Fiction (short stories)

Dr. Ceallaigh S. MacCath-Moran

Dr. Ceallaigh S. MacCath-Moran holds B.A. in Celtic Studies from the University of Toronto, an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Maine, and a PhD in Folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. She’s also an author, poet, and musician under the names Ceallaigh S. MacCath-Moran and C.S. MacCath. Her long-running Folklore & Fiction project integrates these passions with a focus on folklore scholarship aimed at storytellers, and she brings a deep appreciation of animism, ecology, and folkloristics to her own storytelling.

Work from Ceallaigh’s two fiction and poetry collections has been shortlisted for the Washington Science Fiction Association Small Press Award, nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and nominated for the Rhysling Award. Recently, her podcast radio drama “The Belt and the Necklace,” was produced by the Odyssey Theatre in Ottawa. She’s a member of the American Folklore Society, the International Society for Folk Narrative Research, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, and many other professional societies for folklore scholars and authors.

Ceallaigh is also the CEO of Triskele Media Inc., a family-owned and operated technology company specializing in enterprise and government web applications, and she’s a Sail Canada certified celestial navigator who is learning to sail and hoping to chart her course by the stars across the ocean while she writes. Meanwhile, she lives on Cape Breton Island with her husband Sean, who hopes for the stars and the ocean too. You can find her online at csmaccath.com, folkloreandfiction.com, and linktr.ee/csmaccath.

Dr. MacCath-Moran is represented by Kelly Thomas at Serendipity Literary Agency. To inquire about her books, please write to info@serendipitylit.com.

Dr. Ceallaigh S. MacCath-Moran Read More »

Carol McDougall

Carol McDougall is a writer and advocate for early literacy. She was born in Northern Ontario and has been active in the Nova Scotia writing community for many years.

In 2005 she was awarded the Mayor’s Award for her contribution to literature and literacy and in 2010 received the Progress Women of Excellence Award for the Arts.

In 2012 Carol received the Beacon Award for Social Justice Literature for her novel Wake the Stone Man, which was inspired by her northern roots. The novel was published in 2015 by Roseway Publishing. Wake the Stone Man was awarded the 2017 Frye Acadamy Award.

Carol’s work includes writing for children, non-fiction, fiction, essays, book reviews and video scripts and her short fiction has been published in Room and presented on CBC radio.

Carol McDougall Read More »

Darryl Whetter

Dr. Darryl Whetter is the author of 4 books of fiction and 3 poetry collections. His collection of stories, A Sharp Tooth in the Fur, was named to The Globe and Mail’s Top 100 Books of 2003. His debut novel, The Push & the Pull, was released in Spring 2008. Origins, his 2012 collection of poems, concerns energy, evolution and extinction as they can be observed at Joggins, Nova Scotia. Professor Whetter edited the nomination dossier of the Joggins Fossil Cliffs in their successful bid for inclusion on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. He has published nearly 20 stories in journals and anthologies, including Best Canadian Stories, The Fiddlehead, PRISM, Prairie Fire, The New Quarterly and Best Asian Short Stories 2020. In 2021, he won the Banff Centre Bliss Carman Poetry Award.

Darryl holds a PhD in English from UNB and has published or presented papers on contemporary literature in France, Sweden, Canada, Germany, the United States, India, Singapore, Australia and Iceland. Nearly 100 of his commissioned book reviews have appeared in venues such as The Toronto Star, The National Post, The Vancouver Sun, The Montreal Gazette, The Globe and Mail, and Detroit’s Metro Times. Darryl Whetter has been a professor of English and Creative Writing at various universities in Canada and was the coordinator of the creative writing program at Dalhousie from 2008-2010. In the mid-2000s, he was a regular panelist on the national CBC Radio program “Talking Books.”

