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Contact Us

Phone

902 423 8116
902 422 0881 (fax)

Regular Office Hours

Monday – Friday
10 am – 3 pm

Having trouble finding our office door?

Mail

WFNS
1113 Marginal Road
Halifax, NS
B3H 4P7

Email

WFNS staff members administer and promote all programs and services through a mutually supportive & collaborative team approach. However, individual staff members lead the key areas outlined below. Please contact a specific staff member when possible but, if unsure who to contact, email contact@writers.ns.ca.

Andy Verboom

(he/him)

Program Manager
(Membership Services)

  • Digital and print communications (print matter, Subtext member newsletter, and website)
  • E-commerce (registration, program fees, and gift shop purchases)
  • General and Writers’ Council membership (accounts, applications, dues, profiles, and subscriptions)
  • Programs: Coffee Chats; Ellemeno Visual Literature Prize; Jampolis Cottage Residency Program; Manuscript Review Program; Message on a Bottle
  • Resources
  • Workshops

Dea Toivonen

(they/them)

Outreach & Social Coordinator

  • Author spotlights
  • Equity and accessibility
  • Program: Emerging Writers Prizes
  • Social media

Linda Hudson

(she/her)

Program Manager
(Arts Education)

  • Peer assessment
  • Programs: Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program; Nova Writes
  • Youth programs: Creative Writing Day Camps; Writers In The Schools

Oriana Duinker

(she/her)

Executive Director

  • Event bookings at 1113 Marginal Rd
  • Media inquiries
  • Operations (donor relations, endowments, fundraising, investments, and partnerships)
  • Policies and practices
  • Program: Nova Scotia and Atlantic Book Awards
  • Recurring events
  • Writers’ talks, panels, and meet-ups

1113 Marginal Road

Halifax, NS B3H 4P7

902 423 8116

contact@writers.ns.ca

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Operational Investors

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia is based in Kjipuktuk, in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. This territory is covered by the “Treaties of Peace and Friendship,” which Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) Peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1725. The treaties do not deal with surrender of lands and resources but in fact recognize Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) title and establish the rules for an ongoing relationship between nations.

© Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, 2025. All rights reserved.

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Recommended Experience Levels

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) recommends that participants in any given workshop have similar levels of creative writing and / or publication experience. This ensures that each participant gets value from the workshop⁠ and is presented with information, strategies, and skills that suit their career stage. The “Recommended experience level” section of each workshop description refers to the following definitions used by WFNS.

  • New writers: those with less than two years’ creative writing experience and/or no short-form publications (e.g., short stories, personal essays, or poems in literary magazines, journals, anthologies, or chapbooks).
  • Emerging writers: those with more than two years’ creative writing experience and/or numerous short-form publications.
  • Early-career authors: those with 1 or 2 book-length publications or the equivalent in book-length and short-form publications.
  • Established authors: those with 3 or 4 book-length publications.
  • Professional authors: those with 5 or more book-length publications.

Please keep in mind that each form of creative writing (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and writing for children and young adults) provides you with a unique set of experiences and skills, so you might consider yourself an ‘established author’ in one form but a ‘new writer’ in another.

For “intensive” and “masterclass” creative writing workshops, which provide more opportunities for peer-to-peer feedback, the recommended experience level should be followed closely.

For all other workshops, the recommended experience level is just that—a recommendation—and we encourage potential participants to follow their own judgment when registering.

If you’re uncertain of your experience level with regard to any particular workshop, please feel free to contact us at communications@writers.ns.ca