Father Joseph Murray Abraham was a Canadian Jesuit missionary who dedicated his life to giving education and agricultural opportunities to the poorest people of Kuseong, India. His name lives on through the J.M. Abraham Poetry Award, administered by the Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia to recognize the best book of poetry published in the Atlantic Region each year.
Sarah Sawler is an award-winning journalist and the author of three books, 100 Things You Don’t Know About Nova Scotia (Nimbus Publishing, 2016), 100 Things You Don’t Know About Atlantic Canada (for Kids) (Nimbus Publishing, 2018), and Be Prepared! The Frankie MacDonald Guide to Life, the Weather, and Everything, which she wrote in collaboration with Frankie MacDonald (Nimbus Publishing, 2018).
John Wall Barger is the author of three books of poetry, including Hummingbird (Palimpsest Press, 2012), which was a finalist for the 2013 Raymond Souster Award. His latest title is The Book of Festus (Palimpsest Press, 2015), and he has a new collection, The Mean Game, due to be published by Palimpsest Press next year. In the following, he talks to us about taking the writing chair even when you don’t feel like it, travel poems, and what he loves about Nova Scotia.
Theresa Meuse is an author, educator, and adviser. She is the author of The Sharing Circle (Nimbus Publishing, 2003) and L’nu’k: The People (Nimbus Publishing, 2016). She has also contributed to volumes 1 and 2 of The Mi’kmaq Anthology (Pottersfield Press, 1997 and 2011). Her newest book, The Gathering, is forthcoming with Nimbus.
Marjorie Simmins is the author of two books of non-fiction, Coastal Lives (Pottersfield Press, 2014) and Year of the Horse (Pottersfield Press, 2016). A freelance journalist, she has published across Canada with major daily newspapers, as well as numerous magazines, such as Halifax Magazine, Progress, United Church Observer, Atlantic Books Today, and Saltscapes.
Anne Simpson is the author of seven books of poetry, fiction, and essays. Her collection Loop won the prestigious Griffin Prize in 2004. She has a new collection of poetry, Strange Attractor, due out in 2019, and a new novel coming out the following year.
Jaime Forsythe is the author of two collections of poetry, Sympathy Loophole (Mansfield Press, 2012) and I Heard Something (Anvil Press, 2018). Her work has appeared in publications across Canada including This Magazine, The Puritan, Matrix, and Lemon Hound.
Gloria Ann Wesley is an award-winning writer and a retired teacher.
Elaine McCluskey is a fiction writer who has authored three collections of short stories and two novels. Her most recent book, The Most Heartless Town in Canada, was published by Anvil in 2016. In the following post, she shares the story of her beginnings as a fiction writer, her advice for aspiring writers, and an update on her most recent projects.
Anna Quon is a novelist and poet who lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. She has published two novels with Invisible Publishing, Migration Songs (2009) and Low (2013), and has also self-published a number of poetry collections. In the following post, she talks about her writing, her experience teaching creative writing, guilty pleasures, and more.
How long have you been writing? What drew you to writing in general, and fiction and poetry in particular?
