Alison Smith is the author of three books of poetry and one chapbook from Gaspereau Press. Her most recent collection, This Kind of Thinking Does No Good, was awarded the 2019 J.M. Abraham Award for Atlantic Poetry and was shortlisted for the 2020 Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award. She has written for radio, the stage, and has taught poetry workshops in prison, schools and other community settings. Alison lives in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia.
Website: www.karenkelloway.com or facebook page.
Karen Kelloway has woven her passion for storytelling into a career that involves books, keynote addresses and classroom visits.
Karen’s middle school novel called KEEPERS OF THE PACT (Nimbus Publishing 2023) was shortlisted as a Junior Library Guild pick and the Hackmatack Children’s Choice book award. KEEPERS OF THE PACT is on the Approved List of Resources for Nova Scotia schools.
Karen lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, CANADA, with her husband, two teenagers and their Havanese, Chewie. Find her at www.karenkelloway.com.
In grade two, Melanie received a silver dollar for winning an essay contest and she has been fascinated with writing ever since. She has many freelance articles to her credit and her first picture book was published by Fifth House Publishers in May 2014. Her YA novel, Goth Girl, was published in April 2017 by Nimbus Publishing and A Beginner’s Guide to Goodbye, a middle-grade novel, was published in June 2020, again with Nimbus Publishing. A Beginner’s Guide to Goodbye was a finalist in the TD Canadian Children’s Literature award and nominated for the Hackmatack Award. It won the “It Made me Feel” Award presented by Digitally Lit. Her fourth book, a middle-grade novel entitled Bertie Stewart is Perfectly Imperfect, was published by Nimbus in 2024, and was nominated for the Silver Birch Fiction Award.
Steve Vernon has been writing and telling stories for over 40 years. He’s read on CBC radio, Breakfast Television, Global Noon and at schools and libraries across Canada. Steve was a great hit with the kids at the inaugural FUNNY PAGES festival at the Halifax Central Library.
He has released five ghost stories collections, one young adult novel, one children’s picture book, and one collection of historical maritime murder tales, Maritime Murder with a second collection, More Maritime Murder due out in the fall of 2022 from local publisher Nimbus.
Alice Walsh writes fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. Her published work includes nine books for children and young adults. Many of her books have been nominated for or won awards. A number of them have been listed as Best Books for Children and Teens in Canada. Her YA novel Pomiuk; Prince of the North (Dundurn 2005) won the Ann Connor Brimer award.
Alice graduated from St. Mary’s University with degrees in criminology and English, and from Acadia with a master’s in Children’s Literature. She has worked as a preschool teacher, volunteer probation officer, creative writing instructor, and hospital ward clerk.
Marjorie Simmins is the author of four non-fiction titles: Coastal Lives (2014); Year of the Horse (2016), Memoir: Conversations and Craft (2020), and Somebeachsomewhere: The Harness Racing Legend from a One-Horse Stable (2021).
Simmins began her career as a freelance journalist in Vancouver, appearing regularly in the Vancouver Sun and writing for trade magazines. She also published numerous essays and articles in magazines and newspapers across Canada, and in the United States, and has stories in Canadian and American anthologies. She has won a Gold Medal at the National Magazine Awards for “One-of-a-Kind Journalism,” and two Gold Medals at the Atlantic Journalism Awards for Best Atlantic Magazine Article, and in Arts and Entertainment, Any Medium.
In November 2020, she was awarded the prestigious Established Artist Recognition Award by Arts Nova Scotia.
Among the magazines Simmins has written for are: Canadian Living, Magazines Canada, United Church Observer, Halifax Magazine, Progress, Atlantic Business, and Saltscapes. She is a regular reviewer for The Antigonish Review and Atlantic Books Today. She has also written feature interviews for The Reporter, the community newspaper in Port Hawkesbury, NS.
Marjorie Simmins has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of British Columbia, a Certificate in Adult Education from Dalhousie University, and a Research Master of Arts in Literacy Education, at Mount Saint Vincent University. She teaches memoir writing across Canada, at venues such as at the UBC Alumni Centre, in Vancouver, BC (2016); at StoryFest, in Hudson, QC (2017); at Thinkers Lodge, Pugwash, NS (2014-2019); and the Fortress of Louisbourg, NS (2019). Recently, she has begun to teach coast to coast (still waiting for the north coast!) Zoom workshops.
In September 2020, Simmins took part in the Cabot Trail Writers Festival, as a panellist and workshop leader. The following spring of 2021, Simmins was honoured to serve as a reader for the 2021 CBC Non-Fiction Prize.
Sherry D. Ramsey writes science fiction and fantasy for both adults and young adults, and is one of the founding editors of Cape Breton’s Third Person Press. She has published over thirty short stories nationally and internationally, and her award-winning debut novel, One’s Aspect to the Sun, launched in 2013 from Edmonton’s Tyche Books. The sequels, Dark Beneath the Moon and Beyond the Sentinel Stars (Tyche Books) followed in 2015 and 2017, and the fourth book in the Nearspace series, A Veiled and Distant Sky, released in March of 2022. She has also published the YA fantasy The Seventh Crow (Dreaming Robot Press, 2015), and the middle grade science fiction adventure, Planet Fleep (2018). Some of her short stories are collected in To Unimagined Shores (2011) and The Cache and Other Stories (2017). A collection of stories for young readers, Beacon and Other Stories, came out in 2019. She’s currently adding more titles to her urban fantasy Olympia Investigations series and working on a comic fantasy novel, as well as teaching English courses as a sessional instructor at Cape Breton University.
