporter, communications advisor, freelance writer, part-time journalism instructor, and parenting columnist.

His work has appeared in publications including Halifax Magazine, Black to Business, Sport Quarterly and The Chronicle Herald, where he wrote a biweekly column, “Life With Kids,” from 2011-2016. He’s a previous Silver Award winner at the Atlantic Journalism Awards, and his short fiction has appeared in EVENT and The Dalhousie Review.

A proud descendant of the historic African Nova Scotian community of Lucasville, Chad lives with his family in Nova Scotia. His debut middle grade novel, Thanks a Lot, Universe (Amulet Books/Abrams Kids) is a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and earned praise as “heartwarming and bold” in a starred review from Kirkus Reviews and “funny and deeply empathetic” in a starred review from School Library Journal. His second middle grade novel, Let The Monster Out, releases in May 2022.

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John J. Guiney Yallop

John J. Guiney Yallop is a Two-Spirited writer and academic. His writing and research includes poetic inquiry and narrative inquiry. John is interested in stories of lived experience, identities, emotions, communities and gratitude. His most recent book is OUT of Place.

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Whitney Moran

As the managing editor of Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press, Atlantic Canada’s largest independent publishing house, Whitney has over ten years’ experience reviewing, critiquing, and acquiring submissions for publication. She also regularly produces developmental, substantive, line, and copy edits for hundreds of novels, from mystery and thriller to literary fiction, as well as middle-grade and young adult fiction. Her authors have produced critically acclaimed and award-winning books, among them Sheree Fitch, Rebecca Thomas, Briana Corr Scott, Jo Treggiari, Tom Ryan, Harriet Alida Lye, Stephens Gerard Malone, and Alan Syliboy.

Whitney is particularly interested in stories that centre women, nonbinary, and non-gender-comforting characters, and subject matter that challenges romantic and bucolic representations of Atlantic Canada, and celebrate voices and stories from communities historically underrepresented in publishing.

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Robin Metcalfe

A writer, Queer activist and community historian of Acadian and Newfoundland heritage, Robin Metcalfe has published journalism, cultural criticism, short fiction and poetry in international periodicals and anthologies. He won the 2000 Evelyn Richardson Prize for Non-Fiction and was shortlisted for a National Magazine Award in 2004. He lives in Weijuik/Sheet Harbour Passage.

Pronouns: he, him

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Jeff Miller

Jeff Miller is the author of the award-winning creative nonfiction collection Ghost Pine: All Stories True (Invisible Publishing). His stories have appeared in several anthologies and he frequently publishes criticism. He holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia. As a creative writing educator, he has lead workshops in Montreal, Halifax, and Calgary, and worked as a high-school writing mentor and university teaching assistant. He lives on the Eastern Shore.

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Nina Newington

Nina Newington’s first novel, Where Bones Dance, won the Writers’ Guild of Alberta Georges Bugnet Award for Novel in 2008. Guernica Press is publishing her second novel, Cardinal Divide, in September 2020. She is currently finishing a memoir about living illegally in the US for twenty years.

A former Kennedy scholar with an MA in English Literature from Cambridge, she makes her living designing gardens and building things. She is an active member of Extinction Rebellion in Annapolis County. English by birth, she and her American wife immigrated to Canada in 2006. They raise sheep on unceded Mi’kmaw territory near the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia.

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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 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