https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/work daily 1.0 2026-03-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1502417252905-0P28P4BJIEQKEQ5HVMV4/IMG_5256smaller.jpg Welcome https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/705b3561-4568-4fce-8811-741b64ac3b61/DIGITAL+Madeleine_Thien_cr.Babak+Salari.jpg Welcome - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/f722f75b-f716-42ff-954a-3be77d11edcd/Eliza+Reid+author+photo_credit+Saga+Sig.jpg Welcome - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/bd47cf43-188b-48b0-a2da-69f5a35f87a2/DIGITAL+Zilla+Jones+author+photo.jpg Welcome - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/a77c8343-f320-439a-af33-423d947d5f08/Tanya+Johnson+digital.jpg Welcome - 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Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/f466da96-5e00-4405-a2b0-ad757ee85a0f/DIGITAL+Madeleine_Thien_cr.Babak+Salari.jpg 2025 Festival - Madeleine Thien is the author of five books, including Do Not Say We Have Nothing, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Folio Prize, and won the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction. Her new novel, The Book of Records, was released this spring and became an instant bestseller. Born in Vancouver, Madeleine lives in Montreal. Photo credit: Babak Salarien. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/5012fb0d-6e47-4e15-9c91-148d838d4521/DIGITAL+Tom+Ryan+cr+Nicola+Davison.jpg 2025 Festival - Tom Ryan is the internationally bestselling author of adult mysteries The Treasure Hunters Club and We Had a Hunch, in addition to the award-winning YA mysteries Keep This to Yourself and I Hope You’re Listening, winner of the 2021 Lambda “Lammy” Award for Best LGBTQ Mystery. Tom was born and raised in Inverness, Cape Breton, where he lives with his husband and their dog. Photo credit: Nicola Davison https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/7259bedb-9948-4321-b7af-725cbd647a6c/DIGITAL+David+Robertson+-+author+photo-+Photo+%C2%A9+Amber+Green.jpg 2025 Festival - David A. Robertson is a two-time Governor General's Literary Award winner and has won the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and the Writer's Union of Canada Freedom to Read award. His books include the novel The Theory of Crows, the memoir Black Water, the picture books When We Were Alone and On the Trapline, and the middle-grade series the Misewa Saga. In 2025 he released 52 Ways to Reconcile: How to Walk with Indigenous People on the Path to Healing, All the Little Monsters: How I Learned to Live with Anxiety and the picture book Little Shoes. A member of Norway House Cree Nation, Dave currently lives in Winnipeg. Photo credit: Amber Green https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/43db6b06-1444-4393-849e-e801d9159bd0/DIGITAL+Eliza+Reid+author+photo_credit+Saga+Sig.jpeg 2025 Festival - Eliza Reid is a bestselling writer, public speaker, gender equality advocate, and cofounder of the acclaimed Iceland Writers Retreat. She was born and raised in Canada but has lived in Iceland for over twenty years. Her first book, Secrets of the Sprakkar: Iceland’s Extraordinary Women and How They Are Changing the World, was an instant bestseller in Canada and Iceland, and a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Pick. Death on the Island is the first of a series and has been optioned for television. From 2016 to 2024, Eliza served in the unofficial role of First Lady while her husband was President of Iceland, an adventure which greatly informed the writing of this book. She lives in the outskirts of Reykjavík with her husband and four children. Photo credit: Saga Sig https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/e3396485-e3f5-4d17-b154-947cbdfd17c0/Ian+Williams+by+Justin+Morris+-+resized.jpg 2025 Festival - Ian Williams is the author of seven acclaimed books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. He delivered the 2024 CBC Massey Lectures, What I Mean to Say, on rehabilitating conversations, and is the winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, the Raymound Souster Award, and a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize. He is a trustee for the Griffin Poetry Prize and a professor of English and director of the Creative Writing program at University of Toronto. Photo credit: Justin Morris https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/0de596cc-ee16-4291-8612-1e83b74405b1/DIGITAL+Sue+Goyette.jpg 2025 Festival - Sue Goyette lives in K'jipuktuk (Halifax) and has published several books of poems and a novel. Her latest collection is Future Howl, (Gaspereau Press, 2025). Her work has been translated into French, Spanish and German and has been featured in films, subways, buses, spray painted on a sidewalk and tattooed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/2dbb9807-783c-460d-b7f4-bedca5b18b1f/DIGITAL+Zilla+Jones+author+photo.jpeg 2025 Festival - Zilla Jones is an African-Canadian anti-racist educator, lawyer, mother, and singer of Caribbean, Chinese, and European heritage, writing on Treaty 1 territory. She was born in the UK and now lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is a winner of the Journey Prize, a finalist for The Writers’ Trust Bronwen Wallace Emerging Writers Award, and a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize. The World So Wide is her debut novel. Photo credit: Ian McCausland https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/6ae4827d-ad92-4c3a-a08f-05ce619277f3/DIGITAL+Mona+Knight.jpg 2025 Festival - Mona Knight is a fiction writer. During her working career, she was, for a time, a correspondent for an International Aid programme for children in the Third World. Mona and her husband, Jim, returned to Cape Breton in 2008 and for a number of years she wrote for The Victoria Standard. Her first novel, Banjo Flats, was published in 2017. The sequel, Second Chance, was published in 2020, and the third in the series, Heartbreak Rodeo, will be released in September. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/0a749911-2625-4e74-98b1-c4eabe9fa4c8/DIGITAL+Ivan_Coyote+%40Emily+Cooper+Photography.jpg 2025 Festival - Ivan Coyote is a writer and storyteller. Born and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon, they are the author of thirteen books, the creator of four films, six stage shows, and three albums that combine storytelling with music. Coyote’s books have won the ReLit Award, been named a Stonewall Honour Book, been longlisted for Canada Reads, shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Prize for non-fiction and the Governor General's Award, and awarded BC and Yukon Book Prize’s inaugural Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes. Ivan’s most recent book is Care Of: Letters, Connections and Cures. Photo credit: Emily Cooper https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/b39ea223-e48d-4fd6-963c-d5a164142b6d/Tanya+Johnson+digital.jpeg 2025 Festival - Tanya Johnson comes from the community of Potlotek. She has worked for, and with, her L’nu people, for most of her life. In 2023, her work with the Canadian Criminal Justice system, various Indigenous organizations, and the community won Tanya the Tom Miller Human Rights Award. She has self-published a children’s book, Do You Know My Grandfather, Smokey Dad, He’s a Superhero, honouring her grandfather’s 32-day paddling journey from Potlotek to the 1967 Expo Indian Pavilion in Montreal. Her new book, Your Tears are Not Enough, is allowing Tanya the opportunity to create awareness about the epidemic of Murdered and Missing Indigenous People that takes place in Canada. Tanya owns her own consulting business, Apoqnmultesnen, is proud to support and advocate for her people, and is most proud of her role as mom. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/c3767d4e-4232-419a-8fda-f6eb0e44d7a5/Tyra+Denny+photo+by+Ken+Woroner.jpeg 2025 Festival - Tyra Denny is a Mi’kmaw Woman from We’koqma’q First Nation in Cape Breton. A mother of three, she works at Skye River Trail as a Mi’kmaw Heritage Interpreter. Writing poetry, doing art, crafts, staying connected to her culture/traditions and being an advocate is what inspires her to continue her healing journey as a strong, resilient Mi’kmaw Woman. Photo credit: Ken Woroner https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/fe287d71-50af-4d81-93ea-9d4975eb2ba3/Behrooz+Mihankhah.jpeg 2025 Festival - Behrooz Mihankhah is a celebrated Iranian Canadian, ECMA-nominated composer, and pianist based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Inspired by his migrations through Iran, India and finally to Canada, Behrooz fuses various musical traditions, compositional techniques, and improvisational schools of thought and brings together listeners of various backgrounds. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/4150a9cc-2e9b-416b-9360-94bcb0f0ce59/Clifford+Paul+copy.jpg 2025 Festival - Clifford Paul is of Membertou First Nation, and is a Mi’kmaw artisan, storyteller, and environmental steward. Founder of Bear Man Authentics, Clifford is known for his handcrafted necklaces, made with precision and care. His work reflects traditional Mi’kmaw craftsmanship blended with modern techniques, each piece carrying cultural stories and personal connections. In addition to his artistry, Clifford is deeply engaged in land stewardship and conservation through his work with the Unama’ki Institute of Natural Resources (UINR). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/b5dfdc3a-6d25-403a-8b40-accd64fcd425/ronald+labelle.jpg 2025 Festival - Ronald Labelle is a retired folklorist and university professor with a research specialty in the history, language and culture of Acadians in the Atlantic Provinces. His more recent publications include Acadian Life in Chezzetcook and Chezzetcook: An Acadian Stronghold. He was Storyteller-in-residence at the Cape Breton Regional Library from 2015 to 2019, and he recently authored an original play in French, “Les noces de Marguerite,” based on a little known anecdote from Sydney’s early history. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/b6f74508-f82e-49e8-9847-7650c0c2398d/Shannon+MacMullin+digital.jpeg 2025 Festival - Sionainn/Shannon MacMullin s a settler Gael who has reclaimed her heritage language, Gàidhlig, in adulthood. She now carries and shares stories, songs, and traditions, and helps others along their own reclamation journeys. An instructor, community outreach officer, and storyteller, she is passionate about creating spaces where Gaels can gather, thrive, and continue their story. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/7a59c232-92fd-4557-b9e9-9ca036805f88/MacLeod%2C+Alexander_cr_Heather+A.+Crosby+Gionet+smaller.jpeg 2025 Festival - Alexander MacLeod had had work appear in The New Yorker, Granta, The Guardian and The Globe and Mail. His first book, Light Lifting, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the Commonwealth Book Prize. He won the O Henry Prize and the Dartmouth Book Award, and his new book, Animal Person, was named a “Book of the Year” by The New Yorker, among others. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/8ee53923-7a8f-4e0c-bae7-d225629f24be/Stephanie+Domet+digital.jpeg 2025 Festival - Stephanie Domet is the author of two novels, Homing and Fallsy Downsies, both published by Invisible. She also co-wrote a non-fiction book for middle grade readers called Amazing Atlantic Canadian Women, published by Nimbus. She is the co-founder and co-executive director of the AfterWords Literary Festival, and the managing editor of The Dalhousie Review. She is no doubt wearing something she sewed herself. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/07dbed9b-d30d-4120-b86e-1c5abe8c8ed5/Monika+Dutt+digital.jpeg 2025 Festival - Monika Dutt has been on the board of the Cabot Trail Writers Festival for almost five years. She writes creative non-fiction short stories and is a public health and family physician. She lives with her fourteen-year-old son Kail. https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/volunteer daily 0.75 2024-06-28 https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/the-festival-society daily 0.75 2025-07-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/368ed11e-6a38-429f-aa92-777644a1d9f0/CTWF+board+photo+June+2025.jpg The Festival Society - Make it stand out From left to right: Board member Donnie Calabrese, Co-Chair Monika Dutt, Board Member Mahlakai Rose, Executive & Artistic Director Rebecca Silver Slayter, Administrative Manager Kimberly Tilsley, Board Member Tyra Denny (& a junior member-at-large), Co-Chair Suzi Oram-Aylward and Board Member Duncan Gould https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/our-sponsors daily 0.75 2022-02-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/4c45e164-3fb4-4e9b-8c9c-90dcb4f1e131/2021+Sponsor+Logos+for+website.png Sponsors - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/newsletter daily 0.75 2025-04-01 https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/2017-festival daily 0.75 2018-02-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1503947655031-GQVZMPJ58781PC1NIG7T/17990797_1128024103976720_2956014250683231574_n.jpg Copy of 2017 Festival https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1506611305400-HY4UIH9223ELK0H4BJ51/Michael+Redhill.jpg Copy of 2017 Festival - Michael Redhill is a novelist, poet, playwright and former publisher of Brick. He is the author of the novels Consolation and Martin Sloane, a finalist for the 2001 Giller Prize; the short story collection Fidelity; and the poetry collection Light-Crossing; among other acclaimed works. His latest novel, Bellevue Square, has been nominated for the 2017 Giller Prize. He lives in Toronto, ON. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1502416484802-KHPPYVD3CQGO0TV48R84/image-asset.jpeg Copy of 2017 Festival - Sheree Fitch's first two books, Toes in My Nose (1987) and Sleeping Dragons All Around (1989), launched her career as a poet, rhymster, and a “kind of Canadian female Dr. Seuss.” Fitch has won almost every major award for Canadian children’s literature since then, including the 2000 Vicky Metcalf Award for a Body of Work Inspirational to Canadian Children. She has over twenty-five books to her credit, including her bestselling and critically praised adult novel, Kiss the Joy As It Flies(2008). Fitch lives in River John, Nova Scotia, where in July 2017 she opened Mable Murple's Book Shoppe and Dreamery, a one-of-a-kind bookstore and literary venue. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1501087326686-XDAFA34AYUV34HWECYSH/image-asset.jpeg Copy of 2017 Festival - Linden McIntyre's bestselling first novel, The Long Stretch, was nominated for a CBA LIbris Award and his boyhood memoir, Causeway: A Passage from Innocence, won both the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Nonfiction and the Evelyn Richardson Prize. His second novel, The Bishop's Man, was a #1 national bestseller, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Dartmouth Book Award and the CBA Libris Fiction Book of the Year Award, among other honours. The third book in the loose-knit trilogy, Why Men Lie, was also a #1 national bestseller as well as a Globe and Mail "Can't Miss" Book for 2012. MacIntyre, who spent 24 years as the co-host of the fifth estate, is a distinguished broadcast journalist who has won ten Gemini awards for his work. