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Poetry (adult)

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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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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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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Rosalie Osmond

Rosalie Osmond is a writer and lecturer who was educated at institutions in three countries (Acadia University, Bryn Mawr College, and Cambridge University) and has spent her life divided between the two sides of the Atlantic. She has taught English literature in universities in both Canada and the U.K. In 2009 she and her husband returned to her hometown of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, thus giving a certain symmetry to an otherwise rather haphazard career.

She has published five books—three histories of ideas and two works of fiction—as well as numerous articles, both academic and popular. At present she is working on a sequel to her first two novels. Since winning the 2019 Rita Joe Poetry prize, she has also been encouraged to continue writing poems.

She has three children and six grandchildren, all of whom love to visit Nova Scotia in the summer. When not writing she is usually engaged in one or her other two passions—music and gardening.

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Andy Verboom

Andy Verboom is publisher of Collusion Books, co-founding editor of long con magazine, and author of six poetry chapbooks, most recently DBL (knife fork book, 2020).

His poetry has won Frog Hollow’s Chapbook Contest and Descant’s Winston Collins Prize, been shortlisted for CV2’s Young Buck Prize and Arc’s Poem of the Year, and appeared in CAROUSEL, Prism, The Puritan, Vallum, and elsewhere.

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Thibault Jacquot-Paratte

From the Annapolis Valley. Travelled across North Amrica, Europe, India, Japan, Cameroon, Tunisia. Bachelor’s of Nordic studies from the Sorbonne in 2015, Master’s in sociology in 2017; year of study in Tromsø, Norway, Study certificates from the University of Vaasa (Fi.), and The Askov Folkehøjskole (DK.).

Started publishing poetry in 2010, has since published poetry, short stories, essays, and theatre in both English and French, in Canada, Europe and India. His first three plays were published in Paris in 2016-2017; first poetry collection in Allahabad in 2020. In 2017, co-directed and co-wrote one film (Danish-Estonian coproduction). Also a musician and a songwriter, has had the opportunity to play in Canada, France, Germany, Norway, Denmark, India and japan, and has produced multiple recordings. He has also been invited as an official poet to certain events, such as one of the official poets of the SNA at the 2019 CMA, in Moncton. His published work ranges across almost all genres – realism, fantasy, absurdism, abstract prose, poetry…

Thibault Jacquot-Paratte – Wikipedia

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Tim Covell

Tim lived in various areas of British Columbia and Ontario before moving to Nova Scotia. A part-time student for more than thirty years, and still taking courses, he has degrees in English Literature, Film Studies, and Canadian Studies. He researches film classification systems, and has published three academic papers, including an international study of how film classification agencies accommodate children’s participation rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Other publications include poetry, personal essays, short humour, biographies, and film reviews. He published his first romance novel, Ocean’s Lure, in 2021, and is working on more romance novels. He is a member of Romance Writers of America, Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada, The American Copy Editors Society, and the Open Heart Forgery poetry cooperative. His day job is technical writer for a software company. More at www.covell.ca

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Dian Day

Dian Day is the author of the award-winning novels The Clock of Heaven (Inanna, 2008) and The Madrigal (Inanna, 2018). Her third book, Shy Cat, is the first in a graphic novel series for middle grade readers, with artist Amanda White (Second Story Press, 2026). Dian recently completed a doctoral degree in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University in work focused on the portrayal of poverty and food insecurity in children’s fiction.

Dian is at work on her first YA book, Air Holes, and her fourth novel for adults, Reason. She lives and writes in Nalikitquniejk/Antigonish.

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Linda H.Y. Hegland

Linda H.Y. Hegland is an award-winning lyric essay, short story and poetry writer, and photographer who lives in Bridgetown, Nova Scotia, Canada. Her writing and photos most often reflect the influence of place, and one’s relationship with it. She has published in several literary and art journals, and has had work nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She says this of her writing:

 

My writing practice is an inquiry into the the landscape of the body, geographical landscape, place, memory, narrative, and meaning. I intend that my writing will unearth truths and help me to taste, in retrospection, the essence of what it was to live that moment – that small story. I write to give voice to unspoken memories, to unspoken experience.

 

These memories, physical and emotional, the communal history, the memories marked on our bodies – they tell stories. Some stark, some catastrophic, some just detours, footnotes. Some are our runes.

 

I am deeply moved by the ways in which longing, and being lost, and the attempt to find a definition of one’s self inspire the art. My writing originates from a place of expressing authentic voice.

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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