Program News

2026 Nova Writes finalists

Congratulations to the twenty finalists in our 2026 Nova Writes Competition!

Thanks to our volunteer readers, all Nova Writes entrants have received feedback on their work. Finalists have received additional feedback from this year’s judges. The winning entrants, announced on April 30, will be published in print in the 2026 Nova Writes anthology.

Budge Wilson Short Story Prize finalists

Elizabeth Collis, “Migration Flight”
Emily Dodge, “A Pale Yellow Line”
Lauren McNeil, “A Lovely Funeral”
Zoey Phillips, “Bandit”
Nicole Regalado, “Mama Andina”
Paula Romanow, “The Train”
Jennifer Stewart, “Snapshot”

This year’s Wilson Prize judge, Donna Jones Alward, is a New York Times bestselling author of many beloved romance novels that have been translated into over a dozen languages. She lives in Nova Scotia with her husband and two cats. Her most recent novels are When the World Fell Silent (2024) and Ship of Dreams (2025).

Silver Donald Cameron Essay Prize finalists

Anneli Berger, “Proust’s Socks”
Nancy Kimber, “Pussy Willows Saved My Life”
Sophia Lawrence, “Weeding and Burning”
Michael S. Ryan, “Dye Rusty”

This year’s Cameron Prize judge, Lezlie Lowe, is a noted book author and journalist working in text and audio across genres. She has a 20+-year career as a columnist, feature writer, and audio documentary maker. Her journalism has received regional and national recognition and has appeared in The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, The Independent, Buzzfeed, The Walrus, and the National Post, among others. She is the author of two books, and has been listed as a top-25 pick by CBC Books and the Toronto Star and one of the top 100 books of the year by The Globe and Mail.

Rita Joe Poetry Prize finalists

Matthew Anderson, The First Frost
Rohini Bannerjee, Grant Me Grief
Stephania Jean, Borrowed Country, Someone Blue
Melissa Kuipers, Each Spring We Go to the Hills
Nikita Ross, Tending Time
Lorraine Ryan, The Demise of a Forest Model

This year’s Joe Prize judge, Margo Wheaton, is an award-winning poet and editor and is the author of Rags of Night in Our Mouths (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022) and Wild Green Light (with David Adams Richards, Pottersfield Press, 2021). She lives and writes in Halifax. Her debut poetry collection, The Unlit Path Behind the House (McGill-Queen’s, 2016), won the Fred Kerner Award (Canadian Authors’ Association) for Book of the Year and the Alfred G. Bailey Award from the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick. It was also shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award, the J.M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award, the Fred Cogswell Award for Literary Excellence, and the Relit Award.

Joyce Barkhouse Middle-Grade & YA Fiction Prize finalists

Carolyn Harnanan, The Garden of Discovery
Avery Mossop, The Memory Thief
Gabrielle Pope, Damon and Memory

This year’s Barkhouse Prize judge, Chad Lucas, has worked as a newspaper reporter, communications advisor, freelance writer, part-time journalism instructor, and parenting columnist. His work has appeared in publications including Halifax Magazine, Black to Business, Sport Quarterly, and The Chronicle Herald. Chad’s debut novel, Thanks A Lot, Universe, was named a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and a best middle grade book of 2021 by the School Library Journal, New York Public Library, and Canadian Children’s Book Centre. His second book, Let the Monster Out (2022), was nominated for the Forest of Reading Red Maple Award (2023) and the Manitoba Young Readers Choice Awards (2024). You Owe Me One, Universe (2023) is a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. Chad’s fourth book is The Vanished Ones (2025).

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2026 – 2027 Jampolis Cottage Writers in Residence

Program News

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2026 – 2027 Sponsored Residencies at Jampolis Cottage and to the participants in the 2026 Oliver-Craig Black Writers’ Retreat at Jampolis Cottage!

Atlantic Indigenous Writer’s Residency:
shalan joudry

DAWN Residency:
Sig Burwash

Delmore “Buddy” Daye Residency:
Angela Bowden

Robert Pope Foundation Residency:
Margo Wheaton

Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia Residencies:
Jaime Forsythe & Lindsey Harrington

Oliver-Craig Black Writers’ Retreat:
LeoNia Elms & Lisette Sumbu

Learn more about these writers and their residency and retreat projects below.

