Our Coaches

Paisley Aiken

Founder

As a lifetime lover of books and words (it is even said that she creates new ones now and then) Paisley left working in alternative education with at risk youth in the Caribbean to return to Canada and first own/manage a rural bookstore, and then work in book publicity. She accumulated several courses and certificates in publishing along route. After she moved back to her native Victoria she completed her MBA at Uvic, dragged her three young boys and husband around the globe and is now applying her love for people, for kids, for books and for enterprise to create a charitable organization that helps kids engage with literacy.

Korina Miller

School Program Coach

Korina began writing stories when she was five. When she wasn’t writing, she had her nose in a book or was daydreaming about faraway places. As soon as she was old enough to hop onto a plane by herself, she began traveling and has visited over three-dozen countries. Along the way, she authored more than twenty travel books for Lonely Planet along with numerous web and magazine articles for publications such as The Guardian, BBC and The Globe & Mail. Korina has taught children in China and India, has run arts groups in Vancouver and London, worked as a Commissioning Editor for Lonely Planet and was the UK Representative for the Lonely Planet Wheeler Foundation. She has a BA in Communications and Canadian Studies, an MA in Migration Studies and an A-Level Certificate in Visual Arts. Korina’s two daughters share her love of books and the three of them enjoy reading and creating stories together.
[/leftcolumn]Meghan Lidkea Hedman grew up in Victoria with her nose in a book. As a child she would bring her books to Willows Beach to read by the sea. Meghan found she loved teaching children of all ages when she started teaching swimming at the Crystal Pool. She took that love and developed a young children’s art program called Art in the Park at Swan Lake-Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary, combining her love of exploring nature and visual arts. Meghan completed her ECE and she currently teaches at Ross Bay Preschool in Fairfield, where she enjoys watching stories unfold every day in the children’s play. She has a natural and intuitive way of working with children and is able to direct and nurture their personalities and strengths in a caring and positive way. Meghan’s loves in life are her family, connecting with nature, singing, artwork, and reading alone or with her book club.

  Laura Trunkey

  Writing Coach

Laura’s first book, the children’s novel The Incredibly Ordinary Danny Chandelier, was a starred selection in the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s Best Books for Kids & Teens and a Sunburst Award honourable mention. Her fiction has recently been published in Border Crossings, Grain, and the anthology Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales From Tomorrow. Her writing has won awards in the Short Grain Fiction Contest, the Fiddlehead Annual Fiction Contest, and the Prairie, Fire Creative Non-Fiction Contest, and was twice short-listed for the CBC Literary Award. She has received two National Magazine Award honourable mentions for non-fiction. She lives in Victoria, BC, where she is at work on a YA trilogy. Laura also contributes for Island Parent where she shares and comments on her new voyage into parenthood writing the monthly ‘Maternity and Beyond’ column. Laura teaches writers workshops and works as a teacher’s aide.

Jody Carrow

Teen Writing Coach

Jody Carrow is a graduate of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Victoria. She is the current Editor-in-Chief of the Claremont Review, Canada’s premier journal for teen literature.  She has published poetry in Grain Magazine and The Malahat Review and works by contract as a professional writer and editor. In a previous life she worked as a speech writer for the Premier of the province but decided that was perhaps a little too creative and returned to her first loves of fiction and poetry.