Welcome to my website. Here you will be able to find information about various aspects of my professional life as a poet, novelist, children's author, and non-fiction writer, and as a workshop facilitator, occasional radio broadcaster, and teacher of creative writing, children's literature, and a course on L.M. Montgomery at the University of Prince Edward Island.

Currently I am writing a children's book set in 1864 for a P.E.I. Literacy Alliance project to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Charlottetown meeting that led to the confederation of Canada. The Acorn Press (acornpresscanada.com) will publish the book in 2014; the illustrator is Brenda Jones, who also illustrated the original version of my children's book, Lobster in My Pocket, and who made all-new illustrations for the second edition of the book (Nimbus Publishing, 2010). As well, I am writing a book for Nimbus for their series, Stories of Our Past.

Please investigate my website, and contact me if you would like more information or to arrange readings, workshops, or school visits.

Deirdre Kessler


Photograph of the Cavendish sandspit in the Gulf of St. Lawrence taken at Springbrook, Prince Edward Island, by John Sylvester.

Recent & Upcoming

  • Published in June 2013, "'Sure-footed and agile as a girl,'" in The Master's Wife: The Book and the Place, Penumbra Press (www.penumbrapress.com).

  • Published: Dreamtime, a bedtime book for very young children, Acorn Press (acornpresscanada.com).

  • Published: Danger--Keep Out!, part of the Porcupine Chapter Book series (curriculumplus.ca).

  • Published: Land of Dreams, the Australian edition of Dreamtime, by Forty Degrees South in Hobart, Tasmania, illustrated by Cecily Donnelly (www.cecilydonnellyart.com).

  • Invited in 2012 to serve as a member of the Sectoral Commission on Culture, Communication and Information of UNESCO's Canadian Commission for UNESCO.

  • Received UPEI's Award for Excellence in Teaching for a Sessional Lecturer, 2010.

  • Artist in residence in the Cataract Gorge, Launceston, Tasmania, fall 2010, and participated in the 2010 Tasmanian Poetry Festival and in "Sounding the Earth: Music, Language, Acoustic Ecology," the 3rd biannual conference of the Association for the Study of Literature, Environment, Culture-Australia and New Zealand, University of Tasmania, Launceston.

  • Poet laureate for the 2010 Peter Gzowski Invitational Golf Tournament for Literacy.