Sig Burwash

Recipient of the DAWN Residency,
sponsored by The DAWN Fund

Sig Burwash is a visual artist and writer who works primarily in drawing, painting, sculpture, and comics. They have travelled internationally for artist residencies that include Wonder Valley Experimental Living Cabin Project at A-Z West (California), Villa Lena Foundation Residency (Italy), and The Banff Centre (Alberta). Burwash has exhibited across North America and Europe. Their work is in the permanent collections of the Canadian Council for the Arts Art Bank, Nova Scotia Art Bank, Yukon Tourism and Culture, and UBCO. Drawn & Quarterly released their debut graphic novel, Vera Bushwack, in 2024. They now live in Unama’ki- Cape Breton Island.

Sig will use their residency to focus intensively on the next development phase of their new graphic novel, Old Mud. This dual-timeline narrative explores two queer individuals—Jean in 1987 and Dusty in 2027—whose lives intertwine in a small East Coast fishing community. Both outsiders working in a male-dominated fishing industry, they navigate identity, belonging, and resilience against the backdrop of eroding coastlines and warming waters.

Angela Bowden

Recipient of the Delmore "Buddy" Daye Residency,
sponsored by the Delmore "Buddy" Daye Learning Institute

Angela Bowden is an African Nova Scotian daughter, mother, aunty, sister, niece, author, poet, activist , and storyteller from the historic community of Vale Road, New Glasgow. A seventh generation descendant of Black Loyalists, her work explores silence, identity, healing, joy, and the power of Black stories. She is the author of UnSpoken Truth: Unmuted and Unfiltered (2021), a poetry collection that reclaims and gives voice to the lived and inherited impacts of slavery and its aftereffects, speaking truth to power through storytelling rooted in African Nova Scotian experience. Her children’s book Black Boy Black Boy (2025) celebrates Black identity and pride, with a companion book, Black Girl Black Girl set for release in 2027. A TEDx speaker and community voice, Angela shares stories that uplift, empower, and affirm Black experiences across generations.

Angela's residency will progress her manuscript-in-progress, Dear Sis, I’m Sorry, a braided literary memoir rooted in African Nova Scotian inheritance and a diasporic return to Ghana. Dear Sis, I'm Sorry situates personal reckoning within the broader inheritance of Black womanhood across the diaspora, moving between memoir, historical reflection, lyrical prose, and poetry.

Margo Wheaton

Recipient of the Robert Pope Foundation Residency,
sponsored by the Robert Pope Foundation

Margo Wheaton is the author of Rags of Night in Our Mouths and Wild Green Light (with David Adams Richards). She lives and writes in Kjipuktuk (Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia) on the traditional and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq. Her debut poetry collection, The Unlit Path Behind the House, won the Fred Kerner Award from the Canadian Authors’ Association and was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award, the J.M. Abraham Award, the Fred Cogswell Award for Literary Excellence, and the Relit Award. Margo holds a Masters degree in English and a Certificate in Adult Education, both from Dalhousie University. She works as a writing mentor, editor, and workshop instructor.

During her time at Jampolis Cottage, Margo will work on the manuscript of her third full-length collection, including poems exploring the murder of her great-aunt, who served on a Norwegian navy vessel during WWII.

Jaime Forsythe

Recipient of a Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia Residency

Jaime Forsythe is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Yield, which will be out in mid-April 2026 with Wolsak & Wynn / Buckrider Books. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Arc, Grain, The Ampersand Review, and This Magazine. As well, her short fiction has been published in Geist and The Malahat Review, and she has creative nonfiction forthcoming in EVENT. Jaime holds an MFA from the University of Guelph and currently lives close to where she grew up in Nova Scotia / Mi’kma’ki with her family.

Jaime's residency will focus on her in-progress collection of short fiction, The Yellow Zone, which explores themes of personal and communal risk. Following characters in heightened states of alertness or vigilance who face threats that may be relational, environmental, or psychological, these stories address what it means to be safe and what our obligations are to one another.

Lindsey Harrington

Recipient of a Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia Residency

Lindsey Harrington is a Nova Scotian writer with Newfoundland roots who loves exploring societal issues through a personal lens in poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Her debut, Nobody's Mother: A Childfree Memoir, will be released in fall of 2026 with Nimbus Publishing.

Lindsey will use the time and space of Jampolis Cottage to work on her second book, Salty: A Newfoundland Outmigration Memoir. This collection will include poetry and prose exploring Lindsey's personal experience leaving the island as a microcosm of the larger phenomenon of displacement and return associated with the East Coast.

