Our Writers & Creative Team

Jenna Kalinsky, Principal & Founder, One Lit Place

Jenna holds an MFA from Columbia University and has been a creative and academic writing instructor for nearly 20 years, teaching at Teachers College, NYC, University of Toronto Scarborough, Humber College, Western University, where she redesigned the Continuing Studies Creative Writing program, and privately before creating One Lit Place.

In her work as an editor, she provides developmental feedback, substantial copyediting, and proofreading for fiction, nonfiction, academic and business writing. Her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry appear in mainstream and literary magazines, including in the LA Times best-selling The Modern Jewish Girls’ Guide to Guilt (Penguin), winner of the National Jewish Book Award. Originally from Los Angeles, Jenna has lived in New York, Germany, and now makes her home in Toronto, Canada.

Fiction & Creative Nonfiction: instruction & coaching in craft and practice
Academic articles & dissertations: structural consultation & editing
Grammatical instruction
Manuscript consultation: developmental feedback & substantive editing
Copyediting & Proofreading
Web Copy & Blogs: writing & editing
Business documentation

Marcia Walker, Instructor, Fiction & Nonfiction

Marcia Walker’s writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The New York Times, Fiddlehead, Prism international, Room, Event, Antigonish Review, University of Toronto Magazine, This Magazine, The Globe and Mail, CBC radio and The Broken Social Scene Story Project. She has been shortlisted for Prism’s fiction and non-fiction prize, the Writers’ Union of Canada short prose competition and the Lascaux fiction award. Her plays have been part of Nightwood Theatre’s Groundswell festival and the F.O.O.T. festival. She is a graduate of the Guelph MFA program and runs the Emerging Writers Reading Series in Toronto.

Anna Sonser, Instructor, Fiction & Nonfiction

Anna holds a Ph.D from the University of Toronto in English Literature. In addition to her non-fiction book, A Passion for Consumption: The Gothic Novel in America, she has published six novels under a pseudonym with Kensington Publishing in New York. She also has numerous newspaper, magazine and academic articles to her credit. She has taught at the university and college levels as well as taking on a coaching role as marketing and communications branding and change management consultant for financial and IT organizations. Fluent in French and German, Anna divides her time between Toronto and Southern California.

Rebecca Hales, Instructor, Screenwriting & Poetry

Rebecca Hales is a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre’s Bell Media Prime Time TV program and holds an MFA from University of British Columbia. In 2016 she was awarded the Telefilm New Voices award at the Toronto Screenwriting Conference and was one of the Corus Entertainment Writer’s Apprentice Program participants at the Banff World Media Festival. Her credits include an episode of Travelers, the Showcase/Netflix sci-fi series from showrunner Brad Wright (Stargate franchise), working in the development room of Solstice, another Brad Wright original series, interning on the CTV drama series Saving Hope, and the Women in Film and Television Toronto Showcase award winning short film “Dissecting Gwen.” She is currently developing a political crime thriller with Rusty Halo Productions, a half-hour comedy series with creative partners in Toronto and LA, and multiple solo projects.

Vaishali Patel, Instructor, Wellness Writing

Vaishali is a Registered Psychotherapist and narrative practitioner. She received her Master’s Degree in Community Counseling at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro (UNCG), and currently holds certification with The Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association. She has been counselling since 2003, and worked in the field of Employee Assistance Programming (EAP) for more than six of those years, gaining experience and a greater understanding of the importance of work-life balance, and overall wellness of individuals. In addition to individual therapy in her private practice, Vaishali runs RAW (Revealing Authentic Women) Support Circles and “good for you Ladies Night Out” events.

Delaney Nolan, Instructor, Editor, Fiction & Nonfiction

Delaney is a Pushcart Prize-winning Fulbright Fellow whose fiction has appeared in Electric Literature, Guernica, Oxford American, Tin House, and elsewhere. She was a Rona Jaffe Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop MFA Program. She has received recognition from Yaddo, Bread Loaf, Vermont Studio Center, Academy of American Poets, and others, and her fiction has been translated into four languages. Her stories have been adapted into a radio play by NPR’s “Snap Judgment” and into a short film by Emmy award winner Caitlyn Greene: AUGUST. Her chapbook Shotgun Style won the Ropewalk Press Editor’s Prize.

Alice Neiley, Instructor, Editor, Nonfiction

Alice’s creative non-fiction prose has appeared in Eckleburg Review, Provincetown Arts Magazine, and Underwater New York, and her poetry in Vantage Point, Nashville Review, and Tahoma Review. She received a BA in English Literature from the University of Vermont and an MFA from Hunter College, where she was a Hertog fellow and a teaching fellow. She is currently an adjunct professor of writing and literature at Champlain College and regularly writes album reviews for a handful of independent musician clientele.

