Andy Tolson

Andy Tolson spent much of the 1980s as a drummer in London, England, playing both pubs and concert halls, though mostly pubs. He has been a boy magician, prop-maker, and writer. At The National Post and Maclean’s Magazine, Tolson was a photojournalist and editor. He now lives in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia in a big old house with his family and two cats named Olive and Ottoline. He is the author of the novel Noisemaker (published in 2022) and the middle-grade fantasy, How to Kidnap a Mermaid, was published fall 2024 with Nimbus Publishing. The sequel, How to Rescue a Unicorn will be out fall 2025. How to Wrestle an Octopus is out fall 2026.

If you like author Andy Tolson here is the list of authors you may also like

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Total similar authors (23)

Jacqueline Halsey

For Jacqueline Halsey, growing up in post-war London meant walking to school past numerous bombsites and listening to her mother's stories about food rationing and air raids. Consequently, she always admired the courage of women and children coping with the tasks of everyday life in wartime situations. This courage inspired Peggy's Letters, Jacqueline's first book.

After High School she went to art college in Worthing, Sussex and then much later obtained a BA degree at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, which she attended as a mature student.

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Donalee Moulton

donalee is a professional writer and freelance journalist from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her byline has appeared in over 100 publications across North America, including Canadian Business, Chatelaine, Equinox, Ford Times, Maclean’s, and The Globe and Mail.

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Her book Conflagration! won the 2024 Daphne du Maurier Award
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Chieri Uegaki

Chieri Uegaki is a second-generation Japanese-Canadian who was born in Quesnel, British Columbia. By the age of one, she and her parents had moved to East Vancouver, where she and her two sisters grew up.

Chieri attended Sir John Franklin Elementary School. Initially, she had to take English as a Second Language classes as she spoke mostly Japanese at home. An excellent ESL teacher and an inherited love of books helped develop Chieri's skills quickly, and language arts became one of her favorite subjects.

Chieri then went to Templeton Senior Secondary. As she neared graduation, she was thrilled to discover that the University of British Columbia offered a degree in Creative Writing. She submitted a portfolio of writing samples and was accepte
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Polly Horvath

Polly Horvath is the author of many books for young people, including Everything on a Waffle, The Pepins and Their Problems, The Canning Season and The Trolls. Her numerous awards include the Newbery Honor, the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor, the Vicky Metcalf Award for Children's Literature, the Mr. Christie Award, the international White Raven, and the Young Adult Canadian Book of the Year. Horvath grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She attended the Canadian College of Dance in Toronto and the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in New York City. She has taught ballet, waitressed, done temporary typing, and tended babies, but while doing these things she has always also written. Now
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Cathryn Fox

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Cathryn Fox is a wife, mom, sister, daughter, aunt and friend. She loves dogs, sunny weather, anything chocolate (she never says no to a brownie) pizza and red wine. Cathryn lives in beautiful Nova Scotia with her husband, who is convinced he can turn her into a mixed martial arts fan. When not writing, Cathryn can be found Skyping with her son living in Seattle (could he have moved any farther away?) shopping with her daughter in the city, watching a big action flick with her husband, or hanging out and laughing with friends.
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Jeff Szpirglas

Jeff Szpirglas has had a varied career. He's shoveled manure, worked in a steelyard (he hails from Hamilton, after all), and even frolicked in the offices at CTV Television and Chirp, chickaDEE, and OWL magazines, where he was the kids' page editor. His manure-shoveling days long behind him, Jeff currently teaches children by day and writes books/fights supervillains by night.
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Donna Morrissey

Donna Morrissey has written six nationally bestselling novels. She has received awards in Canada, the U.S., and England. Her novel Sylvanus Now was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and she was nominated for a Gemini for best writing for the film Clothesline Patch. Her fiction has been translated into several different languages. Born and raised in Newfoundland, she now lives in Halifax.
She recently wrote a children’s book, Cross Katie Kross, illustrated by her daughter, Bridget. Morrissey grew up in The Beaches, a small fishing outport in Newfoundland & Labrador and now lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
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Julie Lawson

Julie Lawson is the award-winning author of many books for young people. Her novels include White Jade Tiger (winner of the Sheila A. Egoff Book Literature Prize and nominated for both the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award and the Silver Birch Award), Destination Gold, and The Ghost of Avalanche Mountain. Among her acclaimed picture books are The Dragon’s Pearl, Emma and the Silk Train, Bear on the Train, and Whatever You Do, Don’t Go Near That Canoe! Her most recent novel, Ghosts of the Titanic, was released in Spring 2011.