LeoNia Elms

Participant in the Oliver-Craig Black Writers' Retreat,
sponsored by the Honourable Don Oliver and The Craig Foundation

LeoNia Elms is an emerging screenwriter and aspiring novelist, born and raised in Halifax. She first gained traction on websites such as Tumblr and Wattpad for her short stories during her teenage years. She began her career in film as a costume assistant, quickly combining her love for storytelling and fashion to deliver a visual anecdote on screen. Since her early days of online writing, LeoNia has gone into screenwriting and textile styling to broaden her storytelling. In her writing, LeoNia cultivates a sense of sanguinity, drawing from real-world experiences to highlight stories of women of colour—stories that aren't focused on the systemic and generational trauma they experience, but on the fruitful and fulfilling lives they lead despite it.

During the Oliver-Craig Retreat, LeoNia will work on Left Lane, a romantic mystery following Iphigeni, a young journalist in the midst of planning the big fat Greek wedding of her dreams. Her fruitful agenda quickly falls apart as her fiancé, Laine, is arrested for murder.

Lisette Submu

Participant in the Oliver-Craig Black Writers' Retreat,
sponsored by the Honourable Don Oliver and The Craig Foundation

Lisette Sumbu, performing under the moniker Lily Rosaa, is a multidisciplinary artist and 8th-generation African Nova Scotian rooted in the historic community of Sandhill (Amherst). Carrying the torch of a long ancestral line of musicians, entrepreneurs, and activists, Lisette’s work is deeply informed by a revolutionary spirit and a commitment to community. As a founding member of The Black Rose Project, she weaves a sonic tapestry of alternative R&B infused with blues and jazz. Her creative reach extends from the stage to the screen—with notable roles in Diggstown and a lead performance in Sister Act—and into the world of literature as the author of Dreamland, a children’s book series dedicated to life’s essential lessons. Whether organizing for change or captivating audiences on Traitors Canada (Season 3), Lisette remains a formidable voice in the Atlantic Canadian cultural landscape.

During the Oliver-Craig Retreat, Lisette will work on Closing Skies, a stream-of-consciousness novel that follows a seventeen-year-old girl whose family structure abruptly collapses, leaving her vulnerable to the forces of her environment.

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Meet the 2026 MacLeod Mentorship participants

Program News

WFNS is pleased to announce the 8 writers participating in the 2026 Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program as apprentices and mentors:

Jane Doucet

Pamela Sinclair's mentor, Jane Doucet, writes irreverent novels full of humour and heart—the kind of books she likes to read herself. A seasoned journalist whose articles have appeared in myriad national magazines and newspapers, Jane self-published The Pregnant Pause (2017), which was shortlisted for a 2018 Whistler Independent Book Award. Fishnets & Fantasies (2021) and Lost & Found in Lunenburg (2023) were published by Vagrant Press. Blood Typed, Jane’s first contemporary murder mystery will be published in May, 2026.

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Meet the recipients of the 2026 Emerging Writers Prizes

Award News, Program News

Congratulations to the 2026 recipients of WFNS’s three Emerging Writers Prizes!

Established between 2021 and 2023, these three prizes support writers as they advance book-length works-in-progress and as they undertake creative writing mentorships and professional training to advance their literary careers.

The Charles R. Saunders Prize (valued at $3000) encourages literary creation in speculative fiction by emerging writers of marginalized backgrounds—in short, writing by someone like Charles R. Saunders at the beginning of his career.
The Elizabeth Venart Prize (valued at $1750) recognizes the unique barriers to literary creation faced by women and other marginalized genders—in particular, the lack of time and space imposed by systems of gendered labour and gendered childrearing.
The Senator Don Oliver Black Voices Prize (valued at $5000) recognizes the barriers to literary creation and recognition faced by Black and African Nova Scotian writers—who have been and still are marginalized by systemic inequality, including within Canadian publishing.

Norman Ho

2026 Charles R. Saunders Prize

Man Long 'Norman' Ho is an emerging writer and director from Hong Kong, now based in Nova Scotia. A ReelWorld Emerging 20, RBC YFF Mentorship, and DOC Atlantic Breakthrough Program alum, his debut short, Spud Island?, was nominated at the 76th Yorkton Film Festival. He is a recipient of the Grand Jury Prize in the 2025 ScreenCraft Family Screenplay Competition and the IRSA Newcomers to Canada Award at the 2022 Island Literary Awards. He is currently the writer-in-residence at Eyelevel Artist Run Centre.