Kenneth R. Rosen, Instructor, Editor, Nonfiction

Kenneth R. Rosen, a senior news assistant at The New York Times, is a senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, a Robert Novak fellow, and a 2019 MacDowell Colony fellow. He is a contributing writer for WIRED, and is at work on two books: a work of literary nonfiction about tough love treatment programs for juveniles (Little A, 2020) and a book on the synthetic fiber known as Kevlar (Bloomsbury, 2019). https://www.kennethrrosen.com/articles

Query letters & book proposals
Nonfiction book consultation & editing
Ghostwriting

Keri Bertino, Instructor, Fiction & Nonfiction

Keri teaches in the MFA Writing program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. For eight years, she directed the Writing Center at Baruch College, CUNY, supporting both student and professional writers, and has taught fiction, nonfiction, poetry, humor, journalism, academic writing, and professional development for teachers at Columbia University, Baruch College, The Cooper Union, New York City Public Schools, Baltimore City Public Schools, and in many other settings. She’s a fiction, nonfiction, and picture book writer completing her first novel. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and Fametracker. She holds an MFA in Writing from Columbia, and a BA from Vassar College. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Dr. Liat Radcliffe Ross, Editor, Academic & Nonfiction

Liat earned her Ph.D in international relations from the University of Oxford. For more than 15 years, Liat has been a freelance editor specializing in academic and non-profit work. She has worked in academia, print journalism, policy research and finance in the U.S., U.K. and Canada.

Academic Articles
Business documentation, writing & editing

Dr. Erin M. Bertram, Coach & Editor, Poetry, Nonfiction, Hybrid, Academic

Dr. Erin’s cross-genre memoir It’s Not a Lonely World (Trembling Pillow Press, forthcoming 2020) was awarded the 2016 and 2017 Karen Dunning Creative Activity Awards, and their thirteen chapbooks include Relief Map (winner, 2016 Summer Tide Pool Prize) and Body of Water (winner, 2007 Frank O’Hara Award). A published finalist in the 2013 Diagram Hybrid Essay Contest and two-time winner of the Academy of American Poets Prize, they have 15+ years of experience as a writing tutor and college English teacher at Augustana College, Northern Illinois University, and elsewhere, and have coached individual writers and facilitated writing workshops in settings across the Midwest. Their specialties include lyric prose, research-based writing, gender & sexuality, marginal positionality, and resilience. They earned their MFA in Creative Writing with a certificate in Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies from Washington University in St. Louis, and their PhD in English/Creative Writing with a specialization in Women’s & Gender Studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where they were a 2017-18 Maude Hammond Fling Fellow. They have also completed continuing ed coursework in documentary studies and graduate coursework in counseling. Their current project, the cross-genre biography The Vanishing of Camille Claudel, has been a finalist for the [Pank] Book Series. They live with their wife amid field and forest in northern Illinois.

Intuitive, mindfulness, narrative-based, & social justice-informed approach to working with clients
Creative Writing: poetry, creative non-fiction, hybrid texts
Manuscript Consultation: developmental feedback, substantive editing, proofreading
Navigating the Edge: guidance for LGBTQ+, introvert, cross-genre, & minority writers
General Nonfiction: blog posts, book reviews, vows, memorials, personal journaling
Academic Writing: research papers, dissertations, professional articles
The Writing Life: writing practice, submission process, idea generation, writer’s block
Tutoring: undergraduate & graduate, incl. first-generation, non-traditional, ELL

Krista Foss, Editor, Fiction & Nonfiction

Krista Foss is a writer of novels, short stories, screenplays, and creative non-fiction. Her short fiction has appeared in Granta and has twice been a finalist for the Journey Prize. Krista’s essay writing, which won the PRISM International Creative Non-Fiction Award (2016), has been nominated for a National Magazine Award and featured in Best Canadian Essays. Her first novel, Smoke River, published by McClelland & Stewart (2014), won the Hamilton Literary Award and was optioned for film by Westwind Productions. ELLESMERE, a mini-series pilot co-written with Sally Cooper, is currently under option by Buck Productions. Her second novel will be published by McClelland & Stewart in spring 2021. She is a senior editor at Hamilton Review of Books and has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.

