Freelance newspaper and magazine writer from 1994 to 2021
Lay worship leader, United Church of Canada, 2013-present
Substitute teacher, elementary and secondary
Bachelor of Arts (honours) English and Bachelor of Education from Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail specializes in telling hidden, inclusive histories for audiences of all ages. She’s done this for over a decade as a freelancer as well as through her books, which span adult narrative nonfiction, essays, and a best-selling nonfiction picture book.
Danielle is currently working on a follow-up to her debut picture book, along with a creative nonfiction book about the largest Indian Hospital in Canada based on her popular blog, www.ghostsofcamsell.ca. She’s also at work writing and revising fiction for adult and middle grade readers.
If you’re looking for a sharp-eyed cheerleader to help you with editing and coaching, Danielle will help you through the writing and publishing journey with empathy and encouragement. Please contact her directly to discuss working together or through the Coffee Chats program on this site.
I am an author, theatre artist and arts educator with more than four decades of professional experience. As a theatre artist, I have toured with Second City doing improv comedy, played the Witch in Hansel and Gretl with the Honolulu Symphony and told my original stories at the Toronto International Storytelling Festival. My arts education credits include work with Learning Through the Arts, World Vision, and the Storytellers School of Toronto.
I served as Artistic Director of KPH Theater Productions in Miramichi, N.B. from 2012 to 2016, and along with my husband, Beverly Glenn Copeland, completed half a dozen artist residencies* in N.B. schools. I was honoured to serve as Writer-in-Residence* for James M. Hill High School in 2015. (*Funding support through NB Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture.)
In February 2016 I was part of the faculty at the San Miguel Writers Conference (San Miguel de Allende, Mexico), and led the creative writing workshop at the Knowlton Literary Festival in Knowlton, Quebec in October.
In 2017, I returned to Mount Allison University to indulge myself in two years of full time study of eco-poetry, feminist philosophy, sustainability in education and medieval studies. Thanks to MTA, in the summer of 2017 I completed a residency to research and create a one-act spoken-word play entitled, “Bearing Witness”.
During my tenure as 2018 Writer-in-Residence at Joggins Fossil Institute, I researched and wrote — “Daring to Hope at the Cliff’s Edge: Pangea’s Dream Remembered”: an art/science collaboration and conversation between myself and the three-hundred million year old rock. The theme: how to find what Buddhist eco-philosopher, Joanna Macy calls Active Hope as we stand at this cliff’s edge in our evolution as a species. The book was launched in Sackville, N.B. on Sept. 29, 2019 by Chapel Street Editions.
Due to covid, my cross country tour to promote this book was cancelled, but late 2020 saw a resurgence of interest in the work and its message of hope. I participated in the Writing for Change series launched by The Rose Theater in Brampton, ON. An exciting variation on this theme will be happening virtually on March 21 at The Rose with spoken-word artist extraordinaire, Ian Keteku.
Since moving to Spencers Island in Jan. 2021, I am making new writing and peforming friends and will be part of the Shipwright Sessions (Ships Company Theater) in Aug. 2021.
Genevieve Graham moved to Nova Scotia in 2008 and fell in love with the integral history woven into every aspect of this province. Almost immediately, she realized how little she knew about the history, not only of this province but of all of Canada, and she embarked on a mission to correct that, using her love of historical fiction as a palette. All her novels have spent numerous weeks on the Canadian bestsellers list. Most recently, Genevieve focused her research and passion on the dark, little known story of Canada’s British Home Children in “The Forgotten Home Child”. Despite bookstore shutdowns across the country due to COVID-19, “The Forgotten Home Child” became an “instant #1 bestseller” and remained on that list for 19 weeks – 11 of those at #1. It achieved the #5 position in Canadian Fiction for 2020 and educated tens of thousands of readers about this vital part of our history.
Genevieve Graham is prolific and determined, dedicated to bringing Canadian history to life through the popular, mainstream market of commercial historical fiction. Having started writing relatively late in life (in her forties), she has already published five novels with Simon & Schuster Canada in five years, and is eager to keep on that same track for years to come.
Lauren is the author and illustrator of When Emily was Small. She has lived on both coasts of Canada, always within reach of the sea. She currently lives in a 140-year-old house in the wilds of Nova Scotia with her librarian husband, two curious children, an ever-expanding collection of books, two hives of bees, and one cat. She has a Visual Arts BFA with Honours from the University of Victoria, and a certificate of Fine Furniture from Camosun College. Along the way, she has learned to make a Queen Anne Highboy, a pottery mug, a hand knit pair of socks, a headstand, and a mess. She is represented by Jackie Kaiser at Westwood Creative Artists.
Nina is a Canadian ecologist and novelist. She worked for 25 years as an environmental consultant in the field of aquatic ecology and limnology, publishing papers and technical reports on water quality and impacts to aquatic ecosystems. Nina has written over a dozen eco-fiction, science fiction and fantasy novels. An award-winning short story writer, and essayist, Nina currently lives in Toronto where she teaches writing at the University of Toronto and George Brown College. Her book “Water Is…” (Pixl Press)—a scientific study and personal journey as limnologist, mother, teacher and environmentalist—was picked by Margaret Atwood in the New York Timesas 2016 ‘The Year in Reading’. Nina’s most recent novel is “A Diary in the Age of Water”—about four generations of women and their relationship to water in a rapidly changing world—released in June 2020 by Inanna Publications.
JOHN A. READ is a telescope operator at the Burke-Gaffney Observatory a member of the Halifax Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) and recently graduated with a degree in astrophysics from Saint Mary’s University. In 2020 he was presented with an RASC award for Excellence in Science Communication. John also cohosts RASC’s series “Explore the Universe Online.” He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Virginia Konchan is the author of the poetry collections Any God Will Do (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2020) and The End of Spectacle (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2018), a collection of short stories, Anatomical Gift (Noctuary Press, 2017), and four chapbooks, That Tree is Mine (Gaspereau Press, 2020), Empire of Dirt (above/ground press, 2019), The New Alphabets (Anstruther Press, 2019), and Vox Populi (Finishing Line Press, 2015). She holds degrees from Beloit College (BA), Cleveland State University (MFA), and the University of Illinois-Chicago (Ph.D). Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Best New Poets, The Believer, and The New Republic, her essays and criticism in Kenyon Review Online, Boston Review, Jacket2, and Guernica, her translations in The Brooklyn Rail, Asymptote and Circumference, and her fiction in StoryQuarterly, Joyland, and Memorious, among other places. Her work has been anthologized in several collections, and her honors include grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Vermont Studio Center, Ox-Bow, The Banff Center, and Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice. Co-founder of Matter, a journal of poetry and political commentary, and Associate Editor for Tupelo Quarterly, she currently lives and works in Halifax.
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 (in Denmark) ; Tallinn, hvor smuk du er. Also a musician and a songwriter, has had the opportunity to play in Canada, France, Germany, Norway, Denmark, India and japan, and has produced a certain number of 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.
The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia is based in Kjipuktuk, in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. This territory is covered by the “Treaties of Peace and Friendship,” which Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) Peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1725.
The treaties do not deal with surrender of lands and resources but in fact recognize Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) title and establish the rules for an ongoing relationship between nations.
© Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, 2021. All rights reserved.