Norman’s prize-winning submission is an excerpt from his speculative novel-in-progress, The Neroli Rescue, a socio-political survival sci-fi about miners from diverse backgrounds trapped underground after a catastrophic collapse on a distant asteroid mining colony.

Sarah Mian

2026 Elizabeth Venart Prize

Sarah Mian's debut novel, When the Saints, won the Margaret & John Savage First Book Award, the Jim Connors Book Award, and was a finalist for the national Stephen Leacock Medal. She lives in Queensland, Nova Scotia, where she has been working for many years on her second novel, The World in Awful Sleep.

The story follows two artists who move into a deconsecrated church in a remote seaside village in Nova Scotia. It is in keeping with Mian's goals to create complex, memorable characters, and to use familiar sets-ups and landscapes as the canvas for unexpected events.

Guyleigh Johnson

2026 Senator Don Oliver Black Voices Prize

Guyleigh Johnson is an author, artist, advocate, facilitator, and filmmaker from the vibrant community of Dartmouth North. She has published two books, Expect the Unexpected and Afraid of the Dark, through Pottersfield Press. She has also directed her own short film, Scratching the Surface, in collaboration with Being Black in Canada (Halifax) and was nominated for a 2023 Canadian Screen Award for Best Direction, Documentary Series. In 2018 she won the Ancestral Roots Award presented by the Delmore "Buddy" Daye Learning Institute. She has a passion for collaboration and community development implemented through an Afrocentric lens of collective care, responsibility and values.

Guyleigh's prize-winning submission is an excerpt from Full Court Press, a YA novel that follows fifteen-year-old Dee, an African Nova Scotian boy from Dartmouth, as he navigates grief, peer pressure, and failure.

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A Definitive (Re-)Introduction to WFNS

Announcements, Program News

On April 28, 2025, Program Manager Andy Verboom presented a comprehensive survey of the Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia's organizational structure, the range of WFNS programming opportunities for emerging writers and established authors, and how program, workshop, event, and resource information is presented on the WFNS website. Highlighted were major governance and program additions and improvements made between 2020 and 2025.

"A Definitive (Re-)Introduction to WFNS" was free to attend.

Click on the button below to view a PDF of this presentation. Any follow-up questions may be directed to contact@writers.ns.ca.

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2025 Nova Writes winners & finalists

Award News, Program News

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia is delighted to announce the four winners of the 2025 Nova Writes Competition!

We’re also delighted to announce the new name of the competition’s short-form nonfiction prize: the Silver Donald Cameron Essay Prize.

‘Silver Don,’ as he was affectionately known, was a founding member of WFNS nearly 50 years ago, and he remained a dedicated supporter until his passing in 2020. His wide-ranging career as an author spanned several decades, as did his celebration as a book-length nonfiction author: his travelogue Wind, Whales and Whisky: A Cape Breton Voyage won the Dartmouth Book Award (Nonfiction) in 1992; his study The Living Beach: Life, Death and Politics where the Land Meets the Sea won the Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award in 1999; and his posthumously published final book, Blood in the Water: A True Story of Revenge in the Maritimes, was a Richardson finalist and Dartmouth Book Award winner in 2021.

“Don did everything well,” his partner Marjorie Simmins—also an award-winning journalist and nonfiction author—wrote to us, “but he certainly aced essays. His columns in The Chronicle Herald were basically essays: 800 words, once a week, for 14 years, on every subject under the sun, from serious to humorous, and included fiction and non-fiction. I think he’d be very pleased to know his name is still respected in this way.”

More about Silver Don and his legacy, including his work toward “a green and sustainable future,” can be learned at silverdonaldcameron.ca.

Silver Donald Cameron joins the constellation of legendary Nova Scotian authors that our Nova Writes prizes commemorate: Budge Wilson, Rita Joe, and Joyce Barkhouse.

In the generous spirit shared by each of these authors, all Nova Writes Competition entrants receive feedback from our volunteer readers. Finalists & winners receive additional feedback from the category judges. The four winning writers below are busy revising their work for inclusion in the inaugural Nova Writes anthology, which will launch in June at our Celebration of Emerging Writers.

