Poetry (adult)

Lynn Davies

Lynn is the author of three collections of poetry. Her poems have been featured on CBC radio and translated into French and Spanish. Lynn’s poems and stories for children have appeared in anthologies and magazines. Her essays, reviews, and freelance pieces have been published in many magazines and journals.

Lynn was born in Moncton, New Brunswick. She lived in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia for 18 years, and now lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where she works part time at Westminster Books. She’s taught creative writing through Continuing Education in Halifax and Fredericton, at the Maritime Writers’ Workshop, and at the University of New Brunswick. She has served on the WFNS and WFNB executive boards.

For more information about Lynn, her books, and author visits, please visit www.lynndavies.ca or e-mail Lynn at lynn@lynndavies.ca

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Pamela Ditchoff

Pamela Ditchoff was born in Lansing, Michigan on September 21, 1950. She received a BA in Communication Arts from Michigan State University (1982), and an MA in English/Creative Writing from Michigan State University (1985). In the mid-1980s, Ditchoff worked at WFSL-TV47 in Lansing as head copywriter/creative consultant and then as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Michigan State University.During this period, her early fiction and poetry was published in various literary magazines. She taught in elementary and secondary schools with the Writer’s In Schools program, and Interact Press published two of her texts for teachers. In 1993, Ditchoff was recognized in Who’s Who in Writers, Editors & Poets: United States & Canada, 1992-1993 for her significant literary contributions. Ditchoff moved to Liverpool in 2006, and has conducted classes there with WFNS and SCANS.

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Geoff Butler

Geoff Butler is a painter, writer and book illustrator. He was born on Fogo Island, Nfld., near Brimstone Head which has been designated by the Flat Earth Society as one of the four corners of the earth.

Geoff practices his art daily so as not to fall over the edge. He has self-published five books: Art of War: Painting it out of the Picture (1990); The Look of Angels: Angels in Art (2004), a collection of poems, songs, stories, paintings and drawings; and With Every Breath We Take (2007), a modern fable in which a snowflake helps put an end to war; Our Own Little World: in paintings and verse (2013); and One Swallow Makes a Summer Meal: allegories in paintings and verse (2016). Every now and then, he strolls down Alphabet Soup Road to write and illustrate children’s books.

He is a graduate of Memorial University of Newfoundland and Syracuse University. He also studied at the Art Students’ League in New York City. His paintings have been exhibited at, and toured by, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. He has been a visual arts recipient of a Nova Scotia Arts Council Creation grant and a Canada Council Established Artist grant. In 2006, he was elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. He lives in the small village of Granville Ferry, N.S.

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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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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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Christy Ann Conlin

Christy Ann Conlin’s debut novel, Heave, was a national bestseller and one of the Globe and Mail‘s top books of 2002. Her second adult novel, The Memento, will be published by Doubleday in April 2016. Her first YA novella, Dead Time, will be come out with Annick Press in 2011. Her fiction has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Best Canadian Stories. She has a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of British Columbia where she wrote and studied fiction, stage and screenplay writing. She also holds a Bachelor of Education from Acadia University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from the University of Ottawa. Her essays have appeared in numerous publications including Canadian Geographic, Geist and Chatelaine. Christy Ann is also a regular book reviewer for the Globe and Mail and is an online instructor with the University of Toronto. She lives in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

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Blanca Baquero

Blanca Baquero’s origins are Spanish and French. Born in Chicago in 1944 and raised in New York, her family moved to Canada in 1959, making Montreal their new home.

Blanca has been writing for the past fifteen years. Her poetry has been published (in both the English and French languages) in a number of literary magazines, university works, and anthologies in Canada and in the United States. In 2001, the Canadian Authors Association chose two of her poems (Repletus and Child’s Play) to be published in their anthology. In 2001 she was the winner of the literary contest organized by the Salon du Livre de la Côte Nord in the province of Quebec.

For the past seven years the poet has been studying a Japanese form of poetry known as Haïku. In 2002, 2004, and 2005 several of her haïkus were published in Quebec by Les Éditions David of Ottawa. Additional highlights include: honourable mention in the Betty Drevniok Award 2005 organized by Haïku Canada; the publication of two of her haïku in Belgium in 2006; and third place winner in a haïku contest organized in Paris, France by l’Association française haïku.

Blanca is a member of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, The Quebec Writers’ Federation, the League of Canadian Poets, Haïku Canada, Haïku Society of America, and the Association Française de haïku (France).

The writer moved to Nova Scotia in November 2002 and lives on the North Mountain near Canning where she is continually inspired by the pastoral beauty of the Annapolis Valley for her poetry and haïku.

Née à Chicago d’une mère québécoise et d’un père espagnol, Blanca Baquero réside au Canada depuis 1958. Poète anglophone depuis quinze ans, plusieurs de ses poèmes ont été publiés dans des revues littéraires, des anthologies, et des ouvrages universitaires.

En 1997, elle est déménagée à Sept-Iles au Québec. Déterminée à s’intégrer à la population francophone, elle s’est jointe à des ateliers d’écriture en français. Grâce à ces ateliers, elle est tombée amoureuse du haïku. En 2002, 2004 et 2005, elle été publiée par Les Éditions David d’Ottawa dans les recueils dirigé par Francine Chicoine intitulés Dire le nord, Dire la faune et Dire la flore. Haïku Canada lui a décerné une mention honorable dans le concours Betty Drevniok 2005. En 2007, elle a gagné le troisième prix du concours organisé à Paris par l’Association française de haïku.

Blanca Baquero est membre de la Nova Scotia Writers Federation, de la League of Canadian Poets, de la Quebec Writers Federation, de Haïku Canada, de la Haïku Society of America et de l’Association française de haïku en France. Elle habite en Nouvelle-Écosse depuis 2002. Écrire est pour elle un joyeux délire ainsi qu’une véritable aventure.

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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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Brian Bartlett

Brian Bartlett was born in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, in 1953, grew up in Fredericton, lived for 15 years in Montreal, and moved to Halifax in 1990 to teach creative writing and literature at Saint Mary’s University. He will retire from teaching in June 2018. He has published seven collections and six chapbooks of poems, as well as Wanting the Day:Selected Poems, which was published internationally (by Peterloo Poets of Cornwall, England, and Goose Lane Editions in Canada) and won the 2004 Atlantic Poetry Prize. His other honours have inclued two Malahat Review Long Poem Prizes, first prize in the Petra Kenney poetry awards, and the 2009 Acorn-Plantos Award for People’s Poetry. In 2014 Fitzhenry & Whiteside published his first book of prose, Ringing Here & There: A Nature Calendar (a 366-paragraph book of days going from April 1st to the following March 31st), followed by Branches Over Ripples: A Waterside Journal (Gaspereau Press, 2017), a “plein air” experiment, drafted outdoors by various bodies of water (lakes, rivers, brooks, ponds, marshes, bays, waterfalls, etc.). A selection of Brian’s prose on poetry from over two decades is gathered together in All Manner of Tackle: Living with Poetry (Palimpsest, 2017).

He has also edited the Collected Poems of Alden Nowlan; a book of prose, Don McKay: Essays on His Works; selections of poetry: Earthly Pages: The Poetry of Don Domanski and, all from The Porcupine’s Quill, The Essential James Reaney, The Essential Robert Gibbs, and The Essential Dorothy Roberts; and The Child Alone, an anthology of childhood poems from which parents and other adults are largely marginalized or excluded. His wife is Karen Dahl, a Halifax Regional Library system manager, and their two children are Josh and Laura.

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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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