WITS grades P-6
Janice Walsh-Cruddas
“Play” is one of Janice Walsh-Cruddas’ favourite words and learning tools and she incorporates it in her writing, teaching, and performance for children and young adults. She has written and directed over 20 plays, including the NS Human Rights Commission’s award-winning project ARC (Action, Responsibility, Choice), The Kerplunk in the Kingdom (a musical commissioned by the Children’s Wish Foundation), and the Atlantic Fringe Festival hit, A Wee Drop of Aesop. As a children’s programmer with Halifax Public libraries for over 20 years, a former co-host of the radio show “Music for Young Earth Citizens” (with her 6-year-old son), and the founder of MITE Theatre, “Jan-Jan” has helped youth discover delight in Shakespeare, singing, theatre games, and the joyful act of communicating. Her book, Bird’s the Word!, has elicited giggles and yays from hundreds of budding wonders. She is humbled and grateful to be a Treaty person who reads, sings and plays in K’jipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia), the ancestral and unceded territory of Mi’kma’ki, the traditional land of the Mi’kmaq people.
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!
Sara Jewell
Author of a children’s picture book and two books of nonfiction for adults
Freelance magazine writer
Substitute Teacher, elementary school
Licensed lay worship leader, United Church of Canada
Bachelor of Arts (honours) English and Bachelor of Education from Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail
Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail is a multi-passionate, multi-genre author of several books who loves telling hidden, inclusive stories for audiences of all ages.
Danielle’s latest picture book, Freddie the Flyer is coming out in Fall 2023 from Tundra Books. It’s co-authored with Gwich’in pilot Fred Carmichael, and will feature the beautiful illustrations of Inuvialuit artist Audrea Wulf.
Her first chapter book – Fever on the Forgotten Coast – is out on submission, as is her first women’s fiction book, The 500 Year Flood.
In 2022, with the support of a Canada Council Creation Grant and Access Copyright Professional Development Grant, she will return to her creative nonfiction book about trauma, family, and the largest Indian Hospital in Canada.
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.
Lauren Soloy
Lauren is the author and illustrator of When Emily was Small and Etty Darwin and the Four Pebble Problem, and The Hidden World of Gnomes, and the illustrator of I’s the B’y and A Tulip in Winter. 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.
Anne C. Kelly
Anne C. Kelly has loved to read and write for as long as she can remember. Her first publication was a class newspaper which she wrote with a friend in Grade four. She especially enjoys reading historical fiction and books about characters who discover who they really are after going through challenges in life.
Anne is an English teacher at heart. She taught English-as-an-Additional-Language (EAL) to adult newcomers to Canada for over twenty years. She loves learning about different cultures and traditions. She always says that she learned more from her students than they ever learned from her!
Anne’s first novel, Jacques’ Escape, was published by Trap Door Books in June 2019. Jacques’ Escape, which tells the story of a fourteen-year-old Acadian boy who is deported with his family to Massachusetts in 1755, is a middle reader for children aged 9-12. It was shortlisted for the 2020-21 Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award.
John A. Read
JOHN A. READ is a telescope operator at the Burke-Gaffney Observatory and a member of the Halifax Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC). He holds a degree in astrophysics from Saint Mary’s University, and is currently a Master’s Student at Johns Hopkins University. In 2020 he was presented with an RASC award for Excellence in Science Communication. John cohosted RASC’s series “Explore the Universe Online,” and is the founder of “Stargaze Nova Scotia” a designated stargazing site within the HRM. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Whitney Moran
As the managing editor of Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press, Atlantic Canada’s largest independent publishing house, Whitney has over ten years’ experience reviewing, critiquing, and acquiring submissions for publication. She also regularly produces developmental, substantive, line, and copy edits for hundreds of novels, from mystery and thriller to literary fiction, as well as middle-grade and young adult fiction. Her authors have produced critically acclaimed and award-winning books, among them Sheree Fitch, Rebecca Thomas, Briana Corr Scott, Jo Treggiari, Tom Ryan, Harriet Alida Lye, Stephens Gerard Malone, and Alan Syliboy.
Whitney is particularly interested in stories that centre women, nonbinary, and non-gender-comforting characters, and subject matter that challenges romantic and bucolic representations of Atlantic Canada, and celebrate voices and stories from communities historically underrepresented in publishing.