Budge Wilson
Short Story Prize

“two girls at the end of the world” by Sophia Lindfield

Silver Donald Cameron
Essay Prize

“Helicopter Down in the Barrens” by Larry Hicks

Rita Joe
Poetry Prize

Sea Changes by Susie DeCoste
(originally titled Family Function)

Joyce Barkhouse
Middle-Grade & YA Fiction Prize

“Going Back Home” by Charlie Bligh

Congratulations to the fifteen writers shortlisted for the 2025 Nova Writes Competition!

Thanks to our volunteer readers, all Nova Writes entrants have received feedback on their work. The writers on these shortlists will receive additional feedback from this year’s judges—and the winners, announced in April, will be included in the inaugural Nova Writes anthology.

Budge Wilson Short Story Prize shortlist

“The Newcomer” by Cass Harmond
“Gwen and Pat” by Beth Ann Knowles
“two girls at the end of the world” by Sophia Linfield
“Silent Night” by Mary Anne White

Wilson Prize judge K.R. Byggdin won the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award in 2022 for their novel Wonder World. K.R. holds a BA in English & Creative Writing from Dalhousie University, and is currently working on their MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph. Their writing has appeared in anthologies and journals across Canada, the UK, and New Zealand.

Nova Essay Prize shortlist

“My father’s daughter: part of the story” by Michelle England
“Helicopter Down in the Barrens” by Larry Hicks
“Tape for Girls” by Sophia Lawrence

Nova Essay Prize judge Sandra Phinney is an accomplished photographer and prolific writer with four books, contributed to several travel guides, and her articles have appeared in over 70 publications. Additionally, Sandra gives writing workshops on memoir and travel writing.

Rita Joe Poetry Prize shortlist

nôrm(ə)l by Ava Cranhill
Family Function by Susie DeCoste
a fruitful life by Grace Hamilton-Burge
opening with a river by kristin stark

Joe Prize judge Annick MacAskill is the author of four full-length poetry collections and has been nominated for the League of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, the League of Canadian Poets’ Pat Lowther Memorial Award, thrice nominated for the J.M. Abraham Poetry Award, nominated for the Maxine Tynes award (2024), and was the recipient of the Governor General’s Literary Award for English-Lanugage Poetry in 2022.

Joyce Barkhouse Middle-Grade & YA Prize shortlist

“The Mermaid Letters” by Lorenda
“Going Back Home” by Charlie Bligh
“Danny and the Dachshunds” by Baleigh McWade
“Jack Havoc” by William Pitcher

Barkhouse Prize judge Sara O’Leary has written numerous critically acclaimed picture books including The Little Books of the Little Brontes, This is Ruby, and This is Sadie. Her book This is Sadie was adapted for the stage by New York City’s Children’s Theatre. Sara’s other accomplishments include writing fiction, plays, and critical reviews.

2025 Nova Writes winners & finalists Read More »

2025/26 Jampolis Cottage Writers in Residence

Jampolis Cottage, Program News

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2025/26 Sponsored Residencies at Jampolis Cottage and to the participants in the 2025 Oliver-Craig Black Writers’ Retreat at Jampolis Cottage!

Atlantic Indigenous Writer’s Residency:
Michelle Porter

Delmore “Buddy” Daye Residency:
Trevor Silver

Robert Pope Foundation Residency:
Christine Wu

Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia Residencies:
Les Tyler Johnson & Amy Saunders

Oliver-Craig Black Writers’ Retreat:
Tracey Pinder & Trevor Silver

Learn more about these writers and their residency and retreat projects below.

Michelle Porter

Recipient of the Atlantic Indigenous Writer's Residency

Michelle Porter is the descendent of a long line of Métis storytellers (the Goulet family) originally from the Red River area. Her first novel, A Grandmother Begins the Story (2023), was the winner of the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. She’s the author of two nonfiction books, Approaching Fire and Scratching River, and one book of poetry, Inquiries. Currently, she lives in Newfoundland and Labrador where she teaches creative writing.

Michelle plans to focus on the development of a second book-length poetry manuscript, Yellow Pears, which explores themes related to Métis intergenerational storytelling, trauma, joy, and healing. With a selection of poems already drafted, Michelle will use the Atlantic Indigenous Writer's Residency to edit and to write new poems to complete the thematic arc of the poetry collection as currently imagined. Michelle wants to look ahead, using word, line, and stanza to explore possibilities for the future (Indigenous futurity), relationships with the land (prairie grassland and bison in particular), and what Oji-Cree writer Joshua Whitehead and Dene and Métis poet Tenille Campbell have termed "Indigenous joy." She also wants to ask what joy and the future of bison have to do with her, her ancestors, and all our collective futures. Yellow Pears will be published by McClelland & Stewart in 2027.

