Board of Directors
WCDR is administered by a board of nine volunteers who guide the group’s activities according to the members’ needs and interests. Click for the board contact form
President – James Dewar
James Dewar is a freelance writer, editor and web designer. His poetry has appeared in magazines, chapbooks, anthologies and The Garden in the Machine (Hidden Brook Press 2007). He organizes/hosts the Hot-Sauced Words Poetry Series and is an active participant in the Toronto poetry scene. He enjoys publishing poetry and other books through his publishing house, Piquant Press (www.piquantpress.ca). He has been a WCDR member for seven years, a member of the Board for 3 years. He offers writing/performance workshops on a variety of skills, most notably the “A Novel Approach” workshop (with co-presenter Sue Reynolds) where participants meet bi-weekly for a year to complete the first draft of a novel. Please visit www.hotsaucedwords.ca and www.piquantproductions.ca for more information.
Past-President – Sue Reynolds
Susan Lynn Reynolds is a writer and an accredited AWA writing instructor and has been teaching creative writing for over 12 years. Her 1992 novel Strandia won the CLA’s national YA Novel of the Year award, and she won the Timothy Findley Creative Writing Prize three years in a row for her short stories and poetry. Her area of specialty is the therapeutic use of journaling and memoir, and her thesis on that topic received the Canadian Psychological Association’s Award of Academic Excellence in 2006. She has been leading writing workshops for female inmates at Central East Correctional Centre for three years and has just received the 2007 June Callwood Award for Outstanding Volunteerism for that program. She is currently working on her Masters degree.
Membership – Maureen Curry
“Books are magical, almost sacred!” That was Maureen’s attitude throughout her teaching career. For 32 years, she encouraged youngsters to create stories and rhymes. Her own writing consisted of verses and plays for these students. With retirement came time to develop her own abilities. By joining The Writers’ Circle of Durham, she received the support she needed. In 2007, she ventured into the adult world with her poem Timber Wolf, which appeared in Liaisons 11: The R. D. Lawrence Commemorative Anthology. She is currently working on poems and Chapter Books for children.
Breakfast Coordinator – Theresa Dekker breakfast@wcdr.org
Four years ago while thumbing through Durham’s Continuing Education catalogue Theresa stopped at the page highlighting a creative writing course. Five minutes late she was registered and under the tutelage of the Writing Fairy made her way to the WCDR. She is a great lover of the many genres of fiction. While she enjoys writing short stories her passion is to complete her first novel. As treasurer she gets to combine the business side of her life with the creative one. Theresa is elated to be part of the supportive, passionate, and creative world of the WCDR.
Secretary – Christina Vasilevski
Christina Vasilevski is a freelance writer and editor, and part of the Editors’ Association of Canada. Her current focus is on writing and editing non-fiction articles and website copy; she also offers help with WordPress installations. She is a recent graduate of Trent University, and is currently taking courses in Ryerson University’s publishing program. In her spare time she likes to take part in trivia competitions and contribute readings of Roman history and poetry at Librivox.org. You can visit her website at www.105creations.com
Special Events Coordinator – Thomas Moss
Thomas Moss enjoys a reputation as a powerful speaker, a strong writer and passionate communications coach. Over the past 40 years he has helped people tell their stories as a public relations professional, reporter, photographer, ad salesman, business communications coach and entrepreneur. Thomas currently runs a wide-ranging communications consultancy in Durham but what he loves most is helping ordinary people overcome their extraordinary fear of speaking to groups. Thomas is an active blogger at www.sayitwithpower.ca/blog and his fiction work has appeared in The Globe and Mail and the Kingston Whig Standard. He has self-published a novel based on his paternal grandparents and wrote a history of North York Hydro before it was amalgamated into Toronto Hydro.
Public Relations – Dorothea Helms
Dorothea Helms is an award-winning, internationally published writer who is also a popular writing instructor. She is the author of the highly successful book The Writing Fairy™ Guide to Calling Yourself a Writer, and she offers courses, workshops and keynote speeches that inspire adults to write and publish their work. She has been teaching creative writing at Durham College (North Campus) for more than 15 years, and is proud that many of her students have won writing contests, started freelance careers and become published authors. Over the years, she has served as contributing editor to dozens of publications and has provided many writing colleagues with paying gigs. Dorothea’s work has appeared in publications such as Homemakers, Chatelaine, The Globe and Mail, Toronto Sun and Canadian Architecture and Design Magazine. She was featured on CBC Radio’s “First Person Singular” twice, and has twice had personal essays published on The Globe and Mail’s Facts & Arguments page. Someday she may even finish her novel. She IS The Writing Fairy.
Workshop Coordinator – Sally Moore
Sally Moore has earned certificates of achievement from Humber School for Writers, studying under Nino Ricci, Alistair McLeod and Susan Swan. She has published articles in The Globe and Mail, Word Weaver and Ottawa Business Magazine and has written poems, book forwards, web sites and promotional materials. Her heart is in fiction and she has written two unpublished novels. Sally is a marketing executive with over 25 years experience in business, and holds a Diploma with Distinction in Commercial Communications, and an Executive Education Certificate from Schulich School of Business. Her most recent novel, Wings of a Fly, is based on her experiences as an executive in high tech.
Web Liaison – Rich Helms – webmaster@wcdr.org
Rich’s articles have appeared in a range of publications from Engineering Dimensions and the IBM Systems Journal, to the Toronto Sun. He is also well versed in writing computer languages and programs. Rich learned his first computer language in 1966 and designed his first computer language for IBM in 1980. He holds five US and Canadian patents with a sixth patent pending. He invented CARES, the computer system for aging missing kids that was used by Metro Toronto Police for 11 years, and was recognized with a Metro Toronto Police Appreciation Award. His Learning C++ CD-ROM was recognized with the Society for Technical Communications Distinguished Publication Award. Rich’s passion in life is using complex computer technologies to make tasks easier. Rich’s book ‘Amazon SimpleDB Developer Guide’ was released by Packt Publishing in June 2010.