Some of the events written about in A Ribbon of Shining Steel were based on the real-life experiences of Julie’s own grandfather, John Anderson, who was among the many immigrants needed to keep the CPR
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Sidura Ludwig

Writer. Story finder. Strong Tea Drinker. Challah baker.
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Lesley Crewe

Lesley grew up in Montreal, PQ. After graduating from Concordia University with a degree in English and Education, she and her hubby settled down in Homeville, Cape Breton and raised a family.

From 2000-2005, Lesley was a features writer and columnist (Home Fires) for Cape Bretoner Magazine, and from 2005-2009, a columnist (Lesley's Letters) with the on-line magazine, Cahoots.

In 2005 her first novel, Relative Happiness, was published by Vagrant Press, the fiction imprint of Nimbus Publishing. It was an instant bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award. She has since written nine other novels.

In 2012, Relative Happiness was optioned for film, and in 2014, Lesley's characters came to life on the big sc
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Donalee Moulton

donalee is a professional writer and freelance journalist from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her byline has appeared in over 100 publications across North America, including Canadian Business, Chatelaine, Equinox, Ford Times, Maclean’s, and The Globe and Mail.

Her most recent mystery novel Melt is the second in the Lotus Detective Agency series. It's about what happens when three yogis with a penchant for solving crime are asked to help a 17-year-old boy who is facing life in prison for a crime he did not commit. The first in the series Bind takes us back to where it all started. When the yogis first joined forces with two cops to discover who stole a very expensive watch from a local gym.

Her book Conflagration! won the 2024 Daphne du Maurier Award
Buy books on Amazon
Jacqueline Halsey

For Jacqueline Halsey, growing up in post-war London meant walking to school past numerous bombsites and listening to her mother's stories about food rationing and air raids. Consequently, she always admired the courage of women and children coping with the tasks of everyday life in wartime situations. This courage inspired Peggy's Letters, Jacqueline's first book.

After High School she went to art college in Worthing, Sussex and then much later obtained a BA degree at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, which she attended as a mature student.

Jacqueline loves traveling and has visited many countries, including South Africa where she lived in a sugar mill village for four years.

She currently works in the Alderney Gate library in Halifa
Buy books on Amazon
Vikki VanSickle

Everything I need to know in life I learned from children's literature. My work ranges from contemporary middle grade fiction to magical, storytime-ready picture books.

I am currently living in Toronto where I work in children's publishing in addition to writing. All kids' books, all the time!
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B.R. Myers

Always in the mood for a good scare, B.R. Myers spent most of her teen years behind the covers of Lois Duncan, Ray Bradbury, and Stephen King.

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Barbara Emodi

Barbara Emodi has written sewing how-to books and now writes cozy mysteries set in Nova Scotia, Canada. Gasper’s Cove doesn’t really exist but it will seem awfully familiar to anyone who lives where she does. The community is based all she believes matters in life - extended family, companion animals, good food, and more sewing, crafting, quilting, and knitting projects than any reasonable person would take on.

Barbara writes what she likes to read - whimsical, witty, warm books that reflect her belief that there is nothing ordinary about ordinary people. She also likes clever surprises, important in mysteries, and promises one at the end of each book. To visit Gasper’s Cove yourself you can read Barbara’s novels in her Gasper’s Cove Myster
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Briana Corr Scott

Briana Corr Scott is an artist and author based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. She tells stories about the beauty of the natural world in her oil paintings, paper doll creations and children’s literature.

Briana studied painting and museum education at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. She moved to Nova Scotia after her graduation in 2006.