Trevor Silver

Recipient of the Delmore "Buddy" Daye Residency,
sponsored by the Delmore "Buddy" Daye Learning Institute

+ Participant in the Oliver-Craig Black Writers' Retreat,
sponsored by the Honourable Don Oliver and The Craig Foundation

Trevor Silver is a multidisciplinary entrepreneur, writer, and community builder from North Preston, Nova Scotia. He is the founder of tREv Clothing, a brand rooted in the values of trust, respect, education, and value. Through his storytelling, mentorship, and social impact work, Trevor empowers others to purse personal growth and creative success. His writing blends real-life experience with motivational insight, drawing from his journey as a Black business owner and youth mentor. Trevor is currently working on his debut book, Trevor’s Life Lessons, a reflection on the principles that have guided his path.

During the residency, Trevor will be focused on completing the first full draft of his debut nonfiction book, Trevor’s Life Lessons. This project combines memoir and motivational storytelling, drawing on his lived experience as a Black entrepreneur, mentor, and community leader. The book shares hard-earned lessons on discipline, resilience, self-worth, and success, all grounded in stories from Trevor’s upbringing in North Preston and the journey of building his brand, tREv Clothing. The retreat and residency weeks will provide the dedicated time and space needed to refine the book’s structure, deepen key chapters, and bring this work-in-process closer to completion.

Christine Wu

Recipient of the Robert Pope Foundation Residency,
sponsored by the Robert Pope Foundation

Christine Wu is a Chinese-Canadian poet born and raised on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh (Vancouver, BC) who now lives and writes in Kjipuktuk, Mi’kma’ki. Her work has been published in literary journals including Arc, Contemporary Verse 2, The Malahat Review, and Room, among others. In 2023, she was the winner of the RBC PEN Canada New Voices Award, and in 2022, she was a finalist for the RBC Writers’ Trust Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. Her debut poetry collection, Familial Hungers, was published by Brick Books in 2025.

Christine will be working on new poems for her sophomore collection of poetry, centered around leaving the Church and its parallels with the experience of losing her late father, with whom she had a complicated and tense relationship. This new work will explore her experiences growing up in a Christian subculture within a family rife with generational trauma—and the intersection of her relationships with faith and family, the impact of colonialism, and the ways to grieve what has been lost.

Photo credit: Indigo Clarke Media

Les Tyler Johnson

Recipient of a Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia Residency

Les Tyler Johnson is a writer, educator, and multifaceted creator whose work explores trans identity, relationships, and personal transformation. His work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love, Tablet Magazine, and Narrative Magazine. When not writing, Les enjoys Zumba, sewing, reading, and spending time with his partner, two adult sons, and cat.

Les will be working on a graphic memoir that explores the complex—and often tumultuous—relationship with his mother, who lived with and later died from Alzheimer's. Centred on his mother's late-life relationship with another memory care home resident, Karen, and Les's own journey as a queer and trans person, the project explores vulnerability, acceptance, healing, and the transformative power of breaking free of societal expectations.

Amy Saunders

Recipient of a Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia Residency

Amy Saunders is a queer, award-winning writer of poetry, memoir, essay, and short fiction. Her work focuses on addiction, family, motherhood, spirituality, and recovery. Her personal essays, branded content, and poetry have appeared in Chatelaine, VICE, TeenVogue, SheDoesTheCity, the Canadian Archive of Poetry, and IN&OUT magazine. A Toronto-native, she now lives in the unceded and ancestral territory of Kjipuktuk with her husband and daughter. She is an alumna of Tennant’s Cove Writers Workshops (NB), Off Assignments ‘Writing Motherhood’ with Rachel Yoder (USA), and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, where she was awarded the Banff Artist Award for artistic merit in 2024.

For the duration of her WFNS Residency, Amy will continue her work on her first manuscript, To Carry a Corpse, a nonfiction work titled in which a father-daughter duo find each other in the afterlife. Drawing on inspiration from Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heartberries, and Sheila Heti’s Pure Colour, To Carry a Corpse is a transcendent memoir of redemption and prose. Amy is currently seeking representation.

