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An Evening with the Alistair MacLeod Award Nominees

Date:
Time:
-
Venue:
Inverness County Centre for the Arts
Location:
16080 Nova Scotia Trunk 19, Inverness. More info
Link:
https://cabot-trail-writers-festival.tickit.ca/events/35069-an-evening-with-the-alistair-macleod-award-nominees
Calendar:
Community event

The Cabot Trail Writers Festival is delighted to host a reading, conversation and audience Q&A with the three authors nominated for the 2026 Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction: Geoff Butler (We, the Ancestors), Shelley Thompson (Winter Sky: Stories for the Season) and Heidi Wicks (Here).

The evening will be hosted by author and comics artist Kate Beaton. We’re very pleased to bring these three extraordinary writers together to share their work and celebrate their nomination for an Atlantic Book Award particularly dear to Cape Breton hearts, named in honour of one of our most beloved authors.

This is the second year our organization has had the honour of administering this award (in partnership with Atlantic Book Awards, with prize funding generously donated by Bookmark Booksellers Inc.), in memory of one of the great writers of our island, a master of the short-fiction form. We cannot imagine three finer writers to carry forward Alistair MacLeod’s legacy.

This event will be pay-what-you-can (recommended: $15). All proceeds will go towards the award and event costs. Books will be available for sale, a cash bar with alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks will be open, and light refreshments will be served. Our thanks to the Inverness County Centre for the Arts for generously opening their doors to welcome us into their space to share this beautiful evening of laughter, inspiration and stories.

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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, writing for 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.

Occasionally, WFNS uses the phrase “emerging and established writers/authors” to mean ‘writers and authors of all experience levels.’

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 info, strategies, and skills that suit their experience. 

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 uncertain about your experience level with respect to any particular workshop, please feel free to contact us at communications@writers.ns.ca