BIOS

GUEST WRITERS

Heather O'Neill is the author of the international bestseller Lullabies for Little Criminals. The novel won the Canada Reads competition and the Hugh MacLennan Prize, and was nominated for the Orange Prize and Governor General Award, among others. She is a contributor to This American Life and her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The National Post and The Walrus. She lives in Montreal. 

Noah Richler made documentaries and features for BBC Radio for fourteen years before returning to Canada in 1998. He was the books editor and then the literary columnist for the National Post, and has contributed to numerous publications in Britain, including the Guardian, Punch, the Daily Telegraph, and in Canada to The Walrus, Maisonneuve, Saturday Night, the Toronto Star, and the Globe and Mail. A Literary Atlas of Canada is his first book. He lives in Toronto. 

Neil Smith is the author of Bang Crunch, a book of stories that has appeared in Canada, America, Britain, Germany, France, and India. Bang Crunch won the McAuslan First Book Prize and was nominated for the Hugh MacLennan Prize and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book. Bang Crunch was also chosen as a top book of the year by The Globe and Mail, The Washington Post, and Le Devoir. Neil lives in Montreal where he's working on a follow-up, a novel about the afterlife called Heaven Is a Place Where Nothing Ever Happens.

LOCAL GUEST WRITERS

Don Davison
Donald Davison has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Concordia University and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Western Ontario. In addition, he is an Accredited Financial Counsellor and has a Queen’s Commission in the Canadian Army. His career experiences include banking, lending, and real estate development.
In retirement he has given lectures and provided advice on financial planning to the public service and counselled bankrupts into recovery.  He has also published a non-fiction self-help book entitled Take Control of your Money, and an historical novel, Raise the Flag and Sound the Cannon, about a raid by Confederate soldiers which took place in St. Albans, Vermont in 1864. The novel was subsequently made into a theatrical production entitled Chickasaw.
He sings in several church and regional choirs, has been active in local theatre, and is currently a vice-president of the Yamaska Literacy Council. 

Laura Teasdale
Laura Teasdale moved to Montreal from Nova Scotia in 1992, then about three years ago she made the upgrade and moved to the Townships. She has worked as an actor, singer and cartoon voice. Her first full length play, Honky Tonk Blue (The Night Patsy Met Hank) was well received and encouraged her to go on to write God’s Troubadour, Woodswalker and two dinner theatre pieces for the Knowlton Players, Love & Marriage and Love is Murder.
She is writing a series of public service plays for the Quebec healthcare system and is currently studying screenplay writing since there are plans to make Woodswalker into a film.  She has also been commissioned to write a new play that will be produced by Imago Theatre in Montreal.

Harrison Yates
Harrison Yates was set on a career in journalism when he received an offer to work in a New York ad agency for more than he could ever make as a cub reporter. He went on to become an award-winning advertising writer and creative executive for international agencies in the US, Canada and around the world. It was while doing this work that he discovered his forte as a writer of humour.
He has written many articles for magazines and newspapers. In 1997 he ghost-wrote a well received business book called Emotional Branding. In 2007 he wrote a memoir called The Knowlton Chronicles: How my wife made me move to the country even though I hate nature that is now in a second edition.
He currently has a novel on the griddle that deals with the reminiscences of an old man who searched all his life for one true love and in the process found many.
He lives in Knowlton, Montreal and Mexico with his wife Monique Éthier.