Tracey Pinder

Participant in the Oliver-Craig Black Writers' Retreat,
sponsored by the Honourable Don Oliver and The Craig Foundation

Tracey Pinder is not one for labels. A few that have followed her are facilitator, agitator, activist, feminist, mom, friend and confidante, and nomadic spirit. Tracey is drawn to various forms of creativity and has penned short stories and poetry, but it has taken her many years to call herself a writer. Born in England and spending most of her life in Ontario, Tracey came to the east coast with her laptop and camera to continue documenting this thing we call life. She enjoys both the lake and the ocean and continues to find community in her new home province.

During the Oliver-Craig Retreat, Tracey will be focusing on the research and storytelling aspects of her mother’s immigration story: life in 1950’s England as a young immigrant woman who, up until then, had had little exposure to white folks. Her mother immigrated to England from Barbados on her own at the age of 19, living in Leeds before moving to London where she met and married Tracey’s father. Growing up, Tracey repeatedly heard the story of her parents’ epic romance and courtship, the kind of heart-warming tale that movies are made of, but not much about her mother’s life in England prior to meeting her dad. Her mother's creative nonfiction story will be Tracey’s first book-length project.

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Meet the 2025 MacLeod Mentorship participants

Program News

WFNS is pleased to announce the 8 writers participating in the 2025 Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program as apprentices and mentors:

Carol Bruneau

Jennifer Stewart's mentor, Carol Bruneau, is the author of eleven books: four short fiction collections, most recently Threshold (2024), six novels, and one nonfiction book. Her novels include Brighten the Corner Where You Are, nominated for the IMPAQ Dublin Literary Award, and A Circle on the Surface, winner of the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction. Her 2017 story collection, A Bird on Every Tree, was a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction. Her first novel, Purple for Sky, won both awards in 2001. She has mentored six writers in the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program.

Evelyn C. White

Melissa Goertzen's mentor, Evelyn C. White, is the author of Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone: A Photo Narrative of Black Heritage on Salt Spring Island (2009). She is also the author of the acclaimed biography Alice Walker: A Life (2004). A former reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle, she has been widely published in Canada and the US. The Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Program awarded her the 2021 Raymond Taavel Media Award for coverage of the 2SLGBTQ+ community. She was the 2024 mentor for the Oliver-Craig Black Writers' Retreat at Jampolis Cottage.

Elaine McCluskey

Roberta McGinn's mentor, Elaine McCluskey, is the author of four short-story collections and three novels, mostly set in Nova Scotia. Her most recent work, a novel entitled The Gift Child, was released in March 2024 by Goose Lane Editions. Rafael Has Pretty Eyes won the Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction. Her stories have appeared in over twenty literary journals, including Room, subTerrain, and The Antigonish Review. One story was a Journey Prize finalist, another placed second in the Fish international contest in Ireland. She lives in Dartmouth. She has worked as a journalist, a book editor, and a university lecturer.

Julian Mortimer Smith

Nailah Tataa's mentor, Julian Mortimer Smith, is a science fiction and fantasy writer based in Yarmouth. His stories have appeared in many of the world’s top speculative fiction venues, including Asimov’s, Terraform, Lightspeed, and Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. He has also taught writing to teenagers and adults and has worked as an editor of both fiction and nonfiction. His first book, The World of Dew and Other Stories, won the 2020 Blue Light Books Prize and is published by Indiana University Press.

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Meet the recipients of the 2025 Emerging Writers Prizes

Award News, Program News

Congratulations to the 2025 recipients of WFNS’s three Emerging Writers Prizes!

Each established between 2021 and 2023, these three prizes support writers as they advance book-length works-in-progress and as they undertake creative writing mentorships and professional training to advance their literary careers.

The Charles R. Saunders Prize (valued at $2500) encourages literary creation in speculative fiction and in nonfiction by emerging writers of marginalized backgrounds—in short, writing by someone like Charles R. Saunders at the beginning of his career.
The Elizabeth Venart Prize (valued at $1750) recognizes the unique barriers to literary creation faced by women and other marginalized genders—in particular, the lack of time and space imposed by systems of gendered labour and gendered childrearing.
The Senator Don Oliver Black Voices Prize (valued at $5000) recognizes the barriers to literary creation and recognition faced by Black and African Nova Scotian writers—who have been and still are marginalized by systemic inequality, including within Canadian publishing.

