Support the Charles R. Saunders Prize

The Charles R. Saunders Prize is a new prize created by the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, which will be awarded annually starting this fall to an emerging writer working in speculative fiction or nonfiction. The prize includes $1,000 cash along with a spot in WFNS’s annual Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program (valued at $3,000).

The prize is named in memory of Charles R. Saunders (1946 – 2020), a Black author and journalist and the founder of the “sword and soul” literary genre with his Imaro novels.

“Charles loved encouraging new writers. Many people wrote to him first as fans, and he encouraged them to pursue their own writing. His first career in Canada was teaching at a university, and the love for learning about other people’s writing never left him,” says Jon Tattrie, a friend and colleague of Saunders.

The mentorship aspect to the new prize is important, distinguishing it from other prizes for emerging writers.

“We’ve tried to rig it so that Charles would win every time,” Tattrie says with a laugh, explaining why emerging writers in literary genres as diverse as speculative fiction and non-fiction qualify for the prize.

Born and raised in the US, Saunders lived in Halifax, NS, from 1985 onward. He was an editor and columnist at The Daily News in Halifax, working there until the newspaper closed in 2008. He also wrote novels, non-fiction books with a focus on Black history, screenplays, and radio plays.

Tattrie is part of a group of writers, including Lindsay Ruck, Portia Clark, Sherry Ramsey, Paul Bacon, and Sean Bedell, who brought the idea of a prize in Saunders’s memory to the Writers’ Fed last year. Tattrie, editor of Atlantic Books Today, is working on a biography of Charles Saunders called Sword and Soul to be published by McClelland and Stewart.

“When Charles died alone in 2020 and was buried in an unmarked grave, his friends and fans in Canada and the U.S. were devastated. We decided to team up to secure Charles’s legacy and honour his life,” he explains. “Our hope is that (through the prize) Charles can inspire and teach new generations of writers.”

The endowment for the Charles R. Saunders Prize currently totals $15,802. WFNS’s immediate goal is to raise another $10,000, which will make this fund sustainable and ensure the long-term existence of the cash prize at $1,000 a year.

One of the first people to step up in support of the Saunders Prize was Black journalist Sherri Borden Colley, who has committed to making a $120 donation in Saunders’s memory each year:

Contributing to this award is just one way we as a community can carry on Charles’s legacy and open up opportunities for aspiring Black journalists and writers.

Through his newspaper columns focusing on issues in Black communities, Charles got uncomfortable dialogue going about the true reality of race relations in Nova Scotia. And through those columns, his other writing, and his active involvement with the Black Journalists of Nova Scotia, Charles elevated Black voices and served as a mentor to newer Black journalists and journalism students.

Through this prize, Charles will be remembered and his name will continue to be spoken.

To ensure the Charles R. Saunders Prize is sustainable, the Writers’ Federation seeks to raise money for its endowment. Charitable tax receipts will be issued for all contributions $10 and above.

The Charles R. Saunders Prize is one of three Emerging Writers Prizes offered by WFNS. The other prizes include the Elizabeth Venart Prize, for emerging writers who identify as women and/or as other marginalized genders, and the Senator Don Oliver Black Voices Prize, for emerging writers who identify as Black and/or African Nova Scotian.

The Saunders, Venart, and Oliver prizes are open to writers who have published no more than one book-length literary project. Writers eligible for more than one prize will send in just a single submission package and submission fee. Submissions for 2024 prizes are due Oct 20, 2023.

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Simultaneous Submissions

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) administers some programs (and special projects) that involve print and/or digital publication of ‘selected’ or ‘winning’ entries. In most cases, writing submitted to these programs and projects must not be previously published and must not be simultaneously under consideration for publication by another organization. Why? Because our assessment and selection processes depends on all submitted writing being available for first publication. If writing selected for publication by WFNS has already been published or is published by another organization firstcopyright issues will likely make it impossible for WFNS to (re-)publish that writing.

When simultaneous submissions to a WFNS program are not permitted, it means the following:

  • You may not submit writing that has been accepted for future publication by another organization.
  • You may not submit writing that is currently being considered for publication by another organization—or for another prize that includes publication.
  • The writing submitted to WFNS may not be submitted for publication to another organization until the WFNS program results are communicated. Results will be communicated directly to you by email and often also through the public announcement of a shortlist or list of winners. Once your writing is no longer being considered for the WFNS program, you are free to submit it elsewhere.
    • If you wish to submit your entry elsewhere before WFNS program results have been announced, you must first contact WFNS to withdraw your entry. Any entry fee cannot be refunded.

Prohibitions on simultaneous submission do not apply to multiple WFNS programs. You are always permitted to submit the same unpublished writing to multiple WFNS programs (and special projects) at the same time, such as the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program, the Emerging Writers Prizes, the Jampolis Cottage Residency Program, the Message on a Bottle contest, the Nova Writes Competition, and any WFNS projects involving one-time or recurring special publications.

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