His most recent books are the climate-crisis novel Our Sands, from Penguin RH (2020) and the anthology Teaching Creative Writing in Asia, from Routledge (2021)

Darryl Whetter Read More »

Jaime Forsythe

Jaime Forsythe is a writer living in Halifax. Her writing has appeared in a number of magazines and journals, including This Magazine, Geist, The New Quarterly, The Antigonish Review, Lemon Hound, Matrix, The Rusty Toque, and more. Her first full-length poetry collection, Sympathy Loophole, was published in Spring 2012 by Mansfield Press. Her second, I Heard Something, was released by Anvil Press’ A Feed Dog Book imprint in Spring 2018.

Jaime has twice been a mentor in the WFNS Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program, and has taught writing workshops in a variety of venues, including elementary schools, at Dalhousie University and Mount Allison University, and to youth and adults in the community.

Jaime Forsythe Read More »

Paul MacDougall

Paul is the author of Distinction Earned, (2011) published by Cape Breton University Press. Paul researched the boxing era in Cape Breton and collected dozens of interviews from participants, enthusiasts and their heirs. The book’s title is taken from a citation of Cape Breton boxers at a Canadian Boxing Hall of Fame investiture in 1987. It was a Nova Scotia best selling book for five months.

In 2019 he worked with documentary film director Charles Currie to make a film based on his book, “Distinction Earned, Cape Breton Boxing’s Golden Era” which was shown at numerous venues, on Eastlink TV and can now be found on YouTube.

Paul also writes short fiction, book reviews, newspaper and magazine articles and one-act plays. He has four plays and co-written three plays all of which were originally produced at the Elizabeth Boardmore One Act Play Festival and five have won the Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script. His three most recent plays are The Venetian Gardens (2013), Wraslin (2015) and Solstice (2018).

In 2020 he completed writing the script for Donair, the Musical with songs and music by Duncan Wells. It was released as a 78 minute audio in December 2021 and hopefully will find a home on stage in the summer of 2022 (CoVID permitting) in Sydney and Halifax.

He conducts outdoor writing workshops in unique locations, and in local high schools, taught a number of introductory non-credit writers’ class at Cape Breton University, has organized a book club for the CBU Seniors College, and was a member of the local CBC radio book panel for a number of years.

He writes a monthy column for the Cape Breton Post entitled “The Sporting Life” and is the host of “The Good Sentence” an almost weekly radio program on “Dialogue” on The Coast 89.7 FM (Bell FibreOp station 773 and streaming online) in which he interviews local authors and arts community members about their recent works.

He also gives lectures and presentations on his work to interested groups.

Paul is a registered microbiologist and a Senior Instructor in the Health Sciences Department at Cape Breton University.

WRITING AWARDS

Geist Magazine Time Zones short story writing contest. Made short list. 2015

The Venetian Gardens (play) Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script 2013.

Rockabye Baby (play) Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script 2009.

Ave Maria (play) Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script 2008. Co-written with Ken Chisholm.

All Souls’ Eve (play) Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script 2007. Co-written with Ken Chisholm.

O Night Divine (play) Boardmore Prize for Best Original Script 2005. Co-written with Ken Chisholm.

Chemical Difference (play) Best Play from another source (a short story of mine) Boardmore One-Act Play Festival 2003. Co written with Ken Chisholm.

Gambit (short story) Indigo Books contest 2nd place winner 2003

Double Double (short story) WFNS 2nd Place winner 1992

Some interesting online publications of Paul’s

The Sporting Life, my monthly column in CB Post

https://www.capebretonpost.com/lifestyles/local-lifestyles/paul-macdougall-living-among-the-mikmaq-527202/

http://www.capebretonpost.com/section/2016-01-25/article-4415095/Cycling-with-the-Italians/1

http://www.capebretonpost.com/Sports/2015-05-15/article-4147050/Sydney-Millionaires-on-Stanley-Cup-forever/1

Local history pieces

http://www.shunpiking.com/bhs/longwalk.htm

http://www.shunpiking.com/bhs/Marcus-gar.htm

Book reviews

Off the Rack

Paul MacDougall Read More »

Heather Jessup

Heather Jessup teaches fiction in the creative writing program at Dalhousie University. She is the author of the novel The Lightning Field, and a book on truth, lies, and art called This Is Not a Hoax: Unsettling Truth in Canadian Culture. She is the co-curator of the national exhibition Make Believe: The Secret Library of M. Prud’homme – A Rare Collection of Fakes, which toured across Canada in 2019 with funding from a Canada Council New Chapter Grant. Her work has been nominated for the Journey Prize, New American Voices, two Atlantic Book Awards, and the Dublin Literary Award. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia on the unceded territories of Mi’kma’ki.