Teresa Dzieglewicz, Editor, Poetry

Teresa Dzieglewicz is an educator, Pushcart Prize-winning poet, and a co-director of the Mní Wičhóni Nakíčižiŋ Owáyawa (Defenders of the Water School) at Standing Rock Reservation. She received her MFA from Southern Illinois University, where she received the Academy of American Poets Prize. She is the winner of the 2018 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize and she has received fellowships from New Harmony Writer’s Workshop, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, and the NY Mills Arts Retreat. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in the Pushcart Prize XLII, Best New Poets 2018, Beloit Poetry Journal, Ninth Letter, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere.

Lori A. May, Instructor, Editor, Fiction and Nonfiction

Lori is the author of several books including The Write Crowd: Literary Citizenship & the Writing Life (Bloomsbury), which was nominated for a Michigan Notable Book Award and named a “best book for writers” by Poets & Writers magazine. She writes across the genres, with publications including The Atlantic, Brevity, Midwestern Gothic, and Writer’s Digest. She is also a contributing writer for Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel. Her nonfiction specialties include travel, food, and memoir. For fiction, she seeks compelling characters and smart structure. For poetry, it’s all about lyricism. As a freelance editor, Lori has worked with Kaylie Jones Books (an Akashic Books imprint), Creative Nonfiction, Poets’ Quarterly, and other presses and journals. She teaches in the creative nonfiction low-residency MFA program at University of King’s College-Halifax. Originally from Ontario, Lori now calls the Pacific Northwest home.

Fiction & Creative Nonfiction: instruction & coaching in craft and practice
Manuscript Consultation: developmental feedback & substantive editing
Copyediting & Proofreading
Nonfiction Book Proposal: editing & consultation

Vanessa Grant, B2B Copywriting & Marketing

Vanessa Grant communicates the ideas you don’t know how to put into words. A classically-trained journalist and former fashion and beauty editor, Vanessa has more than 10 years of experience working in online media. She helps small businesses create branded content that’s strategic, smart and shareable. Vanessa has worked for Shaw Media and The Kit and has been published in Flare, Today’s Parent, Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, Parents Canada, CBC.ca and theloop.ca, among others.

Blogs & Articles
Web Copy
Press Releases & Media Outreach

Our Creative Team

Pascale Potvin, Social Media Manager, Translation (French)

Pascale has fiction featured in New Reader Magazine and The Writing Disorder, plus a film in distribution by the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre. She has just received her BAH from Queen’s University, and she is working on a budding book trilogy. She has provided design and/or social media management for One Lit Place, MagneTree Books, Money-Ready, and other private clients.

Razili Datta, Programming Consultant

Razili is a program management and communications consultant specializing in international development programs who moonlights as a virtual community facilitator and content curator. She earned a BA in Economics and Government from Smith College and an MA in International Affairs from The George Washington University. Born and raised in northern California, Razili has lived in western Massachusetts, Washington, DC, and New Delhi, and currently resides in Toronto where she has learned to complain about the winters like a native.

Corporate and nonprofit report writing
Copyediting and proofreading
Presentation writing and development

Isabelle Beauvais, Translation, Private Instruction (French)

Isabelle holds an M.A. from the University of Toronto, Canada in Child Studies and Education, and a B.A. from the University of Ottawa in History and Sociology. As a French Immersion primary school teacher in Toronto, Isabelle promotes bilingualism and the significance of its associated sociolinguistic variants in her classroom. She has performed translation for the University of Ottawa and for National Defence.

One Lit Place Trusted Colleagues

CanamBooks: for Self-Published Authors in Canada

CanamBooks guides and accompanies writers through the self-publishing journey. They provide graphic design and illustration, translation, printing, marketing and distribution, and more to help authors become their own publisher. No contract needed, and authors retain 100% of their copyright. www.canambooks.com

Contact: Jordan Dessertine – Self-Publishing Consultant
jordan@canambooks.com
(514) 431-5465

Astrid Sucipto-Low, Web Design/Digital Marketing & Communications, Bloomtools Toronto

Astrid Sucipto is a digital marketing and communications tech expert whose mission is to make digital marketing easy for small business owners. With a focus on building lead generation funnels, she helps with the setup of landing pages, drip emails, online courses and general email marketing. By doing this work for small business owners, she frees up their time which allows them to focus their time and energy on strategy, revenue and growth.

Tamara Sztainbok, web designer and developer, Puzzle Box Communications

Having worked in the publishing industry for almost 20 years, Tamara well understands writers’ unique needs. She created Puzzle Box Communications, a web design studio, to give writers and creatives a professional and strategic online presence. Puzzle Box Communications provides sales funnel, email marketing, social media, and content marketing. www.puzzleboxcommunications.com *Tamara is next available in October 2019.

Web design and development
Online strategy
Email marketing