Jon Claytor

An interview with Vanessa F. Penney

Jon Claytor is a graphic novelist, painter, and writer based in Sackville, New Brunswick.

After having established himself as an oil painter, Jon has recently found his passion and true calling in graphic storytelling. He has written many illustrated interviews for the CBC since 2021 and his memoir, Take The Long Way Home was published by Conundrum Press in 2022. His latest graphic novel, Nowhere, about growing up among monsters in a small maritime town, was published by Goose Lane Editions in 2026. He is currently working on a book about the toxic drug supply affecting rural New Brunswick with harm reduction advocate, Ashley Legere. Jon has also run a number of creative workshops for a variety of audiences focusing on storytelling and comic memoirs.

Jon was born in San Francisco and has lived and worked in Moncton, Sackville, Halifax, Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. He co-founded SappyFest independent music and arts festival in 2006 and opened Thunder & Lightning Ideas Ltd. in 2013. Jon holds an MFA from York University (2012), attended Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University (1991), and holds a BFA Mount Allison University (1998). He was nominated for a Juno Award for the cover of Gord Downie's “Battle Of The Nudes” in 2004. His memoir, Take the Long Way Home, was shortlisted for the New Brunswick Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2022.

Vanessa F. Penney was born in northern Newfoundland and raised in rural Nova Scotia. The coal-black ocean depths and bone-buried shorelines of the East Coast inspire her writing. Vanessa lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The Witch of Willow Sound is her first novel.