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1501095337666-WSHZTPBF5UQJ4DTHG6TP/doug+gibson+photo.jpg Copy of 2017 Festival - Douglas Gibson was called “a publishing icon” by the Globe and Mail in 2007. Later Alistair MacLeod said, “No one has done more for Canadian Literature than this man, Douglas Gibson”. In June 2017, he was awarded The Order of Canada as an “acclaimed publisher and literary editor.” After a career in Canadian Publishing that began in 1968, he “retired” in 2007. As an editor he has worked with three Prime Ministers, and with Hugh MacLennan, Morley Callaghan, W.O.Mitchell, Mavis Gallant, and many more. He has written two books about his authors: Stories About Storytellers: Publishing Alice Munro, Robertson Davies, Alistair MacLeod, Pierre Trudeau, and Others. (ECW,2011) . In 2015 he brought out Across Canada By Story: A Coast-to-Coast Literary Adventure (ECW). Both books—and the stage shows that they produced—were illustrated by Anthony Jenkins. So far he has given more than 160 such shows, across Canada, and in Beijing, Shanghai, and in Canada House in London, where he fell off the stage. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1501095922025-CYLTQJ0V87VSPTGHG2G9/image-asset.jpeg Copy of 2017 Festival - Sarah Faber received an MA in Creative Writing and English Literature from Concordia University. Her writing has appeared in Matrix and Brick. Originally, from Toronto, Sarah now lives in Cape Breton with her husband and their children. All is Beauty Now is her first novel. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1501095445612-1UIAEC5ML4PO1EM53CNC/Carol+Bruneau+by+Pamela+Donoghue.jpg Copy of 2017 Festival - Carol Bruneau Carol Bruneau is the author of seven books: four novels and three short fiction collections, including the recently released A Bird on Every Tree. Her first novel, Purple for Sky, won the 2001 Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the Dartmouth Book Award. Her 2007 novel, Glass Voices, was a Globe and Mail Best Book and has become a book club favourite. Her reviews, stories, and essays have appeared nationwide in newspapers, journals, and anthologies. A mother of three sons, she lives with her husband in Halifax, where she teaches writing at NSCAD University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1502043551302-5BFFN9IEVDO2TF0V7QDL/image-asset.jpeg Copy of 2017 Festival - Sarah MacLachlan   has worked in publishing for over 30 years. She began her career running the publicity department for Oxford University Press in Toronto. Subsequently she worked for Little, Brown Canada for eleven years as VP Publicity and Marketing working with such literary notables like Richard Ford and Nancy Huston to bestselling writers like Maeve Binchy and Joanna Trollope. In 1998 she was hired by the American distributor, Publishers Group West to run their Toronto operation, she was President of that organization until December 2003 when she was hired by Scott Griffin to become the President of the literary publisher, House of Anansi Press. In 2005 Anansi acquired the children’s publisher, Groundwood Books and Sarah oversees both companies. In 2010 she was made Publisher of Anansi and has been acquiring and working with both Canadian and International writers. She has created five new imprints at Anansi in the over the past 14 years; Spiderline which features crime fiction, Anansi International which features novels in translation, Astoria an imprint devoted to short fiction, Arachnide devoted to all fiction in translation from French-Canadian literature, and The A List which is a backlist imprint featuring Anansi classics from the past 47 years – all by Canadian authors. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1502045694070-KD08QWATI7P2CG0689Q8/image-asset.jpeg Copy of 2017 Festival - James Keelaghan Called Canada’s finest singer-songwriter by one of the most respected and lauded music journalists of the last 50 years, James Keelaghan is an artist who has proven to be a man for all seasons. As the calendar pages have turned, for almost a quarter of a century now, this poet laureate of the folk and roots music world has gone about his work with a combination of passion, intent and intensity, and curiosity. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1502044594844-2C1IWVTOFPXHZBOT55UI/MONA_6.jpg Copy of 2017 Festival - Mona Knight For many years Knight was a correspondent for a third-world sponsorship agency. When she moved to Cape Breton, she became a valued contributor to a local newspaper, The Victoria Standard, attracting a devoted group of readers. She has published several short stories. Her short story Reversal of Fortune was a finalist in the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia’s annual writing competition and became the opening chapter of Banjo Flats. Banjo Flats is her first novel. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1502048513758-YS4VDR9GJ9WP3OZRC41V/Slayter+pic+for+Weldon.jpg Copy of 2017 Festival - Rebecca Silver Slayter is a freelance writer and editor. She co-edits Brick literary journal and was named one of CBC’s Ten Writers to Watch. Her first novel, In the Land of Birdfishes, was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Rebecca lives in St-Joseph-du-Moine, Cape Breton. https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/donate daily 0.75 2025-09-30 https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/2019-schedule daily 0.75 2020-08-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1565798056915-UGN1S2B2V8T5BRLRFEZH/Coady_Lynn_portrait_new+exported+from+preview.jpg 2019 Schedule (Copy) - Lynn Coady is the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of six books, including Hellgoing, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize, was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and was an Amazon.ca and Globe and Mail Best Book. She is also the author of The Antagonist, winner of the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction and a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her first novel, Strange Heaven, published when she was just twenty-eight, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Her books have been published in the U.K., U.S., Holland, France, and Germany. Coady lives in Toronto and writes for television. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1565798110757-Y0CCC68Y6SN73HEFV0QW/Alicia+Elliott+smaller+file.jpg 2019 Schedule (Copy) - Alicia Elliott is a Tuscarora writer from Six Nations of the Grand River living in Brantford, Ontario with her husband and child. Her writing has been published by The Malahat Review, The Butter, Room, Grain, The New Quarterly, CBC, Globe and Mail, Vice, Maclean's, Today's Parent and Reader's Digest, among others. She's currently Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Fiddlehead, Associate Nonfiction Editor at Little Fiction | Big Truths, and a consulting editor with The New Quarterly. Her essay, "A Mind Spread Out on the Ground" won Gold at the National Magazine Awards in 2017, and another of her essays, "On Seeing and Being Seen: Writing With Empathy" was nominated for a National Magazine Award in 2018. She was the 2017-2018 Geoffrey and Margaret Andrew Fellow at UBC, and was chosen by Tanya Talaga to receive the RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Prize in 2018. Her short story "Unearth" has been selected by Roxane Gay to appear in Best American Short Stories 2018. Alicia is also presently working on a manuscript of short fiction. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1565798312092-UCCT0NG86QHNL87KD653/Site+Portraits_20140507_MG_0385+%281%29.jpg 2019 Schedule (Copy) - George Elliott Clarke was the 4th Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-15) and the 7th Parliamentary/Canadian Poet Laureate (2016-17), and is a revered artist in song, drama, fiction, screenplay, essays, and poetry. Born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1960, Clarke was educated at the University of Waterloo, Dalhousie University, and Queen’s University. Clarke is also a pioneering scholar of African-Canadian literature. A professor of English at the University of Toronto, Clarke has taught at Duke, McGill, the University of British Columbia, and Harvard. He holds eight honorary doctorates, plus appointments to the Order of Nova Scotia and the Order of Canada at the rank of Officer. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. His recognitions include the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellows Prize, the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry, the National Magazine Gold Award for Poetry, the Premiul Poesis (Romania), the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction, the Eric Hoffer Book Award for Poetry (US), and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award. Clarke’s work is the subject of Africadian Atlantic: Essays on George Elliott Clarke (2012), edited by Joseph Pivato. Finally, though Clarke is racialized “Black” and was socialized as an Africadian, he is a card-carrying member of the Eastland Woodland Métis Nation Nova Scotia, registered under Section 35 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He is, at last, a proud Afro-Métis Africadian. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1565798385380-2CBU6R9LKM7PQKSWVHSE/Tom+Ryan+smaller+file.jpg 2019 Schedule (Copy) - Tom Ryan was born and raised in Inverness, Nova Scotia. He’s a graduate of Mount Allison University and NSCC. Since 2012, Tom has published several books for young readers of all ages. He has been nominated for the White Pine Award, the Stellar Award and the Hackmatack Award, and two of his books - Totally Unrelated and Big Time - were Junior Library Guild selections. Two of his young adult novels, Way to Go and Tag Along, were chosen for the ALA Rainbow List, in 2013 and 2014. In 2017, on the occasion of Canada’s 150th birthday, his first novel, Way to Go, was chosen as one of the most significant books in Nova Scotia’s history. He was a 2017 Lambda Literary Fellow in Young Adult Fiction. Tom, his husband and their dog currently divide their time between Ontario and Nova Scotia. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1565798464667-J0K1XAWFC3GI05UEA5BW/lesley+back+yard.jpg 2019 Schedule (Copy) - Lesley Crewe is the author of ten novels, including Beholden, Mary, Mary, Amazing Grace, Chloe Sparrow, Kin, and Relative Happiness, which has been adapted into a feature film. Previously a freelance writer and screenwriter, her column “Are You Kidding Me?” appears weekly in the Chronicle Herald’s community newspapers. Lesley lives in Homeville, Nova Scotia. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1565798668990-XBDRUQJAD6KCV04TLI70/Westhead_Jessica-small+digital+file.jpg 2019 Schedule (Copy) - Jessica Westhead’s fiction has been shortlisted for the CBC Literary Awards, selected for the Journey Prize anthology, and nominated for a National Magazine Award. Her short stories have appeared in major literary journals in Canada, the US and the UK, including Hazlitt, Maisonneuve, Indiana Review and Hamish Hamilton’s Five Dials. She is the author of the novel Pulpy and Midge and the critically acclaimed short story collections Things Not to Do and And Also Sharks, which was a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book, a Kobo’s Best eBook of the Year and a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award. Westhead is a creative writing instructor at the Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1565798734464-RDN0JD79T859KNCHZFL5/Mensch%2C+Joshua+%28c%29+Cristian+Burrows.jpg 2019 Schedule (Copy) - Joshua Mensch is a poet, visual artist, and a founding editor of the literary journal B O D Y. His first book, Because: A Lyric Memoir, was published in 2018 by W.W. Norton and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award in Poetry. He grew up in Nova Scotia, Canada, and lives and works in Prague, Czech Republic. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1565798539606-OE2QLCGHB65GJZNIF9HQ/2159471_Peters_Sara.jpg 2019 Schedule (Copy) - Sara Peters was born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and lives in Toronto. She completed an MFA at Boston University, and was a Stegner fellow at Stanford. Her work has appeared in Slate, The Threepenny Review, and Poetry magazine. Her first book is 1996, and her new book is I Become a Delight to My Enemies. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1565798613861-AFRTU936DSYSZCVWKIIT/Eleanor+Wachtel-crop+%282%29.jpg 2019 Schedule (Copy) - Eleanor Wachtel’s unique blend of integrity, warmth and intelligence consistently wins the trust of international and high-profile writers, over 29 years as host of CBC Radio’s Writers & Company. At the end of their conversation in 2013, John le Carré told her, "You do it better than anyone I know.” Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro stated, “Eleanor Wachtel is one of the very finest interviewers of authors I’ve come across anywhere in the world.” Five selections of her interviews have been published, including Random Illuminations, a book of reflections, correspondence and conversations with Carol Shields, which won the Independent Publisher Book Award, and The Best of Writers & Company. Eleanor herself has earned numerous accolades for her contributions to Canadian cultural life, including nine honorary degrees and Officer of the Order of Canada. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1565798767595-PQ1MP3SZCV62P44POQGS/mark5.jpg 2019 Schedule (Copy) - Mark Medley is Deputy Editor of the Globe's Opinion section. He previously served as the Globe’s books editor, and, prior to joining the paper in 2014, he spent more than seven years at the National Post, where he served as an arts reporter and books editor. A graduate of Queen’s and Ryerson University, his work has appeared in publications including Toronto Life, The Walrus and across the Postmedia chain of newspapers, and he frequently serves as a host and interviewer at literary festivals across the country. He will host the 2018 Cabot Trail Writers Festival. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1569285031229-QI0I3XBO64HJ5W5OTL9Q/mary-jane-lamond1-e1530290182776.jpg 2019 Schedule (Copy) - Mary Jane Lamond is a Gaelic singer whose passion is to explore the Nova Scotia Gaelic song repertoire. She has recorded six albums and worked in a number of different roles and projects focused on promoting and sharing the Gaelic language and culture of Nova Scotia. It was through visiting her grandparents in Nova Scotia that Mary Jane fell in love with Gaelic tradition and song. While enrolled in St. Francis Xavier University’s Celtic Studies programme, she released her first album, and its reception launched a career of international touring and award-winning further recordings. Alongside numerous Juno awards and ECMA nominations, Mary Jane received the prestigious Portia White Prize in 2010 in recognition of her efforts to preserve Gaelic culture through song. She is proud to still be learning about this song tradition. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1569285153925-JES38CHBO7HEYMSIDVN8/M%C3%A0iri+Britton+-+Photo+credit+Steve+Rankin+%281%29.jpg 2019 Schedule (Copy) - Màiri Britton balances university teaching in her new home of Antigonish, N.S., with running community Gaelic classes and immersion days, using the locally developed 'Gàidhlig aig Baile' methodology. She is also manager of the Nova Scotia Gaelic song project, 'Language in Lyrics' (www.languageinlyrics.com), at Cape Breton University. She spends as much time as she can visiting local Gaelic tradition-bearers in in the province to learn from their store of songs, stories and cultural wisdom. A Gaelic singer, step dancer and harpist, Màiri has performed and taught workshops and summer schools in Scotland, Ireland and North America. She tours internationally as lead vocalist and step dancer with the North American Gaelic trad group Fàrsan (www.farsanband.com). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1569319298171-C05OJUIZ85ACCG5I9SX7/Goiridh+Alba+2010.jpg 2019 Schedule (Copy) - Goiridh Dòmhnullach is a singer, songwriter, storyteller, folklorist, and local historian from Bràigh na h-Aibhneadh in southern Inverness County (Kingsville, CB). He learned much from some of the finest seanchaidhs and tradition-bearers from his parish. In his job as Oifigear na Gàidhlig (Gaelic Field Officer), he works often with youth and with advanced learners of the Gaelic language. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1569319346111-9ABA0XTS3O9ZAZIFBYKB/Lewis+MacKinnon+2.jpeg 2019 Schedule (Copy) - Lewis MacKinnon was born in Inverness, Cape Breton, to a father who is a Gael and is a Gaelic speaker and a mother who is Acadian and is a French speaker. He was raised on the Nova Scotia mainland in Antigonish County. In 2011, he was named the poet laureate to the Royal National Mòd in Scotland. He works to advance Gaels’ language, culture and identity in Nova Scotia, Canada and internationally. He lives with his family in Middle Sackville near Halifax. https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/currentfestival-1 daily 0.75 2021-07-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1599578949795-LPTQET4PADAFIADILO5K/CTWF2020_FB_Cover.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1600736305846-AVFJ2BLCZNB5QRQDPS5Y/WIWAW+image+for+website+updated.gif 2020 Festival (Copy) - 7 p.m. Welcome In: Writers at Work This video series will explore one of the interestingly intimate aspects of the often distancing technology we all have been using so much these past many months: a window into the homes and workspaces of those we connect with from across a screen. In this writerly Show & Tell, participating authors will show us around the place where they write, whether it's an antique desk or a kitchen table, and then tell us about their writing process. •With guests Desmond Cole, Danny Ramadan, Anne Simpson, Amy Spurway & Marjorie Simmins https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1599581475135-YUR15HOTJACJGOAA86EC/Book+Club.gif 2020 Festival (Copy) - 7 p.m. Festival Book Club At this Zoom book club event, participants will have the opportunity to speak directly with local author Morgan Murray about his debut novel, Dirty Birds, asking questions, taking part in the discussion, and sharing some laughs over this wildly entertaining literary adventure. • With guest Morgan Murray & host Frank Macdonald https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1599581518981-IO8NMCWLS4GO7E49XYUK/3.gif 2020 Festival (Copy) - 7 p.m. Writing as Resistance This panel conversation will explore the relationships between writing, empathy, activism and anti-racism; the ways literature succeeds and fails as a tool for social change; and the role literary voices have played in 2020 in the widespread movement to confront and protest racism. • With guests Desmond Cole, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson & host Afua Cooper https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1599581541906-31L71O0FAJBN1AV0ORED/The+Joy+of+Reading.gif 2020 Festival (Copy) - 7 p.m. The Joy of Reading This panel conversation will explore the parallel art to writing—reading—and the books that influenced and inspire the panellists, discussing all that we go looking for when we open a book. • With guests Marina Endicott, Marjorie Simmins, Souvankham Thammavongsa & host Rebecca Silver Slayter https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1599581563503-H6Q4QS2SRMOC712T4YF9/Story+as+Medicine.gif 2020 Festival (Copy) - 7 p.m. Story as Medicine This panel conversation will discuss how each of the authors’ most recent books explore solace, recovery, or redress in some sense, examining the power of words to heal... • With guests Sheree Fitch, Anne Simpson, Rebecca Thomas & host Rebecca Silver Slayter https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1599581434539-0EGB5YSYH2PQ0B07YIJ5/Reading+Series+Vol+1.gif 2020 Festival (Copy) - 7 p.m. Reading Series, Vol.1 An evening of readings by our festival authors. With a short yoga intermission by Susan Paddon. • With guests Rebecca Thomas, Danny Ramadan, Amy Spurway, Marjorie Simmins, Afua Cooper, Joshua Whitehead, Souvankham Thammavongsa, Marina Endicott, Desmond Cole & host Jared Bland https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1599581582307-PKJHOJZ6B50RWLGN3YUC/Sheree+Workshop.gif 2020 Festival (Copy) - 10 a.m. Now Breathe, Stretch & Write: Writing as Contemplative Practice A 90-minute Zoom workshop for all levels ages 17 and up: “Isn’t all writing a contemplative practice? Well, yes and no. I'll offer guided exercises in a hands on writing workshop, using poetry as prompts, using breath and silence as a way to uncover voices and vision. But don't let the soberness of the word ‘contemplation’ mislead you. This is a (word) playshop as well as workshop. Your only task will be to fill your page with first burst beginnings of things, take away something you may want to work on or use on a work in progress, whether prose or poetry. Time for questions at end—hopefully!” • With workshop leader Sheree Fitch. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1599581599631-5MCJ2SO58CK9B1R7O18R/Marjorie+Workshop.gif 2020 Festival (Copy) - 10 a.m. Finding Your Story: A Memoir Workshop A 2-hour Zoom workshop: “How do you find the memoir you were born to write? And how do we write the best, most original memoirs we can? Let's talk about the nuts and bolts of the genre (structure), and the stories themselves (content and themes).” • With workshop leader Marjorie Simmins. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1599581616468-EZ288EEDEZ0GRAGKPNQ8/Soundtrack.gif 2020 Festival (Copy) - 2 p.m. Soundtrack for a Walk Where You Are A downloadable podcast of poetry and music that explores our relationship to the land. We invite participants to venture outside and listen to this recording while taking a walk in your own landscape, wherever you live, so we can enjoy a shared listening experience together from all our various corners of the world. (And if you like, send us a picture of what you see on your walk!) • by Shalan Joudry & Katherena Vermette https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1599581633317-UQGJ0RZFVHAO3WI8YAZ2/Reading+Series+Vol+2.gif 2020 Festival (Copy) - 7 p.m. Reading Series, Vol.2 An evening of readings by our festival authors. With a short yoga intermission by Susan Paddon. • With guests Mary Louise Bernard, Andre Fenton, Morgan Murray, Sheree Fitch, Anne Simpson, Megan Gail Coles, Katherena Vermette, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Ian Williams & host Jared Bland https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1599581653069-CS9PV7P3SHBL3AJ35CVE/Anne+Workshop.gif 2020 Festival (Copy) - 9:30 a.m. What Makes a Good Opening in Fiction? A 2.5-hour Zoom fiction workshop: What makes the opening of a story or novel vivid? How can characters come alive from the start? What is the question your story or novel poses—the reason it needs to be told? Anne Simpson will look at what can make your short story or first chapter of a novel come to life. She’ll focus on what drives the characters into the developing story from the beginning. • With workshop leader Anne Simpson. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1599581674872-410OOJT4PSI8WELDVK60/Megan+Workshop.gif 2020 Festival (Copy) - 10 a.m. Introduction to Playwriting A 2-hour character-driven playwriting workshop on Zoom focusing on dramatic voice, for participants who are already working on writing a play. • With workshop leader Megan Gail Coles. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1600739180018-K7BHFQSFAUQW0MHDMZPM/Updated+heard+in+the+highlands+for+website+image.gif 2020 Festival (Copy) - 2 p.m. Heard in the Highlands: Cape Breton Out Loud! This socially distanced outdoor, in-person reading will feature local writers sharing stories of the island. It will take place at the Lake-O-Law Provincial Park, at 4830 Cabot Trail Hwy 19, Lake-O-Law, N.S., overlooking a beautiful view of the lake and highlands. • With authors Morgan Murray, Mary Louise Bernard, Amy Spurway, & Marjorie Simmin; musical guests Morgan Toney & Mary Beth Carty; & host Rebecca Silver Slayter. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1599581720588-C7WG5CR53E7GNM7T87CA/Writing+%26+Community.gif 2020 Festival (Copy) - 7 p.m. Writing & Community Our closing festival event, this panel will discuss community among writers, with readers, one's home community, identity communities.... and all the ways these communities support, inspire, challenge, and inform the stories writers tell. • With guests Ian Williams, Danny Ramadan, Megan Gail Coles & host Andrea Currie https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1597420085860-BCIF8WCJNIEEQQ4C4V1J/SMALLIan+Williams+%C2%A9+Justin+Morris.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Ian Williams is the author of the Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning Reproduction. He is also the author of Personals, shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award; Not Anyone's Anything, winner of the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for the best first collection of short fiction in Canada; and You Know Who You Are, a finalist for the ReLit Prize for poetry. Williams completed his Ph.D. in English at the University of Toronto, mentored by George Elliot Clarke, and is currently an assistant professor of poetry in the Creative Writing program at the University of British Columbia. He was the 2014-2015 Canadian Writer-in-Residence for the University of Calgary's Distinguished Writers Programme. He has held fellowships or residencies from the Banff Center, Vermont Studio Center, Cave Canem, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and Palazzo Rinaldi in Italy. He was also a scholar at the National Humanities Center Summer Institute for Literary Study and is a judge for the 2018 Griffin prize. His writing has appeared in several North American journals and anthologies. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1597504075637-XMCJX1CROURG4TVOZNSF/SMALLMarina+Endicott+2020.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Marina Endicott’s novel Good to a Fault won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book, Canada and the Caribbean, and was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her next, The Little Shadows, was short-listed for the Governor General’s award and long-listed for the Giller Prize, as was her last book, Close to Hugh. Endicott is the recipient of a 2020 Atlantic Book Award for her latest novel, The Difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1597580255218-RJBX6GZRUC87XZTXVQFN/SMALLRebecca+Thomas+by+Hannah+Jackson.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Rebecca Thomas is an award-winning Mi’kmaw poet. She is Halifax’s former Poet Laureate (2016–2018) and has been published in multiple journals and magazines. She coordinated the Halifax Slam Poetry team from 2014 to 2017, leading them to three national competitions with the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. In 2019 she published her first book, I’m Finding My Talk, illustrated by Pauline Young, which was named a CBC and Globe & Mail Best Book and shortlisted for the Ann Connor Brimer Award and the APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1597682670456-O08HL9CG3BUPZNY5XPG2/A4610CC8-289F-4E30-8422-9215EDEEB9F3.jpeg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Morgan Murray was born and raised on a farm near the same west-central Alberta village as figure-skating legend Kurt Browning (Caroline). He now lives, works, plays, writes, and builds all sorts of crooked furniture in Cape Breton. In between, he has been a professional schemer, a farmer, a rancher, a roustabout, a secretary, a reporter, a designer, a Tweeter, and a student in St. John’s, Calgary, Prague, Montreal, Chicoutimi, and Paris. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Canadian Studies from the University of Calgary, a Certificate in Central and Eastern European Studies from the University of Economics, Prague, a Master of Philosophy in Humanities from Memorial University of Newfoundland, and a participation ribbon for beef-calf showmanship (incomplete) from the Little Britches 4-H Club. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1597771329100-ENEHCL537TL9WFA4A7X0/SMALL+Andre+Fenton+by+Jack+Scrine.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Andre Fenton is an award-winning author, spoken-word artist, and arts educator. He has represented Halifax at seven national poetry festivals across Canada, and his award-winning debut novel, Worthy of Love, was published in 2018. Andre’s work focuses on race, self-esteem, and creating more representation in young adult fiction. Annaka is Andre’s second novel. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1597858162063-J11CY4XVSB5FUW3HLP11/SMALLMarjorie+Simmins.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Marjorie Simmins is an award-winning journalist, her most recent win being a Gold Medal at the 2020 Atlantic Journalism Awards for best article in Arts and Entertainment, Any Medium. Simmins is also the author of three non-fiction titles: Coastal Lives, a memoir about living on Canada’s East and West Coasts (Pottersfield Press, 2014); Year of the Horse (PP, 2016), which details her life with horses in British Columbia and Nova Scotia; and Memoir: Conversations and Craft (PP 2020). Simmins’s fourth title, Somebeachsomewhere: A Harness Racing Legend from a One-Horse Stable, is scheduled for publication in the spring of 2021, with Nimbus Publishing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1597950020299-8KUV6T5FK29QRRZJ90ZR/image-asset.jpeg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Desmond Cole is the author of the number one bestseller The Skin We’re In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power. He is an award-winning journalist, radio host, and activist in Toronto and his writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, Toronto Life, The Walrus, NOW Magazine, Ethnic Aisle, Torontoist, BuzzFeed, and the Ottawa Citizen. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1598031386707-TZBTU5CKB95U0HMKFMG4/SMALL+Thammavongsa%2C+S+2020_COLOUR_cr_%28c%29+Sarah+Bodri.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Souvankham Thammavongsa is the author of four poetry books and the short story collection How to Pronounce Knife (McClelland & Stewart, 2020), longlisted for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize and a New York Times Editors' Choice. Her stories have won an O. Henry Award and appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, and Granta. She lives in Toronto. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1598101915534-9052DPAPMU5QAPF3Z9DW/SMALL+COLES-Megan-Gail_credit-Terry-Day.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Megan Gail Coles is a graduate of Memorial University of Newfoundland, National Theatre School of Canada and University of British Columbia. She is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Poverty Cove Theatre Company for whom she has written and produced numerous award-winning NL plays. Her first short fiction collection, Eating Habits of the Chronically Lonesome, won the BMO Winterset Award, the ReLit Award, the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award and earned her the Writers’ Trust of Canada 5×5 prize. Her debut novel, Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, a contender for CBC Canada Reads and recently won the BMO Winterset Award. Originally from Savage Cove on the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, Megan lives in St. John's where she is the Executive Director of Riddle Fence and a PhD candidate at Concordia University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1598188235577-W7QGKD3D15SG4YVBETR5/SMALLLeanne+Betasamosake+Simpson+Pic.