Briana has dedicated herself to painting and drawing from life. Her art and stories are inspired by experiences of drawing objects in nature. Briana works primarily in oil and gouache to make botanical drawings, illustrations, animations, surface patterns, and paintings. She is inspired by the strange, overlooked details of the Nova Scotia coast. Weeds, moths, periwinkles and fog are some of the st
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Emi Pinto

Emi is a Canadian writer and Doctorate of Education graduate, who writes everything from middle grade to young adult. She's a huge fan of all things fantasy and spooky and hijinks (hello cute ghosts and awkward witches), and loves to weave her mixed Indian and French-Canadian heritage into her stories (dosa with a side of poutine anyone?). When she isn’t reading or writing or pretending to work, you can find her taking long walks in forest trails with her family, looking for fairy doors.
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Lana Shupe

Lana Shupe fell in love with books when she was a toddler and has never stopped loving them. Telling and writing stories has always been a part of her life. Her house is full of books — even the bathroom has books! She reads anywhere she can find a spot while devouring potato chips that are entirely not good for her. When not writing Lana takes long walks with her Westie, Thunder.
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Heidi Tattrie Rushton

Heidi Tattrie Rushton penned her first story at the age of eight and hasn’t stopped writing since.

With a Bachelor of Recreation and a Master of Education, she has worked in roles such as preschool teacher, animal care technician, and university recruiter. She has also written extensively for newspapers, magazines, and online platforms.

Heidi lives in Nova Scotia with her husband, two kids, and a dog who thinks she’s a cat.

In 2021, an excerpt of Pet Tales fetched the WFNS Joyce Barkhouse Writing for Children Prize. Visit her at https://heiditattrierushton.com/
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Michelle Hebert

Michelle Hébert grew up on the beaches and marshes of Cumberland County, Nova Scotia. She has an MFA in Creative Nonfiction, degrees in journalism and social work, and she studies tarot on the side. Her writing about mental health, social justice, and finding joy where it seems there’s none to be had has appeared in Writerly magazine and in audio essays and short documentaries for CBC Radio. Her first book, Enriched by Catastrophe: Social Work and Social Conflict After the Halifax Explosion, was published in 2009. Michelle has lived across Canada but makes her home in Halifax, Nova Scotia (Mi’kma’ki), with her two adult children, several cats, and a dog who thinks she's a cat.
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Donna Jones Alward

Since 2006, New York Times bestseller Donna Jones Alward has enchanted readers with stories of happy endings and homecomings that have won several awards and been translated into over a dozen languages. She’s worked as an administrative assistant, teaching assistant, in retail and as a stay-at-home-mom, but always knew her degree in English Literature would pay off, as she is now happy to be a full-time writer. Her new historical fiction tales blend her love of history with characters who step beyond their biggest fears to claim the lives they desire.

Donna currently lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, with her husband and two cats. You can often find her near the water, either kayaking on the lake or walking the sandy beaches to refill her creati
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Briana Corr Scott

Briana Corr Scott is an artist and author based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. She tells stories about the beauty of the natural world in her oil paintings, paper doll creations and children’s literature.

Briana studied painting and museum education at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. She moved to Nova Scotia after her graduation in 2006.

Briana has dedicated herself to painting and drawing from life. Her art and stories are inspired by experiences of drawing objects in nature. Briana works primarily in oil and gouache to make botanical drawings, illustrations, animations, surface patterns, and paintings. She is inspired by the strange, overlooked details of the Nova Scotia coast. Weeds, moths, periwinkles and fog are some of the st
Buy books on Amazon
Heidi Tattrie Rushton

Heidi Tattrie Rushton penned her first story at the age of eight and hasn’t stopped writing since.

With a Bachelor of Recreation and a Master of Education, she has worked in roles such as preschool teacher, animal care technician, and university recruiter. She has also written extensively for newspapers, magazines, and online platforms.

Heidi lives in Nova Scotia with her husband, two kids, and a dog who thinks she’s a cat.

In 2021, an excerpt of Pet Tales fetched the WFNS Joyce Barkhouse Writing for Children Prize. Visit her at https://heiditattrierushton.com/
Buy books on Amazon