WITS grades 10-12
Lynette Richards
Lynette Richards has been cartooning as long as she can remember, and recently published her first graphic novel Call Me Bill (Conundrum Press 2022). She is a Craft Nova Scotia Master Artisan, who lives and works in Terence Bay NS, where she operates her business Rose Window Stained Glass. She chose Stained Glass as her professional medium because it was both a trade and an art that has used sequential narration for over 1000 years!
Linda Pannozzo
Linda Pannozzo is an award-winning author and freelance journalist, with a degree in Journalism from the University of King’s College in Halifax. She is the author of two books: About Canada: The Environment, explores the philosophical, economic, and ideological landscape of our current environmental worldview. She also penned the award-winning The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: An Investigation into the Scapegoating of Canada’s Grey Seal, which looked into the science and politics behind the push for a massive cull of the grey seal population on Canada’s east coast. Over the years, Linda’s articles have appeared in This magazine, The Coast, The Ottawa Citizen, The Daily News, and the The Halifax Examiner. In 2022 Linda started a subscriber-supported newsletter on Substack called The Quaking Swamp Journal, which she describes as commentary, analysis and the occasional deep dive, all in the public interest.
Laura Churchill Duke
Laura is a communication specialist and journalist in the Annapolis Valley. She is currently teaching communication to first year kinesiology students at Acadia University, focusing on writing, research and presentation skills.
Laura is also a freelance journalist for Saltwire Network, writing stories for Atlantic Canada. Her writing also appears in the Acadia Alumni Bulletin. She can also be heard as the Kentville community contact on CBC Radio, Information Morning.
Laura regularly teaches a creative non-fiction writing workshop to middle school students in the Annapolis Valley. Through this, she teaches students how to research, and then how to bring historical figures to life through creative writing.
As a public relation specialist, Laura works with Campaign for Kids, helps to raise funds for youth in financial need in Kings County. Their signature event, which Laura organizes, is Burger Wars.
She is the founder and creator of ValleyFamilyFun.ca, a website and blog dedicated to helping families find fun things to do together.
When not writing, Laura is working as a team member with Your Last Resort as a professional organizer, helping people to clear the clutter, making positive changes in their lives.
Laura lives in Kentville with her husband, David (a history professor at Acadia University), two sons (Daniel & Thomas) and 4 pets. She loves to travel and hike and is always up for an adventure!
Carolyn Jean Nicholson
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.
Brenda MacLennan-Dunphy
Writer, director and producer, Brenda MacLennan-Dunphy has had two novels published by Pottersfield Press as well- Never Speak of This Again (2018) and The Silence of the Vessel (2020), which was nominated for an Atlantic Book Award. Four of Brenda’s plays have been on the stage at Strathspey Place, a 500 soft seat theatre in Mabou, Cape Breton- John Allan Cameron’s Last Show (November 2021), John Archie and Nellie (2016, 2012) , The Weddin’ Dance (2013), and Displacement (2014). Her play The Reiteach was put at two small stages in 2020. She was a featured writer at the 2021 Cabot Trail Writers Festival and also won the HR Bill Percy Novel Prize in 2017 for Never Speak of This Again. Born and raised in Inverness County, the mother of four is a teacher by trade, but a gypsy by nature. She loves to find characters along the way in life. Brenda lives in Skye Glen, Inverness County, with her wonderful and patient husband, Ed.
Michelle Wamboldt
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, (Nimbus Publishing) was released in April 2022. Michelle’s 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.
