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Postcard Poem Contest winners

Congratulations to the winners of our second annual Postcard Poem Contest!

1st: “Mariupol” by Anthony Purdy

Anthony Purdy lives on the South Shore. His poems and stories can be found in recent issues of The Dalhousie Review, The Fiddlehead, FreeFall, Fresh Voices, The Goose, Poetry Pause, Prairie Fire, and Queen’s Quarterly. His poem “mornings” received an honourable mention in the League of Canadian Poets’ 2021 Very Short Verse contest; “bakery” was shortlisted for the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia 2021 Postcard Poem Contest; “The Annex” was longlisted for the 2021 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize; and “Jigsaw” has been nominated by Queen’s Quarterly for a 2022 National Magazines Award.

Runner-up: “Glimpsing Mom” by Charlene Boyce

Charlene Boyce is a writer, poet and artist living in Kjipuktuk. Recently, she placed first in a Reedsy challenge with a creative nonfiction piece called “Flour and Fire.” She is a values-driven communications professional, writer, designer, facilitator, and environmentalist currently working with a systems change organization in Nova Scotia. This spring, she completed a Master of Arts in Atlantic Canada Studies. Her thesis delves into questions of cultural identity in Halifax through the history of a cabaret.

Runner-up: “Nightfall” by Christina McRae

Christina McRae lives in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Her recent work appears in Arc, The New Quarterly, Windsor Review, and Understorey Magazine. Her first full-length collection, Next to Nothing, was published by Wolsak and Wynn in 2009.

Congrats also to the remaining finalists: Susan Drain, Katie Feltmate, Melanie Hobbs, Beth Ann Knowles, Anne Lévesque, Allison MacDonald, and Shepherd Moorhead.

Read the winning poems
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Experience Levels

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) uses the following terms to describe writers’ experience levels:

  • 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, writing for children and young adults, and others) 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.

The “Recommended experience level” section of each workshop description refers to the above definitions. A workshop’s participants should usually 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. 

For “intensive” and “masterclass” 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