Sherry has co-edited six anthologies of regional short fiction with Third Person Press and conducted numerous writing workshops in person and online. A member of the Writer’s Federation of Nova Scotia Writer’s Council, Sherry is also a past Vice-President, Secretary-Treasurer, and Web Administrator of SF Canada. She is an active participant with Writers In The Schools and loves talking to students about writing and creativity. You can visit Sherry online, read her blog, follow her on Twitter and Instagram @sdramsey, and find some free fiction and sample chapters on her website.
Darcy Rhyno writes novels, short stories, plays, non-fiction (travel, science, health, people profiles). His latest book is a memoir about life in post-communist Eastern Europe.
He is the author of the pre-teen fantasy novel set in 1950’s Halifax called THE UNDERWORLD MAGICIAN. He’s also the author of the YA novel MONSTERS OF SUBURBIA, which is a realism adventure story with themes of bullying, isolation, estrangement and myth. This novel is suitable for junior high readers. He has also published two collections of short stories, CONDUCTOR OF WAVES and HOLIDAYS. He’s been writing for Saltscapes magazine since 2007. He is an award-winning travel writer and a member of the Travel Media Association of Canada and has published hundreds of articles with Saltscapes, Canadian Geographic Travel, BBC Travel, Atlas Obscura, The Daily Beast, the Chronicle Herald and many, many more. His play Snowbirds, a comedy set at Christmas, has been produced twice in Nova Scotia.
Conductor of Waves is a collection of 12 stories set in a fictional Nova Scotia fishing community. The Globe and Mail called it “a strikingly accomplished collection.” His first novel for children placed second in the Atlantic Writing Competition. As a columnist for Saltscapes magazine, Darcy writes the back page for each issue, prepares feature articles and writes for special publications about travel, food and other topics. He writes for other magazines and newspapers as well. One of the stories in his collection called Holidays was published in The Vagrant Revue of New Fiction, an anthology of work by the most promising writers in Atlantic Canada.
For much of his career, Darcy has worked in education and with children. A teacher and arts worker by profession, he has worked with many schools and teachers across the province, as well as with artists from all genres. For 16 years, he was an instructor in the graduate program of the Faculty of Education at Mount St. Vincent University where he taught courses in popular culture, reading, media and literature. His readings and workshops are always engaging, informative and entertaining. See his website at www.darcyrhyno.com
Journalist, novelist, editor, poet
Carol is a prize-winning journalist and the author of multi-genre books. She has published four young adult novels, three adult novels, and has a soon-to-be-released fantasy for adults. She is a contributor to the non-fiction immigration anthology Coming Here, Being Here (Guernica Editions).
Inside Information, Carol’s most recent novel for older teens, was published by Hippie Hill Press in August 2023. Riptides, a novel for younger teens, was published by Moose House Publications in 2021. Membrane, her YA fantasy, was first published by Fierce Ink Press in July, 2013 and has recently been re-issued by Hippie Hill Press. Her YA novel, Charged, was published by James Lorimer in 2008.
Carol is also the author of three adult novels: Too Good, published by Hippie Hill in 2023, Culture Shock, published by Hippie Hill in 2024 and The Pet-Sit, published by Hippie Hill in 2025. Her adult fantasy, Terminal Indicators, will be published by Hippie Hill in 2026. She is one of more than 20 writers to participate in a group novel-writing adventure called Less Than Innocent published by Moose House in 2022.
UK-born Carol has also worked as a magazine and newspaper reporter and editor in Canada, England and Asia. She is a former editor of Celtic Life International magazine and is currently a partner in the Atlantic Canadian business news site www.entrevestor.com.
Carol has an English degree from London University and also studied Mandarin Chinese in Taipei, Shanghai and London’s Ealing School of Languages.
donalee Moulton has been writing professionally for over 25 years. Her byline has appeared in more than 100 magazines and newspapers throughout North America – and beyond. Among the publications donalee has written for are The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Maclean’s, Canadian Business and The National Post.
donalee Moulton’s first mystery book Hung out to Die was published in 2023. A historical mystery, Conflagration!, was published in 2024. It won the 2024 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense (Historical Fiction). donalee has two new books in 2025, Bind and Melt, the first in a new series, the Lotus Detective Agency.
A short story “Swan Song” was one of 21 selected for publication in Cold Canadian Crime. It was shortlisted for an Award of Excellence. Other short stories have been published in numerous anthologies and magazines. donalee’s short story “Troubled Water” was shortlisted for a 2024 Derringer Award and a 2024 Award of Excellence from the Crime Writers of Canada.
As well, donalee is the author of the non-fiction book The Thong Principle: Saying What You Mean and Meaning What You Say, and co-author of Better Policy | Better Performance: The Who, Why, and What of Organizational Policy and Celebrity Court Cases: Trials of the Rich and Famous.
donalee has had poetry published in Arc Poetry Journal, Queen’s Quarterly, Prairie Fire, The Dalhousie Review, Atlantis, South Shore Review, Carousel, and Whetstone, among others. She is a former editor of The Pottersfield Portfolio and Atlantic Books Today.
donalee is a teacher. She has taught writing, editing, grammar and communications for the past 20 years in a variety of programs. She currently teaches numerous writing and editing courses as part of the Executive and Professional Development program at Saint Mary’s University, and has taught courses at Dalhousie University and Mount Saint Vincent University.
The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) uses the following terms to describe writers’ experience levels:
Please keep in mind that each form of creative writing (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, writing for children and 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.
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 information, strategies, and skills that suit their career stage.
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 you’re uncertain of your experience level with regard to any particular workshop, please feel free to contact us at communications@writers.ns.ca