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg writer, scholar, and musician, and a member of Alderville First Nation. She is the author of five books; This Accident of Being Lost (MacEwan Book of the Year, Peterborough Arts Award for Outstanding Achievement by an Indigenous Author, finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Trillium Book Award, longlisted for CBC Canada Reads, a best book of the year by the Globe & Mail, National Post, and Quill & Quire) As We Have Always Done, This Accident of Being Lost, Islands of Decolonial Love, The Gift Is In The Making, and Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back. She has released two albums, including f(l)ight, which is a companion piece to This Accident of Being Lost. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1598294236454-15AW9AKEYX75HQ2EHRA3/SMALLAnne+Simpson+photo+credit+Kate+Waters+-+Copy.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Anne Simpson has published three novels: Speechless, Canterbury Beach, and Falling, longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and winner of the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction. She has also written five poetry collections, of which Strange Attractor is the most recent. She won the Griffin Poetry Prize for Loop in 2004. Her book of essays, The Marram Grass: Poetry and Otherness, examines poetry, art, and philosophy. Simpson has worked as a writer-in-residence at libraries and universities across the country. She lives in Nova Scotia. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1598380261989-7EX1ETVN54EDZ8B7M8R3/image-asset.jpeg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Danny Ramadan is an award-winning Syrian-Canadian author, public speaker and LGBTQ-refugees activist. His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, won multiple awards. His children’s book, Salma the Syrian Chef, was published in March 2020. Danny is graduating his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1598639494327-D2UDQ7FRJW4VJDC44EY4/SMALLKatherena+Vermette+1.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Katherena Vermette is a Métis writer from Treaty One territory, the heart of the Métis nation, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Her first book, North End Love Songs (The Muses Company), won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. Her NFB short documentary, this river, won the Coup de Coeur at the Montreal First Peoples Festival and a Canadian Screen Award. Her first novel, The Break, is the winner of three Manitoba Book Awards and the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, and it was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and CBC Canada Reads. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1598724589253-F0Z058VF2YFIZI7JS754/SMALL+LeanneShereeGillesSept23rd2018%C2%A9KeithMinchin-313.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Sheree Fitch is a multi-award-winning writer, speaker, educator and the author of over 30 books in a variety of genres, including, most recently, You Won’t Always Be This Sad and Summer Feet, and the forthcoming Because We Love, We Cry. Since the publication of her first book, Toes in My Nose in 1987, she’s travelled the globe as a visiting poet and storyteller, writing instructor and literacy educator. A popular presenter at literary festivals, libraries, and conferences, Fitch has received the Vicky Metcalf Award for a body of work inspirational to Canadian children and three honorary doctorates for her contribution to Canadian literature and issues affecting women and children. She owns Mabel Murple’s Book Shoppe and Dreamery, a seasonal book shoppe in rural Nova Scotia. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1598812577478-BBLUMPZ03E6WRHZDD6AT/SMALL+Joshua+Whitehead.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Joshua Whitehead is a Two-Spirit, Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is the author of full-metal indigiqueer, Jonny Appleseed, and the forthcoming Making Love with the Land to be released with Knopf Canada in 2021. Currently, his edited anthology, Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction is slated to release in Fall 2020 from Arsenal Pulp Press. Whitehead is an ABD doctoral student at the University of Calgary (Treaty 7) where he focusses on Indigenous literatures and cultures. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1598983329406-HG67B2JKJJAG6QFB82FI/SMALL+Afua+Cooper.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Afua Cooper is a poet, and historian of slavery and freedom. A former poet laureate of Halifax, she has authored multiple works. Her most recent book of poetry is Black Matters: Poetry and Photography in Dialogue (Roseway, 2020). She is currently professor of Black studies and history at Dalhousie University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1599076871534-QHZZF6V87TW9T9J9QUO9/SMALL+Spurway_Amy_byAlex+Pearson+of+A.S.PearsonPhotography_GL.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Amy Spurway was born and raised on Cape Breton, where, at the age of 11, she landed her first writing and performing gigs with CBC Radio. She has worked as a communications consultant, editor, speech-writer, and performer. Her writing has appeared in Today's Parent, the Toronto Star, Babble, and Elephant Journal. She lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1599152192856-ZPDF1KZ1S43AHIAB2RI0/image-asset.jpeg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Mary Louise Bernard is the former chief of the Wagmatcook First Nation, a Parks Canada Interpreter and the author of children’s story Sweetwater Maiden: The Mi'kmaw Legend of Maple Syrup, which is available in Mi’kmaw, French, Gaelic and English. She developed Sweetwater Maiden into an interpretive program offered during the visitor season at Cape Breton Highlands National Park. She is now working on a second children’s book, a bilingual story of the little people that live in the Cape Breton highlands, known to the Mi’kmaq as the Wiklatmu’j. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1600784134162-FTEC199VW2LM6V933MJC/SMALLER+SHALANDanFroese-Shalan-8019.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Shalan Joudry is a narrative artist working in many mediums. She is a poet, playwright, podcast producer, oral storyteller and actor, as well as a cultural interpreter. Her first book of poetry, Generations Re-merging, was published by Gaspereau Press (2014) and her second book, Elapultiek, was published by Pottersfield Press (2019). Her next collection of poetry, Waking Ground, is also coming out with Gaspereau Press (fall 2020). Shalan has shared her poetry, oral storytelling and drum singing with numerous stages, events, schools and organizations for the past decade. Shalan also facilitates cultural and ecological professional development workshops. She lives in her home territory of Kespukwitk (southwest Nova Scotia) with her family in their community of L’sətkuk (Bear River First Nation). Shalan will share stories and readings in the audio recording Soundtrack for a Walk Where You Are. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1601557576093-79P1R3L7QYLM65HVI9OG/d58292ec-a307-4c54-a516-c671d255a89a.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Rose Meuse, a Native flute player, is from Bear River First Nation community and is married with four beautiful children that range from the ages 31 to 7. She is a home school mom and her passion is her L’nu [Mi’kmaw] language and flute music. She plays in many different types of venues, including spiritual retreats and community events. Rose plays flute on the audio recording Soundtrack for a Walk Where You Are. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1600781596024-C3Z6DUAUA0VNU8E8XII2/SMALL+Morgan+Toney+photo.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Morgan Toney is a twenty-one year old Mi’kmaq Fiddle Player. Playing the fiddle for just over a year, Morgan has touched the hearts of many in the Mi’kmaq Nation and throughout Nova Scotia. He is a Music Major at Cape Breton University, and has took lessons from Stan Chapman and Kyle MacNeil. Morgan has written a dozen of his own compositions, which he dedicates to other people. He has taken Mi’kmaq Songs which are usually sung accompanied by a drum, and had brought it to the Fiddle. Morgan will perform with Mary Beth at Heard in the Highlands: Cape Breton Out Loud! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1600783979288-3XKYQYDXJVZHBBVNXQK6/SMALLER+Mary+Beth+Carty+photo.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Mary Beth Carty, with an accordion, a guitar, and a stomping board, is a rare gem. Her first solo album was nominated for a 2018 ECMA and is described by The East magazine as “one of the most fun and exciting albums we’ve heard this year.” She’s performed in Continental Europe, Central Africa, and throughout Canada. The UK’s fRoots Magazine describes her as “a solid instrumentalist of outstanding calibre whose passionate voice rings in your head long after you have stopped listening.” Born and raised in Lanark, Antigonish County, Mary Beth is a sought-after guitar accompanist for fiddler players. Mary Beth plays with a percussive, dynamic style in DADGAD tuning with a keen ear and a lot of passion! She is excited to accompany her friend Morgan Toney at this year's festival! Mary Beth and Morgan will perform at Heard in the Highlands: Cape Breton Out Loud! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1600784722958-1I4TYH8JKC6KPOCZU4O2/Jared+Bland.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Jared Bland is the publisher of McClelland & Stewart, and a vice president of Penguin Random House Canada, where he works with a broad range of authors such as Margaret Atwood, Linda Spalding, Michael Ondaatje, Omar El Akkad, Sharon Bala, and many more. Prior to joining M&S, he was the Arts editor of The Globe & Mail. Additionally, he’s worked as a senior editor at House of Anansi press, and was the managing editor of The Walrus magazine. Jared will host our 2020 Reading Series, Vol.1 & 2. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1600784976710-MVAMWTJKG4H2DREYNNYI/Andrea+Currie.JPG 2020 Festival (Copy) - Andrea Currie is Saulteaux Métis from Manitoba. She is a psychotherapist, writer, musician, and teacher. Her experience working in healing and the arts with Indigenous peoples, the African Nova Scotian community, and street-involved people have blessed her with an abundance of learning about resilience and how healing happens. She sources strength and inspiration from the wisdom and musical traditions of the Métis, Mi'kmaq, Anishnabe, and Nova Scotia Black communities, and grounds herself with ceremony and mindfulness practice. Andrea is also a member of the Cabot Trail Writers Festival board and will moderate our Writing & Community panel. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1600785078974-OOAM6M75YWFWXEPO6ZKN/Frank+Macdonald+%28Small+image%29.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Frank Macdonald, columnist, poet, songwriter, playwright and novelist, was born in Inverness, Cape Breton, where he and his partner, artist Virginia McCoy, now live. For the past 30 years he has penned a weekly column as a humourist/satirist with Inverness Oran newspaper and other Maritime publications. His columns have appeared in two collections, Assuming I’m Right (Cecibu 1990), and How to Cook Your Cat (Cecibu 2003). In 1992, Mulgrave Road Theatre produced a one-man play, Assuming I’m Right, written by Macdonald depicting the a day in the life of a columnist and his cat. Macdonald’s first novel, A Forest for Calum (CBU Press), was published in 2005. A children’s novella, T.R.’s Adventure at Angus the Wheeler’s (CBU Press) was released in 2010. A second novel, A Possible Madness (CBU Press) came out in 2012. In 2015, Tinker & Blue was published. Frank will moderate our Festival Book Club. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1600785692280-OSLVPLT1OIUUKS8SJSDW/rebecca+silver+slayter+small+pic.jpg 2020 Festival (Copy) - Rebecca Silver Slayter is the author of In the Land of Birdfishes, which was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her second novel, The Second History, will be published by Doubleday in April 2021. Named one of CBC's Ten Writers to Watch, Rebecca is the Artistic Director of the Cabot Trail Writers Festival and an editor of Brick literary journal. She lives on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Rebecca will moderate our panels on The Joy of Reading & Story as Medicine. https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/currentfestival-2 daily 0.75 2022-02-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1628852737592-VWVJ4T370ARDKFYBDOQN/CTWF+FB+logo+temp+2021.png 2021 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632610797796-2YG6BNQEAIOZJQZKAXCE/Francesca+Ekwuyasi+pic+copy.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - francesca ekwuyasi is a writer and multidisciplinary artist from Lagos, Nigeria. Her work explores themes of faith, family, queerness, consumption, loneliness, and belonging. francesca's debut novel, Butter Honey Pig Bread was longlisted for the 2020 Giller Prize, was a finalist for CBC's 2021 Canada Reads competition and a 2021 Lambda Literary Award, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Governor General's Award and the 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. Her writing has been published in Winter Tangerine Review, Brittle Paper, Transition Magazine, the Malahat Review, Visual Art News, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, GUTS magazine, the Puritan, Canadian Art, and elsewhere. Her story "Ọrun is Heaven" was longlisted for the 2019 Journey Prize. Supported through the National Film Board's (NFB) Film Maker's Assistance Program (FAP) and the Fabienne Colas Foundation, francesca's short documentary Black + Belonging has screened in festivals in Halifax, Toronto, and Montreal. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632610913911-LJTWK5XMYXCKTEDEEM4Z/Donna+Morrissey++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Donna Morrissey has published six nationally bestselling novels. She has received awards in Canada, the U.S. and England, and her novel Sylvanus Now was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize. Donna’s fiction has been translated into several different languages. She was nominated for a Gemini for her script The Clothesline Patch (which won a Gemini for best production). Her latest novel, The Fortunate Brother, spent six weeks on the bestseller list, and won the Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel of 2017. Her memoir, Pluck, has just been released by Penguin in both Canada and the US, and she is currently editing a new novel for release in 2022, and a second memoir about her father. Aside from mentoring with Humber College in Toronto, Donna has a private mentoring/story editing service. In her spare time she splays on the couch, watching Dr. Seuss with her grandson, Bentley. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632610967487-M3W1RD0J8GN04XB4K1T1/Alexander+MacLeod++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Alexander MacLeod (Festival Host) is a fiction writer and a professor of English Literature and Atlantic Canada Studies at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. Light Lifting, his debut short fiction collection, won an Atlantic Book Award and was named a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, The Frank O’Connor Short Story Award and The Commonwealth Book Prize. The collection was also named a “Book of the Year” by the American Library Association, The Irish Times, The Globe and Mail, and Amazon.ca. Alexander recently won an O Henry Prize for his short story, “Lagomorph,” and in Spring 2022 his newest book, Animal Person, will be published internationally. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611110301-DYDAE9TTFFM9LV31XNUA/Sylvia+D.