Heather Jessup Read More »

Syr Ruus

Syr Ruus was born in Tallinn, Estonia during the Second World War. As a small child, she escaped with her mother to Germany and subsequently immigrated to the United States where she earned an MA in English, an MS in Education and taught briefly in the English Department of Illinois State University. Since 1970, she has lived in Crescent Beach, Nova Scotia where she worked as an elementary school teacher while raising her three children before devoting herself full-time to writing. Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies and journals. In 2009 her novel “Lovesongs of Emmanuel Taggart” was published by Newfoundland’s Breakwater Press. Since then she has independently published three books of fiction inspired by the South Shore of Nova Scotia: “Devil’s Hump” (2013), “The Story of Gar” (2014), and “In Pleasantry” (2016). These are available in local stores or can be purchased directly from the author. “Krambambuli,” a memoir of her childhood years was published by Inanna Press (York University) in 2018. A novella, “Walls of the Cave,” was published by Quattro in 2020.

Syr Ruus Read More »

Eleonore Schönmaier

Eleonore Schönmaier’s Field Guide to the Lost Flower of Crete was published in 2021 (McGill-Queen’s University Press). Wavelengths of Your Song (MQUP) was published in German translation as Wellenlängen deines Liedes in 2020 by parasitenpresse (Cologne). Dust Blown Side of the Journey (MQUP) was a finalist for the Eyelands Book Awards (Greece). Treading Fast Rivers (MQUP) was a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry in Canada. She has taught advanced fiction courses at St. Mary’s University, creative writing at Mount Saint Vincent University, and has worked as a poetry mentor for the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia. Her poetry has been set to music by Canadian, Dutch, Scottish, American and Greek composers and she has performed her poetry in concert with The New European Ensemble among others. She has won the Alfred G. Bailey Prize, the Earle Birney Prize, and the National Broadsheet Contest 2019. Published in League of Canadian Poets Poem in Your Pocket Day Brochure in 2018, 2019 and 2021, she has also been widely anthologised in the United States and Canada including in Best Canadian Poetry. Her poetry was presented in a twelve page feature by The New Quarterly. “Live-Retrieved Memory: the Poetry of Eleonore Schönmaier.” https://eleonoreschonmaier.com

Eleonore Schönmaier Read More »

Paul Zann

Paul is a versatile author: adult novel: A Real Son of a ‘Vitch; children’s books: The Aussie Six in Canada, The Aussie Six in Australia, The Aussie Six in Spain, and The Weirdest Class; book of satirical essays: You’ve Gotta be Kidding!; plays: Strike! and The Parasite/s; poetry book: Crouching at the Keyhole; numerous poems and stories in Canadian, U.S., Australian, and Spanish journals.

Paul Zann Read More »

Susan Zetell

“Keen unsparing observation expressed in palpable shimmering prose.” – Jim Bartley, Globe and Mail
“Zettell has a passion for careful, sensuous detail. While reading the title story (Holy Days of Obligation), I held my breath.” – Frances Itani
“Zettell writes with skill and understated grace, depicting the many surprises, illuminations and losses of daily life.” – Virginia Beaton, Chronicle Herald
“As is the case with great art, [her stories] touch the reader unexpectedly, reaching toward the deep centre of the human heart.” – Alistair MacLeod

Author of the “compelling” novel The Checkout Girl, two collections of award winning short stories, and with works included in anthologies and collections, Susan Zettell’s novel-in-progress is titled The Lazarus Maple. Born and raised in Kitchener, Ontario, and after having lived in Cambridge, Vancouver, Halifax, Ottawa and Whitehorse, Susan and her husband Andy Watt have made their home along the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

Susan Zetell Read More »