Jaime Jacques

2025 Elizabeth Venart Prize

Jaime Jacques is a writer based in K'jipuktuk/Halifax. She studied journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University, is the author of Moon El Salvador, and has published her poetry in places like Rattle, Rogue Agent, Variant Lit, and Birdcoat Quarterly. She is a poetry reader for PRISM International.

Jaime's award-winning submission is an excerpt from a poetry chapbook-in-progress, her debut, which addresses themes of privilege, inequality, neocolonialism, trauma, and healing.

Natasha Thomas

2025 Senator Don Oliver Black Voices Prize

Natasha Thomas, a tenth-generation African Nova Scotian, is a playwright, composer, and theatre artist. A graduate of NSCC’s Music Arts program, she blends music and storytelling as director of The Beyond Imagination Puppet Crew. She is part of the Black Theatre Workshop program and has stage-managed for Dartmouth Players, Halifax Fringe, and Neptune Theatre’s 2023 Chrysalis Program.

Natasha's prize-winning submission is an excerpt from her play, Freedom Runs Two, a cantata for a puppet theatre, that tells the history of African Nova Scotians from slavery to modern days through the eyes of a child and his grandmother.

Meet the recipients of the 2025 Emerging Writers Prizes Read More »

Introducing the new Nova Writes Competition

Announcements, Program News

With thanks to everyone who completed our Nova Writes survey in September and October, we’re pleased to reveal the new shape of WFNS’s Nova Writes Competition for new and emerging writers!

No longer a competition “for unpublished manuscripts,” Nova Writes is now a competition for publication. An annual, printed Nova Writes anthology will feature the winning entries in each of four categories:

Budge Wilson Short Story Prize (2,500 to 5,000 words)
Nova Essay Prize (2,500 to 5,000 words)
Rita Joe Poetry Prize (1,250 to 2,500 words, or 10 to 20 pages)
Joyce Barkhouse Middle-Grade & YA Fiction Prize (2,500 to 5,000 words)

All entrants will still receive written developmental feedback from volunteer readers, and shortlisted and winning entrants will receive additional feedback from category judges. Each winning entrant will also meet (remotely) with the judge who selects them, gaining more insight on how to revise for publication in the anthology.

Additional changes:

Entry cap raised: You can now enter up to three short works in each category each year.
Entry fee lowered: We’ve dropped the fee to $26 for a single entry, $23 each for two entries, or $20 for three or more entries. Current General Members receive 25% off their total fee.
Residency requirement relaxed: All current residents of Nova Scotia are now eligible to enter, including out-of-province students and seasonal residents.

If you’re a new or emerging writer, check out the full competition details and put this year’s entry deadline in your calendar: January 16!

If you’re a more established author, please help us share the news of the newly renewed Nova Writes!

Introducing the new Nova Writes Competition Read More »

Budge Wilson Short Story Prize finalists

Silver Donald Cameron Essay Prize finalists

Rita Joe Poetry Prize finalists

Joyce Barkhouse Middle-Grade & YA Fiction Prize finalists

shalan joudry

Sig Burwash

Angela Bowden

Margo Wheaton

Jaime Forsythe

Lindsey Harrington

LeoNia Elms

Lisette Submu

Norman Ho

Sylvia Gunnery

Jessica Marsh

Stephanie Domet

Pamela Sinclair

Jane Doucet

Alexandra Vlachopoulou Horn

Joanne Gallant

Norman Ho

Sarah Mian

Guyleigh Johnson

Budge Wilson Short Story Prize

Silver Donald CameronEssay Prize

Rita Joe Poetry Prize

Joyce Barkhouse Middle-Grade & YA Fiction Prize

Budge Wilson Short Story Prize shortlist

Nova Essay Prize shortlist

Rita Joe Poetry Prize shortlist

Joyce Barkhouse Middle-Grade & YA Prize shortlist

Michelle Porter

Trevor Silver

Christine Wu

Les Tyler Johnson

Amy Saunders

Tracey Pinder

Jennifer Stewart

Carol Bruneau

Melissa Goertzen

Evelyn C. White

Roberta McGinn

Elaine McCluskey

Nailah Tataa

Julian Mortimer Smith

Nailah Tataa

Jaime Jacques

Natasha Thomas

Experience Levels

Budge Wilson
Short Story Prize

Silver Donald Cameron
Essay Prize

Rita Joe
Poetry Prize

Joyce Barkhouse
Middle-Grade & YA Fiction Prize