+HamiltonAdams+Photography++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Sylvia D. Hamilton is a writer, filmmaker and artist known for her landmark films Black Mother Black Daughter, Portia White: Think on Me and The Little Black School House. Screened in festivals in Canada and abroad, they are widely used in schools and universities throughout Canada. Her poetry collection, And I Alone Escaped to Tell You, was a finalist for the 2015 League of Canadian Poets Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the 2018 Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia Masterworks Award. Her solo multi-media installations have been featured in galleries and museums in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. She has received several honorary degrees, a Gemini Award, and the 2020 Governor General’s Award in History (Popular Media). She is an Inglis Professor at the University of King’s College in Halifax. Photo (c) Adams Photography. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611233601-ENODYZDDNJ6GK8Q1IFFN/Michelle+Sylliboy+pic+smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Michelle Sylliboy (Mi’kmaq/L’nu) is an award-winning author and Interdisciplinary artist. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised on her traditional L'nuk territory in We'koqmaq, Cape Breton. While living on the traditional, unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, Sylliboy completed a BFA at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and a Masters in Education from Simon Fraser University. She is currently a PhD candidate in Simon Fraser University’s Philosophy of Education program, where she is working to reclaim her original written komqwej’wikasikl language. Her collection of photography and L’nuk hieroglyphic poetry, Kiskajeyi—I Am Ready, was published by Rebel Mountain Press in 2019 now available as an ebook. She was recently appointed at St FX University as new tenure track faculty in Education, Modern Language and Fine Arts departments. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611274840-V79SV2A8GUPEG4OEL9ET/TATTRIE_Jon_by+Giselle+Melanson+Tattrie_2++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Jon Tattrie works as a journalist for CBC News in Halifax. He holds a master’s degree in writing from the University of King’s College. He is the author of two novels and five books of non-fiction, including Peace by Chocolate, Daniel Paul: Mi'kmaw Elder, and the bestselling biography The Hermit of Africville. Photo (c) Giselle Melanson Tattrie. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611318592-JR48719OA6D8BGEF6YKT/alan-syliboy++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Alan Syliboy is a well-known Mi’kmaw artist based in Milbrook First Nation near Truro, Nova Scotia. He studied privately with Maliseet artist Shirley Bear and then attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. His work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad, has had a number of commissions for art installations, designed a coin for the Canadian Mint, illustrated books, sat on art juries and taught a number of workshops and courses. His children’s books include The Thundermaker and Mi’kmaw Animals. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611378494-YI8RIA81S00P2SH1JIV2/Christy+Ann+Conlin+Author+Photo+Colour+High+Res+cr++Kate+Inglis++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Christy-Ann Conlin is the author of two acclaimed novels, Heave and The Memento. She is also the author of the short fiction collection, Watermark, a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Award and the Evergreen Award. Heave was a national bestseller, a finalist for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, the Dartmouth Book Award and was a Globe & Mail Top 100 Book. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals including Best Canadian Stories, Brick, Geist, Room, and Numéro Cinq. Her short fiction has also been longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the American Short Fiction Prize. Her radio broadcast work includes co-creating and hosting CBC Fear Itself, a national summer radio series. Christy Ann studied theatre at the University of Ottawa and screenplay writing at the University of British Columbia. She was born and raised in seaside Nova Scotia where she still resides. Photo (c) Kate Inglis. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611437323-5BAECYZ1LT2I345HGW2K/Tyler+LeBlanc++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Tyler LeBlanc was born and raised in a tiny fishing village on Nova Scotia’s south shore. He studied history and journalism as an undergraduate and holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. His writing has appeared in This Magazine, Modern Farmer, Explore, Dal Magazine, and The Coast. His book Acadian Driftwoodwon the 2021 Evelyn Richardson Award for Non-Fiction and the 2021 Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611471329-2S52DXSGTU3QMOCEFR5X/Ronald+Bourgeois+copy.jpeg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Ronald Bourgeois is a multi-award-winning singer-songwriter who is widely recognized as one of the Acadie’s primary artists. Originally from Chéticamp, Ronald has inherited the rich musical tradition deeply rooted in the history and culture of Cape-Breton. With simple lyrics and catchy melodies the artist weaves his creative work carefully interlacing imagery and music into engaging musical stories that crossover age and musical genres. Since 1981 Ronald Bourgeois has maintained a continuous creative and performance career encompassing a catalogue of over 300 songs, featuring 72 various recorded versions, by a host of artists from Acadie, Quebec, Louisiana and France. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611507419-UE2SXYML8BYOTZ5A546H/PHOTO%2BBarbara%2BLe%2BBlanc%2B%2Bsmaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Barbara Le Blanc taught for the Department of Education at University Sainte-Anne, Nova Scotia, from July 1995 to August 2016. She has written a number of articles on Acadian culture and a children's book, Acadie en fête published by BBC and Longman Publications in Great Britain. Her book Postcards From Acadie: Grand-Pré, Evangeline, and the Acadian Identity, published by Gaspereau Press, examines the role of an historic site in the construction of a sense of Acadian group identity and belonging. She received the Lèger Comeau Medal from the Société nationale de l’Acadie in 2003, an award that honours people who have contributed in a remarkable way in the promotion of Acadie and the Acadians. In 2014, she received the André D. Cormier Certificate from the Société Promotion Grand-Pré for her contributions to Grand-Pré National Historic Site. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611556908-I5KQ8J813MRL5XDTFFXG/Shawnee+Paul++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Shawnee Paul is a Mi'kmaw musician from Eskasoni who has been playing the fiddle since the age of seven. Before her grandfather, Wilfred Prosper, passed, he gave her a fiddle and she soon began instructions from Eddy Rogers. Since childhood, Shawnee loved playing music and learning new instruments. This led her to study music at Acadia University where she received her Bachelor of Music Education degree in May 2019 and her Bachelor of Education in May 2021. Shawnee is a passionate musical educator and loves to share this passion through musical education. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611613474-4GVXDKVD0G353MZMLHQE/BrianDoyle+copy.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Brian Doyle was born on Cape Breton Island and has been on stage since the age of fourteen. He has played the rock and blues scene around the world with many successful groups including his own project Greyloch, a Celtic rock fusion group nominated for The East Coast Music Association's Rock Album of the Year in 2000. The latest ECMA nomination for the current album Live Off the Floor, which pairs him with Scott MacMillan for their second recording, brings Brian to a total of three nominations and one win. Two solo albums are currently in the works. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611648188-BCXEPRBZBC46N6RQ8GBB/Brenda+MacLennan-Dunphy+%281%29+copy.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Brenda MacLennan-Dunphy was born and raised in Cape Breton Island, and except for her various adventures world-wide, she has kept her roots firmly planted in her home ground of Inverness County. She began writing later in life when she wrote a fictionalized account of her grandparent’s story which became the beloved musical John Archie and Nellie which was produced in 2012 and again in 2016. This story later evolved into her first novel Never Speak of This Again (Pottersfield Press, 2018). She has written and produced three other plays (The Weddin’ Dance, Displacement, The Rèiteach) which were all well supported by the local community. Her second novel, The Silence of the Vessel, was published in the fall of 2020 (Pottersfield Press). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611684513-JSA6FTCYPVYFLTHL7K4E/BillConall%2B%2Bsmaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Bill Conall won the 2014 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour for his novel The Promised Land: a novel of Cape Breton. His earlier novel The Rock in the Water was short-listed for the same award. In the Has Been category, Bill Conall has a significant backlist. Present and former occupations include library assistant, long-haul trucker, salesman (cars, wine, trade show exhibits, commercial printing, encyclopedia, signage), road musician, printer, fork lift operator, bartender, recording artist, and writer. Bill lives on the back side of Murray Mountain in Cape Breton with artist Rosemary McLean. Bill’s most recent publication is a collection of short fiction titled Some Days Run Long. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632332712834-20DFKU45I78L7NWFWIC8/JulieCurwin.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Julie Curwin is a psychiatrist who divides her time between Sydney and Boularderie Island, Cape Breton, where she lives with her husband Chris and a variety of furry friends. Her short stories have won numerous awards, including the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for "World Backwards" (2008) and the David Adams Richards Prize for a group of short stories. Her first book, The Appendage Formerly Known as Your Left Arm, won the 2021 Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction and was shortlisted for the John Savage First Book Award. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611727533-VMJU358MS45F202JDNJC/RebeccaSilverSlayter+CTWF++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Rebecca Silver Slayter is the author of the recently released novel The Second History and In the Land of Birdfishes, which was shortlisted for the WilliamSaroyan International Prize for Writing. She was named one of CBC's Ten Writers to Watch, and is the artistic director of the Cabot Trail Writers Festival and an editor of Brick literary journal. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632523994753-WTRR1V0LLGAOSA4XT0WH/Susan+Paddon.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Susan Paddon is a poet, fiction writer, yoga instructor and member of the Cabot Trail Writers Festival board. Her debut collection Two Tragedies in 429 Breaths, was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and the ReLit Award, and won the J.M. Abraham Poetry Award. Originally from St. Thomas, Ontario, she attended McGill University and Concordia University in Montreal. She currently resides in Margaree, Nova Scotia. https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/2021-festival-copy daily 0.75 2022-07-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1628852737592-VWVJ4T370ARDKFYBDOQN/CTWF+FB+logo+temp+2021.png 2021 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632610797796-2YG6BNQEAIOZJQZKAXCE/Francesca+Ekwuyasi+pic+copy.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - francesca ekwuyasi is a writer and multidisciplinary artist from Lagos, Nigeria. Her work explores themes of faith, family, queerness, consumption, loneliness, and belonging. francesca's debut novel, Butter Honey Pig Bread was longlisted for the 2020 Giller Prize, was a finalist for CBC's 2021 Canada Reads competition and a 2021 Lambda Literary Award, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Governor General's Award and the 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. Her writing has been published in Winter Tangerine Review, Brittle Paper, Transition Magazine, the Malahat Review, Visual Art News, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, GUTS magazine, the Puritan, Canadian Art, and elsewhere. Her story "Ọrun is Heaven" was longlisted for the 2019 Journey Prize. Supported through the National Film Board's (NFB) Film Maker's Assistance Program (FAP) and the Fabienne Colas Foundation, francesca's short documentary Black + Belonging has screened in festivals in Halifax, Toronto, and Montreal. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632610913911-LJTWK5XMYXCKTEDEEM4Z/Donna+Morrissey++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Donna Morrissey has published six nationally bestselling novels. She has received awards in Canada, the U.S. and England, and her novel Sylvanus Now was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize. Donna’s fiction has been translated into several different languages. She was nominated for a Gemini for her script The Clothesline Patch (which won a Gemini for best production). Her latest novel, The Fortunate Brother, spent six weeks on the bestseller list, and won the Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel of 2017. Her memoir, Pluck, has just been released by Penguin in both Canada and the US, and she is currently editing a new novel for release in 2022, and a second memoir about her father. Aside from mentoring with Humber College in Toronto, Donna has a private mentoring/story editing service. In her spare time she splays on the couch, watching Dr. Seuss with her grandson, Bentley. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632610967487-M3W1RD0J8GN04XB4K1T1/Alexander+MacLeod++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Alexander MacLeod (Festival Host) is a fiction writer and a professor of English Literature and Atlantic Canada Studies at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. Light Lifting, his debut short fiction collection, won an Atlantic Book Award and was named a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, The Frank O’Connor Short Story Award and The Commonwealth Book Prize. The collection was also named a “Book of the Year” by the American Library Association, The Irish Times, The Globe and Mail, and Amazon.ca. Alexander recently won an O Henry Prize for his short story, “Lagomorph,” and in Spring 2022 his newest book, Animal Person, will be published internationally. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611110301-DYDAE9TTFFM9LV31XNUA/Sylvia+D.+HamiltonAdams+Photography++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Sylvia D. Hamilton is a writer, filmmaker and artist known for her landmark films Black Mother Black Daughter, Portia White: Think on Me and The Little Black School House. Screened in festivals in Canada and abroad, they are widely used in schools and universities throughout Canada. Her poetry collection, And I Alone Escaped to Tell You, was a finalist for the 2015 League of Canadian Poets Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the 2018 Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia Masterworks Award. Her solo multi-media installations have been featured in galleries and museums in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. She has received several honorary degrees, a Gemini Award, and the 2020 Governor General’s Award in History (Popular Media). She is an Inglis Professor at the University of King’s College in Halifax. Photo (c) Adams Photography. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611233601-ENODYZDDNJ6GK8Q1IFFN/Michelle+Sylliboy+pic+smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Michelle Sylliboy (Mi’kmaq/L’nu) is an award-winning author and Interdisciplinary artist. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised on her traditional L'nuk territory in We'koqmaq, Cape Breton. While living on the traditional, unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, Sylliboy completed a BFA at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and a Masters in Education from Simon Fraser University. She is currently a PhD candidate in Simon Fraser University’s Philosophy of Education program, where she is working to reclaim her original written komqwej’wikasikl language. Her collection of photography and L’nuk hieroglyphic poetry, Kiskajeyi—I Am Ready, was published by Rebel Mountain Press in 2019 now available as an ebook. She was recently appointed at St FX University as new tenure track faculty in Education, Modern Language and Fine Arts departments. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611274840-V79SV2A8GUPEG4OEL9ET/TATTRIE_Jon_by+Giselle+Melanson+Tattrie_2++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Jon Tattrie works as a journalist for CBC News in Halifax. He holds a master’s degree in writing from the University of King’s College. He is the author of two novels and five books of non-fiction, including Peace by Chocolate, Daniel Paul: Mi'kmaw Elder, and the bestselling biography The Hermit of Africville. Photo (c) Giselle Melanson Tattrie. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611318592-JR48719OA6D8BGEF6YKT/alan-syliboy++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Alan Syliboy is a well-known Mi’kmaw artist based in Milbrook First Nation near Truro, Nova Scotia. He studied privately with Maliseet artist Shirley Bear and then attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. His work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad, has had a number of commissions for art installations, designed a coin for the Canadian Mint, illustrated books, sat on art juries and taught a number of workshops and courses. His children’s books include The Thundermaker and Mi’kmaw Animals. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611378494-YI8RIA81S00P2SH1JIV2/Christy+Ann+Conlin+Author+Photo+Colour+High+Res+cr++Kate+Inglis++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Christy-Ann Conlin is the author of two acclaimed novels, Heave and The Memento. She is also the author of the short fiction collection, Watermark, a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Award and the Evergreen Award. Heave was a national bestseller, a finalist for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, the Dartmouth Book Award and was a Globe & Mail Top 100 Book. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals including Best Canadian Stories, Brick, Geist, Room, and Numéro Cinq. Her short fiction has also been longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the American Short Fiction Prize. Her radio broadcast work includes co-creating and hosting CBC Fear Itself, a national summer radio series. Christy Ann studied theatre at the University of Ottawa and screenplay writing at the University of British Columbia. She was born and raised in seaside Nova Scotia where she still resides. Photo (c) Kate Inglis. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611437323-5BAECYZ1LT2I345HGW2K/Tyler+LeBlanc++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Tyler LeBlanc was born and raised in a tiny fishing village on Nova Scotia’s south shore. He studied history and journalism as an undergraduate and holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. His writing has appeared in This Magazine, Modern Farmer, Explore, Dal Magazine, and The Coast. His book Acadian Driftwoodwon the 2021 Evelyn Richardson Award for Non-Fiction and the 2021 Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611471329-2S52DXSGTU3QMOCEFR5X/Ronald+Bourgeois+copy.jpeg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Ronald Bourgeois is a multi-award-winning singer-songwriter who is widely recognized as one of the Acadie’s primary artists. Originally from Chéticamp, Ronald has inherited the rich musical tradition deeply rooted in the history and culture of Cape-Breton. With simple lyrics and catchy melodies the artist weaves his creative work carefully interlacing imagery and music into engaging musical stories that crossover age and musical genres. Since 1981 Ronald Bourgeois has maintained a continuous creative and performance career encompassing a catalogue of over 300 songs, featuring 72 various recorded versions, by a host of artists from Acadie, Quebec, Louisiana and France. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611507419-UE2SXYML8BYOTZ5A546H/PHOTO%2BBarbara%2BLe%2BBlanc%2B%2Bsmaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Barbara Le Blanc taught for the Department of Education at University Sainte-Anne, Nova Scotia, from July 1995 to August 2016. She has written a number of articles on Acadian culture and a children's book, Acadie en fête published by BBC and Longman Publications in Great Britain. Her book Postcards From Acadie: Grand-Pré, Evangeline, and the Acadian Identity, published by Gaspereau Press, examines the role of an historic site in the construction of a sense of Acadian group identity and belonging. She received the Lèger Comeau Medal from the Société nationale de l’Acadie in 2003, an award that honours people who have contributed in a remarkable way in the promotion of Acadie and the Acadians. In 2014, she received the André D. Cormier Certificate from the Société Promotion Grand-Pré for her contributions to Grand-Pré National Historic Site. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611556908-I5KQ8J813MRL5XDTFFXG/Shawnee+Paul++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Shawnee Paul is a Mi'kmaw musician from Eskasoni who has been playing the fiddle since the age of seven. Before her grandfather, Wilfred Prosper, passed, he gave her a fiddle and she soon began instructions from Eddy Rogers. Since childhood, Shawnee loved playing music and learning new instruments. This led her to study music at Acadia University where she received her Bachelor of Music Education degree in May 2019 and her Bachelor of Education in May 2021. Shawnee is a passionate musical educator and loves to share this passion through musical education. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611613474-4GVXDKVD0G353MZMLHQE/BrianDoyle+copy.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Brian Doyle was born on Cape Breton Island and has been on stage since the age of fourteen. He has played the rock and blues scene around the world with many successful groups including his own project Greyloch, a Celtic rock fusion group nominated for The East Coast Music Association's Rock Album of the Year in 2000. The latest ECMA nomination for the current album Live Off the Floor, which pairs him with Scott MacMillan for their second recording, brings Brian to a total of three nominations and one win. Two solo albums are currently in the works. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611648188-BCXEPRBZBC46N6RQ8GBB/Brenda+MacLennan-Dunphy+%281%29+copy.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Brenda MacLennan-Dunphy was born and raised in Cape Breton Island, and except for her various adventures world-wide, she has kept her roots firmly planted in her home ground of Inverness County. She began writing later in life when she wrote a fictionalized account of her grandparent’s story which became the beloved musical John Archie and Nellie which was produced in 2012 and again in 2016. This story later evolved into her first novel Never Speak of This Again (Pottersfield Press, 2018). She has written and produced three other plays (The Weddin’ Dance, Displacement, The Rèiteach) which were all well supported by the local community. Her second novel, The Silence of the Vessel, was published in the fall of 2020 (Pottersfield Press). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611684513-JSA6FTCYPVYFLTHL7K4E/BillConall%2B%2Bsmaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Bill Conall won the 2014 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour for his novel The Promised Land: a novel of Cape Breton. His earlier novel The Rock in the Water was short-listed for the same award. In the Has Been category, Bill Conall has a significant backlist. Present and former occupations include library assistant, long-haul trucker, salesman (cars, wine, trade show exhibits, commercial printing, encyclopedia, signage), road musician, printer, fork lift operator, bartender, recording artist, and writer. Bill lives on the back side of Murray Mountain in Cape Breton with artist Rosemary McLean. Bill’s most recent publication is a collection of short fiction titled Some Days Run Long. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632332712834-20DFKU45I78L7NWFWIC8/JulieCurwin.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Julie Curwin is a psychiatrist who divides her time between Sydney and Boularderie Island, Cape Breton, where she lives with her husband Chris and a variety of furry friends. Her short stories have won numerous awards, including the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for "World Backwards" (2008) and the David Adams Richards Prize for a group of short stories. Her first book, The Appendage Formerly Known as Your Left Arm, won the 2021 Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction and was shortlisted for the John Savage First Book Award. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632611727533-VMJU358MS45F202JDNJC/RebeccaSilverSlayter+CTWF++smaller.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Rebecca Silver Slayter is the author of the recently released novel The Second History and In the Land of Birdfishes, which was shortlisted for the WilliamSaroyan International Prize for Writing. She was named one of CBC's Ten Writers to Watch, and is the artistic director of the Cabot Trail Writers Festival and an editor of Brick literary journal. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1632523994753-WTRR1V0LLGAOSA4XT0WH/Susan+Paddon.jpg 2021 Festival (Copy) - Susan Paddon is a poet, fiction writer, yoga instructor and member of the Cabot Trail Writers Festival board. Her debut collection Two Tragedies in 429 Breaths, was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and the ReLit Award, and won the J.M. Abraham Poetry Award. Originally from St. Thomas, Ontario, she attended McGill University and Concordia University in Montreal. She currently resides in Margaree, Nova Scotia. https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/template-festival-welcome-page-2022 daily 0.75 2022-10-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1502417252905-0P28P4BJIEQKEQ5HVMV4/IMG_5256smaller.jpg Template Festival Welcome Page 2022 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/c480302f-ed88-41b7-ae00-36801befac6d/Kateshia+Pendergrass-Omar+El+Akkad+SMALL.jpg Template Festival Welcome Page 2022 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1dff3850-1f30-49db-93a6-b70ec26ec1e6/MarshaLederman+smaller.jpg Template Festival Welcome Page 2022 - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/be3cfb12-0478-4284-81c8-ba8448e68420/Ivan_Coyote+%40Emily+Cooper+Photography+smaller.jpg Template Festival Welcome Page 2022 - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/26af87d8-52cd-47c0-9b73-fa6997ad1dd2/DanFroese-Shalan-8094+SMALL.jpg Template Festival Welcome Page 2022 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/4b25deb1-4c53-4fc5-8f11-d992a7ce2fc3/DavidChariandyBy+Glen+Chua+3+smaller.jpg Template Festival Welcome Page 2022 - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/61884a7b-e4f3-4bea-a5ec-6a7fe101a668/MacLeod%2C+Alexander_cr_Heather+A.+Crosby+Gionet+smaller.jpg Template Festival Welcome Page 2022 - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/afd62bb4-17ec-46e0-a437-02ba8d88130a/Bill+Conall+SMALL.jpg Template Festival Welcome Page 2022 - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/6729e479-59f9-490e-86c9-6bb9cdc20e46/NEW+smaller+Shauntay+Grant+%28photo+by+Steve+Farmer%29+copy.jpg Template Festival Welcome Page 2022 - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/0f9cd17e-51af-4fe4-b84d-c46aabff6541/Rebecca+Rose+by+Lindsay+Duncan+3+smaller.jpg Template Festival Welcome Page 2022 - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/currentfestival-3 daily 0.75 2023-07-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/3820388d-754c-47fc-a745-b8d24e404d5c/eventbrite+image+-+nov+23+event.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/8f597218-bbf6-4feb-9f4c-1df5d37ee2a4/Eventbrite+image+-+nov+25+event.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/02272713-36c4-4030-a98a-fcebe1dd13ac/Alexander+MacLeod+workshop+soldout.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/95ab7e8d-5a18-48aa-8ce0-456f8f446f9b/Songs+%26+Stories+in+Margaree+soldout.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/f62a126f-0982-4a5b-a97c-c2f86c4616c6/CTWF2022_FB_Cover.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/913c1739-bc63-4835-9b66-4ccf948ea58c/Kateshia+Pendergrass-Omar+El+Akkad+SMALL.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - Omar El Akkad is an author and a journalist. He has reported from Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, and many other locations around the world. His work earned Canada's National Newspaper Award for Investigative Journalism and the Goff Penny Award for young journalists. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Le Monde, Guernica, GQ, and many other newspapers and magazines. His debut novel, American War, is an international bestseller and has been translated into thirteen languages. It won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, the Oregon Book Award for fiction, and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and has been nominated for more than ten other awards. It was listed as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, NPR, and Esquire, and was selected by the BBC as one of 100 Novels That Shaped Our World. Omar El Akkad’s second novel, What Strange Paradise, was awarded the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Photo credit: Kateshia Pendergrass https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/559bbeb3-a59e-444f-8cad-4697d07b2e89/DanFroese-Shalan-8094+SMALL.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - shalan joudry is a Mi'kmaw mother, poet, playwright, oral storyteller and ecologist. Using her theatrical background, shalan brings Mi’kmaw stories to a new generation of listeners, as well as recounting personally crafted narratives. The author of three books, her most latest book of poetry is Waking Ground (2020). shalan recently wrote and performed her second play, a one-woman show, KOQM, staged at both the King's Theatre (Annapolis Royal) and Neptune Theatre (Halifax). She lives in her home territory of Kespukwitk (southwest Nova Scotia) with her family in their community of L’sətkuk (Bear River First Nation). Photo credit: Dan Froese https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/afd62bb4-17ec-46e0-a437-02ba8d88130a/Bill+Conall+SMALL.jpg 2022 Programming (Copy) - Bill Conall is a much-travelled man, first as a road musician and then driving long-haul across Canada and the U.S. He is a constant observer: places, things, animals, of course, but mainly people. The imagery in his songs is vivid, the characters in his stories and books feel like people out of your own experience. He has recorded three albums of original songs and contributed to five short story anthologies, as well as a number of newspaper and magazine articles and stories. The second of his three books, The Promised Land; a novel of Cape Breton, won the 2014 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. He is currently in his second term as Storyteller-in-Residence for Cape Breton Regional Library. He lives with artist Rosemary McLean in the peaceful suburbs of Tarbot, Nova Scotia. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/35ff12e3-d329-4af7-852b-dd50e3458413/MarshaLederman+smaller.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - Marsha Lederman is the Western Arts Correspondent for the Globe and Mail. Before joining the Globe, Marsha worked for CBC Radio, mostly in Toronto, where she held a variety of positions, including National Arts Reporter. Marsha also worked in commercial radio as a reporter, newscaster and talk show host. Born in Toronto, she now lives in Vancouver. She is the author of debut memoir Kiss the Red Stair. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/8eee8fc0-b16b-4561-b05c-7bfe36464f6a/DavidChariandyBy+Glen+Chua+3+smaller.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - David Chariandy lives in Vancouver and teaches literature and creative writing in the department of English at Simon Fraser University. His first novel, Soucouyant, was nominated for several prizes, including the Governor General’s Award and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. His second novel, Brother, was also nominated for several prizes, winning the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the Toronto Book Prize. Brother was also named a book of the year by The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Toronto Star, The Montreal Gazette, The New York City Public Library, Kirkus Reviews, Esquire Magazine, and The Guardian. His most recent book is a memoir entitled I’ve Been Meaning To Tell You: A Letter To My Daughter. David’s writings have been published internationally and translated into a dozen languages. In 2019, he was awarded Yale University’s Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction. Photo credit: Glen Chua https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/3ee95e5e-3d53-4442-b838-34fe479c188a/NEW+smaller+Shauntay+Grant+%28photo+by+Steve+Farmer%29+copy.jpeg 2022 Programming (Copy) - Shauntay Grant is an author, poet, playwright, and multimedia artist who lives and works in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). She is the author of The Bridge, winner of a Robert Merrit Award for Outstanding New Play by a Nova Scotian, and of the children's picture books My Fade Is Fresh and Africville, which won the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award and was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Awards. She is a former poet laureate for the City of Halifax, a member of The Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists, and she teaches creative writing at Dalhousie University. Photo credit: Steve Farmer https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/172c574d-c4b3-41c1-aebe-fd967b30ca4b/Ivan_Coyote+%40Emily+Cooper+Photography+smaller.jpeg 2022 Programming (Copy) - Ivan Coyote is a writer and storyteller. Born and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon, they are the author of thirteen books, the creator of four films, six stage shows, and three albums that combine storytelling with music. Coyote’s books have won the ReLit Award, been named a Stonewall Honour Book, been longlisted for Canada Reads, shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Prize for non-fiction and the Governor General's Award, and awarded BC and Yukon Book Prize’s inaugural Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes. In 2017 Ivan was given an honorary Doctor of Laws from Simon Fraser University for their writing and activism. Photo credit: Emily Cooper https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/6b316e6a-dde4-4e5f-b4b3-547e5e4105f4/MacLeod%2C+Alexander_cr_Heather+A.+Crosby+Gionet+smaller.jpeg 2022 Programming (Copy) - Alexander MacLeod has published short stories in The New Yorker, Granta, and The O Henry Prize Stories. His first collection, Light Lifting (Biblioasis), was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. In 2021, he and his friend, Andrew Steeves of Gaspereau Press, were awarded the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award for their collaboration, Lagomorph. Alexander lives in Dartmouth and teaches at Saint Mary's University in Halifax. His most recent book is Animal Person, a magnificent collection about the needs, temptations, and tensions that exist just beneath the surface of our lives. Photo credit: Heather A. Crosby Gionet https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/8c904074-cc5c-4078-a001-d2e26f0ab533/Rebecca+Rose+by+Lindsay+Duncan+3+smaller.jpeg 2022 Programming (Copy) - Rebecca Rose is a Cape Breton-born, and Dartmouth-raised queer femme writer and activist. Rebecca’s book Before the Parade: A History of Halifax’s Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Communities (1972-1984) - published by Nimbus Publishing - is a narrative non-fiction account of 1970s and 80s 2SLGB Halifax. In 2021 Before the Parade was shortlisted for The Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award. Photo credit: Lindsay Duncan https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/2022-programming-copy daily 0.75 2023-07-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/3820388d-754c-47fc-a745-b8d24e404d5c/eventbrite+image+-+nov+23+event.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/8f597218-bbf6-4feb-9f4c-1df5d37ee2a4/Eventbrite+image+-+nov+25+event.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/02272713-36c4-4030-a98a-fcebe1dd13ac/Alexander+MacLeod+workshop+soldout.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/95ab7e8d-5a18-48aa-8ce0-456f8f446f9b/Songs+%26+Stories+in+Margaree+soldout.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/f62a126f-0982-4a5b-a97c-c2f86c4616c6/CTWF2022_FB_Cover.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/913c1739-bc63-4835-9b66-4ccf948ea58c/Kateshia+Pendergrass-Omar+El+Akkad+SMALL.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - Omar El Akkad is an author and a journalist. He has reported from Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, and many other locations around the world. His work earned Canada's National Newspaper Award for Investigative Journalism and the Goff Penny Award for young journalists. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Le Monde, Guernica, GQ, and many other newspapers and magazines. His debut novel, American War, is an international bestseller and has been translated into thirteen languages. It won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, the Oregon Book Award for fiction, and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and has been nominated for more than ten other awards. It was listed as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, NPR, and Esquire, and was selected by the BBC as one of 100 Novels That Shaped Our World. Omar El Akkad’s second novel, What Strange Paradise, was awarded the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Photo credit: Kateshia Pendergrass https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/559bbeb3-a59e-444f-8cad-4697d07b2e89/DanFroese-Shalan-8094+SMALL.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - shalan joudry is a Mi'kmaw mother, poet, playwright, oral storyteller and ecologist. Using her theatrical background, shalan brings Mi’kmaw stories to a new generation of listeners, as well as recounting personally crafted narratives. The author of three books, her most latest book of poetry is Waking Ground (2020). shalan recently wrote and performed her second play, a one-woman show, KOQM, staged at both the King's Theatre (Annapolis Royal) and Neptune Theatre (Halifax). She lives in her home territory of Kespukwitk (southwest Nova Scotia) with her family in their community of L’sətkuk (Bear River First Nation). Photo credit: Dan Froese https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/afd62bb4-17ec-46e0-a437-02ba8d88130a/Bill+Conall+SMALL.jpg 2022 Programming (Copy) - Bill Conall is a much-travelled man, first as a road musician and then driving long-haul across Canada and the U.S. He is a constant observer: places, things, animals, of course, but mainly people. The imagery in his songs is vivid, the characters in his stories and books feel like people out of your own experience. He has recorded three albums of original songs and contributed to five short story anthologies, as well as a number of newspaper and magazine articles and stories. The second of his three books, The Promised Land; a novel of Cape Breton, won the 2014 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. He is currently in his second term as Storyteller-in-Residence for Cape Breton Regional Library. He lives with artist Rosemary McLean in the peaceful suburbs of Tarbot, Nova Scotia. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/35ff12e3-d329-4af7-852b-dd50e3458413/MarshaLederman+smaller.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - Marsha Lederman is the Western Arts Correspondent for the Globe and Mail. Before joining the Globe, Marsha worked for CBC Radio, mostly in Toronto, where she held a variety of positions, including National Arts Reporter. Marsha also worked in commercial radio as a reporter, newscaster and talk show host. Born in Toronto, she now lives in Vancouver. She is the author of debut memoir Kiss the Red Stair. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/8eee8fc0-b16b-4561-b05c-7bfe36464f6a/DavidChariandyBy+Glen+Chua+3+smaller.png 2022 Programming (Copy) - David Chariandy lives in Vancouver and teaches literature and creative writing in the department of English at Simon Fraser University. His first novel, Soucouyant, was nominated for several prizes, including the Governor General’s Award and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. His second novel, Brother, was also nominated for several prizes, winning the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the Toronto Book Prize. Brother was also named a book of the year by The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Toronto Star, The Montreal Gazette, The New York City Public Library, Kirkus Reviews, Esquire Magazine, and The Guardian. His most recent book is a memoir entitled I’ve Been Meaning To Tell You: A Letter To My Daughter. David’s writings have been published internationally and translated into a dozen languages. In 2019, he was awarded Yale University’s Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction. Photo credit: Glen Chua https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/3ee95e5e-3d53-4442-b838-34fe479c188a/NEW+smaller+Shauntay+Grant+%28photo+by+Steve+Farmer%29+copy.jpeg 2022 Programming (Copy) - Shauntay Grant is an author, poet, playwright, and multimedia artist who lives and works in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). She is the author of The Bridge, winner of a Robert Merrit Award for Outstanding New Play by a Nova Scotian, and of the children's picture books My Fade Is Fresh and Africville, which won the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award and was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Awards. She is a former poet laureate for the City of Halifax, a member of The Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists, and she teaches creative writing at Dalhousie University. Photo credit: Steve Farmer https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/172c574d-c4b3-41c1-aebe-fd967b30ca4b/Ivan_Coyote+%40Emily+Cooper+Photography+smaller.jpeg 2022 Programming (Copy) - Ivan Coyote is a writer and storyteller. Born and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon, they are the author of thirteen books, the creator of four films, six stage shows, and three albums that combine storytelling with music. Coyote’s books have won the ReLit Award, been named a Stonewall Honour Book, been longlisted for Canada Reads, shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Prize for non-fiction and the Governor General's Award, and awarded BC and Yukon Book Prize’s inaugural Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes. In 2017 Ivan was given an honorary Doctor of Laws from Simon Fraser University for their writing and activism. Photo credit: Emily Cooper https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/6b316e6a-dde4-4e5f-b4b3-547e5e4105f4/MacLeod%2C+Alexander_cr_Heather+A.+Crosby+Gionet+smaller.jpeg 2022 Programming (Copy) - Alexander MacLeod has published short stories in The New Yorker, Granta, and The O Henry Prize Stories. His first collection, Light Lifting (Biblioasis), was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. In 2021, he and his friend, Andrew Steeves of Gaspereau Press, were awarded the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award for their collaboration, Lagomorph. Alexander lives in Dartmouth and teaches at Saint Mary's University in Halifax. His most recent book is Animal Person, a magnificent collection about the needs, temptations, and tensions that exist just beneath the surface of our lives. Photo credit: Heather A. Crosby Gionet https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/8c904074-cc5c-4078-a001-d2e26f0ab533/Rebecca+Rose+by+Lindsay+Duncan+3+smaller.jpeg 2022 Programming (Copy) - Rebecca Rose is a Cape Breton-born, and Dartmouth-raised queer femme writer and activist. Rebecca’s book Before the Parade: A History of Halifax’s Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Communities (1972-1984) - published by Nimbus Publishing - is a narrative non-fiction account of 1970s and 80s 2SLGB Halifax. In 2021 Before the Parade was shortlisted for The Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award. Photo credit: Lindsay Duncan https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/2023-festival-copy daily 0.75 2024-08-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/f2296202-fbd3-45c7-9260-6f99b632c507/Screenshot+2023-08-09+at+2.57.32+PM.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/cbac9d87-ddc7-4fb6-9eed-063e1eb5f2a1/2023+Book+Arts+Workshop.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/0c45e897-cc4b-4e9a-886c-fdcecdffce54/2023+Friday+Night+Reading+Series.png 2023 Festival (Copy) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1d2ce596-ec57-48d2-8c26-51a7cbeb4449/Workshop+2Journalling+Workshop+with+Habiba+Cooper+Diallo.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/8c3efde0-47a2-434a-8f81-422746123acf/Workshop+1+Inspiration+%26+Rhythm+of+This+Land+Unama%E2%80%99ki.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/6fcdb04c-fae9-4a82-9688-f56f748210e8/Brunch+with+Shelagh+Rogers.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/6de6f105-e2c5-461a-87b5-d6dbc3322f04/2023+Heard+in+the+Highlands.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/689a8e0b-6954-4f93-a9fa-2ed1db053501/2023+First+Words.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/0656eed1-3879-4203-b909-8ffdf2c14ae8/The+Photographs+of+Darren+Calabrese.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/2ba1b3a4-3621-44d4-a059-8627f9585e5a/2023+Saturday+Night+at+the+Festival.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/9aa59ebc-8587-43e4-ae5c-3c87a858b839/Workshop+3+Kate+Beaton+workshop.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/59ccdd03-184c-4301-9fe3-b59b465f5633/Workshop+4+Omar+El+Akkad+workshop.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/df2108af-80ce-43a4-bc7c-a9c81d2442bf/2023+Medicine+Stories.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/f567ea2d-9d17-4c27-ba82-1fff59fdee2f/Sunday+Night+in+Inverness%27.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/226f7def-7990-49b4-8b20-edb0cb6fa8cc/Kateshia+Pendergrass-Omar+El+Akkad+SMALL.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - Omar El Akkad is an author and a journalist. He has reported from Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, and many other locations around the world. His work earned Canada's National Newspaper Award for Investigative Journalism and the Goff Penny Award for young journalists. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Le Monde, Guernica, GQ, and many other newspapers and magazines. His debut novel, American War, is an international bestseller and has been translated into thirteen languages. It won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, the Oregon Book Award for fiction, and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and has been nominated for more than ten other awards. It was listed as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, NPR, and Esquire, and was selected by the BBC as one of 100 Novels That Shaped Our World. Omar El Akkad’s second novel, What Strange Paradise, was awarded the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Photo credit: Kateshia Pendergrass https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/2fb2c626-0489-4be9-99c4-f7a24177d626/Kate+Beaton_Headshot_PhotoCredit_Morgan+Murray_2022_1+digital+copy.jpg 2023 Festival (Copy) - Kate Beaton was born and raised in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. The collections of her landmark strip Hark! A Vagrant and Step Aside, Pops each spent several months on the New York Times graphic novel bestseller list. She has also published the picture books King Baby and The Princess and the Pony. Her most recent book is Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, a graphic memoir that was named a New York Times Notable Book, one of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books, and the winner of Canada Reads 2023. Beaton lives in Cape Breton with her family. Photo credit: Morgan Murray https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/f9ca66fd-2a15-4c28-9a01-7260375d2a21/Shelagh+Rogers+high+res.jpeg 2023 Festival (Copy) - Shelagh Rogers is a veteran broadcast-journalist, most recently with The Next Chapter, a program about writing in Canada. Shelagh is an Honorary Witness for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Chancellor Emerita of UVic. In 2011, she received an Order of Canada for promoting Canadian culture and for advocacy in mental health, truth and reconciliation, and adult literacy. She was the 2022 Symons Medalist and is thrilled to be part of the Cabot Trail Writers Festival. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/740fb7d9-422f-4db6-a887-3105772ae31a/Amanda+Peters+digital.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - Amanda Peters is the Globe & Mail and Toronto Star bestselling author of The Berry Pickers. A writer of Mi'kmaq and settler ancestry, her work has appeared in the Antigonish Review, Grain Magazine, the Alaska Quarterly Review, the Dalhousie Review and Filling Station Magazine. She is the winner of the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for Unpublished Prose and a participant in the 2021 Writers' Trust Rising Stars program. A graduate of the Master of Fine Arts Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Amanda Peters has a Certificate in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto. She lives in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, with her fur babies, Holly and Pook. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1c01f6d8-ae2b-49f4-ab92-80249aa7b66d/DanFroese-Shalan+Joudry+digital.jpg 2023 Festival (Copy) - shalan joudry is a Mi'kmaw mother, poet, playwright, oral storyteller and ecologist. The author of three books, her second book of poetry is Waking Ground (2020). Her recent play, Koqm, won the 2023 Merritt Award for Outstanding New Play. shalan lives in her home territory of Kespukwitk (southwest Nova Scotia) with her family in their community of L’sitkuk (Bear River First Nation). Photo credit: Dan Froese https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/69d81aad-c056-4fbe-98de-f1e6a5c028a4/HERRING_Nicholas_photo++Norma+Jean+MacLean_1+digital.jpeg 2023 Festival (Copy) - Nicholas Herring has published fiction in The Puritan and The Fiddlehead. He works as a carpenter and lives on PEI. Some Hellish, his first novel, won the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize in 2022 and was praised by the jury as “droll and philosophical, ribald and poetic.” Photo credit: Norma Jean MacLean https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/f7fd6c6b-3b00-43d6-9fed-18bbe9e7501b/Ping_William+cr+Violet+Ryan-Ping+digital.png 2023 Festival (Copy) - William Ping is a Chinese-Canadian writer from Newfoundland. After completing his Master of Arts at Memorial University in 2020, he was named a Fellow of the School of Graduate Studies. He received the 2022 Cox & Palmer Creative Writing Award as well as the 2021 Landfall Trust. His debut novel, Hollow Bamboo, which he wrote for his master’s degree, received the Award for Thesis Excellence from the English department and was shortlisted for the 2023 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. Photo credit: Violet Ryan-Ping https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/8d23b09e-4d23-4d61-bd9f-5e2af1a0af64/Habiba+Cooper+Diallo.jpg 2023 Festival (Copy) - Habiba Cooper Diallo was a finalist in the 2020 Bristol Short Story Prize, the 2019 Writers’ Union of Canada Short Prose Competition, and the 2018 London Book Fair Pitch Competition. Habiba lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is an advocate and activist in support of women’s maternal health. Her high school journal was published as #BlackInSchool, an acclaimed account of systemic racism and call for justice and educational reform. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/bc1b2dfb-8cfd-45f5-8d1b-cc270abd2454/DCalabrese_AuthorPic_Vertical+digital.jpeg 2023 Festival (Copy) - Darren Calabrese is a documentary and editorial photojournalist who was born in New Brunswick and raised on a 400-acre woodlot. Now Darren and his wife Tammy split their time between the woodlot and Nova Scotia, where they live by the ocean in Halifax raising their two daughters. His work has been recognized by World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International, Communication Arts, Magenta Foundation, American Photography 34, News Photographers Association of Canada, and National Geographic. Darren’s first book, Leaving Good Things Behind: Photographs of Atlantic Canada was a bestseller. Photo credit: Harriet Calabrese https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/award-and-eligibility daily 0.75 2025-10-23 https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/submission-process daily 0.75 2025-07-17 https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/adjudication-process daily 0.75 2024-09-11 https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/submission-form daily 0.75 2025-07-17 https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/read-me daily 0.75 2025-05-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5310cef7e4b08602cbfa36bf/1412689652885-P9TPK298WCTZU748L0SG/Lifestyle03.jpg Read Me https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/submissions daily 0.75 2025-05-22 https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/currentfestival-4 daily 0.75 2025-08-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/9ba4a39b-4a4b-4ef4-a5c3-40232f60e339/CTWF_2024_Banners+-+dates.jpeg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/71d42c01-4fe8-400b-8d8d-cf7bb8b1be7b/Website+-+2024+Friday+Night+Reading+Series.jpg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/7d8dffe4-b354-4437-b991-c849a31be434/Website+Andrea+workshop.jpg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/b916236a-0f87-4af5-b09c-03a52ee79818/Website+Dominique+workshop.jpg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/1b09c786-eaa4-4b80-9f9a-4ddc5b512cf2/Website+-+Writers+Salon+Lunch.jpg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/a5611ffb-b9d6-4c43-9503-47f0b2426287/Website+-+Writers+Salon+Heard+in+the+H.jpg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/05262a33-8d9c-4c2b-9741-49012d99080b/Website+-+Writers+Salon+WordStorm.jpg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/fa511cda-3c96-4ec1-9735-f4437fecb22a/Website+-+Writers+Salon+Coffeehouse.jpg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/6fe55c14-604c-46c9-a686-3bc21d1183ae/Website+Anne+Koval+talk.jpg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/e11dfef6-e5f1-46e9-8b0f-680a73cfeefa/Website+-+2024+Saturday+Night.jpg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/727682f6-ef75-49e6-a780-58a687a38de1/Website+Ann-Marie+workshop.jpg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/2fafd6ce-36c4-42e8-90e8-8116d5aca442/Website+Charlene+workshop.jpg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/edd13206-1d39-4ecd-9bc2-228c7badbded/Website+Jesse+brunch.jpg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/35f1a886-1f27-4ea5-bc75-08e6a8e8ca96/Website+-+Acadie+Cap-Rouge.jpg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/dac305d6-4c51-44d2-88c4-858342417465/Website+-+Acadie+Sunday+Supper.jpg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/078f5032-195c-42c4-8abf-85201089dfe1/Ann-Marie+MacDonald+%28c%29+Lora+MacDonald-Palmer+-+digital.png 2024 Festival (Copy) - Ann-Marie MacDonald is a novelist, playwright, actor, and broadcast host. Her novels are Fall On Your Knees, The Way the Crow Flies, Adult Onset, and Fayne. In 2019 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. She is married to theatre director Alisa Palmer, with whom she has two children. Photo credit: Lora MacDonald-Palmer https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/e15bce88-3870-43dd-99a3-18179c5767f3/Carr_Charlene_cr+Charlene+Carr+-+digital.png 2024 Festival (Copy) - Charlene Carr studied literature at university, attaining both a BA and MA in English, including a study program at Oxford. She independently published nine novels, before releasing Hold My Girl and We Rip the World Apart with HarperCollins Canada. Photo credit: Charlene Carr https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/def731c7-fb0c-4bf4-a18e-ee0f99d23e87/DavidChariandyBy+Glen+Chua+-+digital.png 2024 Festival (Copy) - David Chariandy was nominated for the Governor General’s Award and the Scotiabank Giller Prize for his first novel, Soucouyant. His second novel, Brother, won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the Toronto Book Prize. His most recent book is a memoir entitled I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You: A Letter to My Daughter. Photo credit: Glen Chua https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/cd88baba-081c-4577-a6a7-bd8394a2c4fc/Thistle_Jesse_cr.Marta-Hewson+-+digital.jpeg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Jesse Thistle is Métis-Cree, from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and an assistant professor in Humanities at York University in Toronto. From the Ashes, his memoir, was the top-selling Canadian book in 2020, the winner of the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Nonfiction, Indigenous Voices Award, and the High Plains Book Award, and also a finalist for CBC's Canada Reads. His most recent book is the poetry collection Scars & Stars. Photo credit: Marta Hewson https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/ba087d1d-167f-44fa-8e81-adb02764b7f4/SigBurwashPhotocredit-AshleyMcKenzie-digital.jpeg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Sig Burwash is a visual artist whose practice includes watercolour, collage, ceramics, animation, illustration, and comics. Their work is both imaginative and rooted in their lived experience, including cabin building, forest stewarding, motorcycling and crewing on fishing vessels. Originally from kEluwi'sst- Rossland, B.C., they now live in Unama’ki (Cape Breton). Sig’s debut graphic novel, Vera Bushwack, was released to acclaim in 2024. Photo credit: Ashley McKenzie https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/133d6537-4b1c-4a3d-9e93-cb8ee3b2bbbd/Anne+Koval_credit+Alexandrya+Eaton-digital.jpeg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Anne Koval is a professor of Art History, Museum and Curatorial Studies at Mount Allison University. She has written numerous books and her writing on contemporary art has appeared in several edited volumes. She has curated exhibitions at the Owens Art Gallery, Mendel Art Gallery, Banff Park Museum, and more. Her most recent book is Mary Pratt: A Love Affair with Vision. Photo credit: Alexandrya Eaton https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/0381e602-8090-4b37-a20d-d1452ac0af77/Bernier-Cormier+Photo%2C+digital.jpeg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Dominique Bernier-Cormier is a Québécois/Acadian poet currently living on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ in Vancouver. He writes in both French and English, and his poems often explore notions of hybridity, translation and belonging. His latest book, Entre Rive and Shore, is a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/91ec4326-dbcf-49c0-b13e-5832b4d83975/Andrea+Currie_01-preferred_credit+Ken+Worone-digital+copy.jpeg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Andrea Currie is a writer, healer and activist born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and currently living in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. She is a psychotherapist working in Indigenous mental health and has accompanied the We'koqma'q Residential School Survivors on their healing journey for the past twenty years. Her first book, Finding Otipemisiwak: The People Who Own Themselves, will be released in fall 2024. Photo credit: Ken Woroner https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/2350ed55-91fe-47bb-b20e-d8c29f1e3905/Sam+Wilson.png 2024 Festival (Copy) - Sam Wilson is a guitarist whose practice as a performer-composer focuses on creating instrumental music for improvisers. Her current artistic music is wild spaces and site specific responses, evident by her latest release Wintertides. Sam collaborates with many artists around the Maritimes, including Andrew Jackson, Nicola Miller, Gabriella Ciurcovich and Andrew MacKelvie. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/7bcc7871-e80b-4d5d-a7eb-bd1e7bd9bd84/Gabriella+.png 2024 Festival (Copy) - Gabriella Ciurcovich is a multi-instrumentalist and composer based in K'jipuktuk/Halifax. Gabriella is active in Halifax's improvised music community, and also performs regularly with local folk, pop, jazz and experimental groups. She writes for her own songwriting project, Popuri. She holds a BMusic in Jazz Performance from the University of Toronto. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/415a103c-7968-42b6-858b-b2bd22e15a50/Robert+Deveaux+-+digital+copy.jpeg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Robert Deveaux is a chanteur, violoniste, and collector of Chéticamp song traditions. He is a sought-after resource and treats the repertoire he keeps with the same spirit of sharing as tradition-bearers before him. He recently teamed up with two members of Le Vent du Nord on Art Populaire, an album paying tribute to the Acadian folk song repertoire of Chéticamp. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/14c3bdcb-d763-4545-924b-79259d18bf67/Adele+Deveaux+photo+copy.jpg 2024 Festival (Copy) - Adèle Deveaux is 14 years old and has grown up deeply immersed in Chéticamp’s song traditions, often diving into her father’s archives of old recordings, lyrics and melodies. She has performed at local festivals and concerts, and last year was a featured musician on the youth stage at Le Festival Chants de Vielles in Quebec. https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/youth-mentorship daily 0.75 2025-11-27 https://www.cabottrailwritersfestival.com/poetry daily 0.75 2025-12-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5978affc9f74560e1d75e87b/edaf364d-2cae-4fc9-b2bf-111f8fe8d8d0/Poetry+Night+-+10th+dec+2025.jpg A Night of Poetry & Music - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.