Canadian Independent Bookstore Day (CIBD) is the annual day when readers, writers, illustrators, publishers, and others come together to celebrate indie bookstores across Canada. By joining the celebration, you are advocating for independent businesses, supporting a flourishing bookselling community, and investing in Canadian culture.
We will have a brand new scavenger hunt for the kids. Completed scavenger hunts will get a free picture book, while supplies last. See the first table upon entering for details and prizes.
Customers with purchases of over $50- (before taxes) will get their choice of a mystery book, while supplies last. (Mystery books are different from our Blind Dates books. Mystery books have the genre on the front along with a quote from inside the book.)
We will also have a table set up with 20% off new local books as marked.
We will also be participating with 8 other HRM Independent Bookstores in a “passport” that day. (See the main event.)
We hope to see you Saturday, April 26th, between 10am and 6pm!
Canadian Independent Bookstore Day (CIBD) is the annual day when readers, writers, illustrators, publishers, and others come together to celebrate indie bookstores across Canada. By joining the celebration, you are advocating for independent businesses, supporting a flourishing bookselling community, and investing in Canadian culture.
Those in the Halifax Regional Muncipality (HRM) area can participate in the HRM Independent Bookstore Day Passport!
How does the Passport work?
Visit all 9 of the participating HRM bookstores in person and get a sticker, stamp, or signature from each store. Once you have completed your postcard, bring it to one of the participating stores nearest you by Sunday, May 4th, to be entered in the draw. Each store will have a draw for a tote bag full of swag! No purchase necessary.
Agricola Street Books (2684 Agricola St, Halifax)
Atlantic News (5560 Morris St, Halifax)
Carrefour Atlantic Emporium (1869 Upper Water St, Halifax)
Dartmouth Book Exchange (1187 Cole Harbour Rd, Dartmouth)
Egghead Books (5696 Roberts St, Halifax)
Otis and Clementine’s (5209 St. Margaret’s Bay Rd, Upper Tantallon)
Spring ForeWord, a four-day mini-festival in Halifax, is presented by AfterWords Literary Festival and sponsored by the King’s Co-op Bookstore.
AwkWord: True stories, told live in front of an audience
With Catherine Bush, Vinh Nguyen, Fazeela Jiwa, Monica Njoku, Stephanie Domet, and Carole Rankin
Hosted by Stephanie Domet, this raucous night features true stories told candidly and off the cuff. Snacks are on the house. The bar is open. Laughs are guaranteed.
Friday, April 25
7:00PM – 9:00PM (Doors open at 6:30PM)
Cafe Lara (2347 Agricola Street, Halifax)
Tickets: $10.00
Double Poetry Launch
With Christine Wu, Jessica Bebenek, and Clare Goulet
Friday, April 25
7:00PM – 8:30PM
Trident Booksellers & Cafe (1256 Hollis St, Halifax)
Free to attend
Independent Bookstore Day
Saturday, April 26
All Day
We love our local independent bookstores, and we support them every day, but on Independent Bookstore Day we show them a bit of additional love. Our Spring ForeWord bookseller is the King’s Co-op Bookstore—hard to find, in the basement of the New Academic Building at the University of King’s College—but worth the search, every time.
Writing Characters, Writing the World
A fiction workshop with Catherine Bush
When writing fiction, we face the challenge of bringing characters to life and moving them through a lively world. This workshop will consider how we can use point-of-view, techniques of imaginative noticing, and keeping our characters and the world in motion to create liveliness and life-like-ness on the page. The workshop will involve a variety of in-class prompts. Be prepared to be playful and exploratory. Space is limited in this workshop.
Saturday, April 26
10:00AM – 12:00PM
Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (1113 Marginal Road, Halifax)
Tickets: $25.00 (If price is a barrier, please email info@afterwordsliteraryfestival.com)
Saturday Night at Spring ForeWord
With Vinh Nguyen, Mélikah Abdelmoumen, Fazeela Jiwa, Chad Lucas, Rebecca Thomas, Sue Goyette, Grayer Parsons, Eris Davis, and Asha Abdosh
We’re celebrating our second annual Youth Mentorship Program with readings from Grayer Parsons, Eris Davis, and Halifax Youth Poet Laureate Asha Abdosh, along with their mentors Chad Lucas, Rebecca Thomas, and Sue Goyette. After an intermission featuring snacks, we’ll welcome Vinh Nguyen and Mélikah Abdelmoumen in conversation with Fazeela Jiwa. Read about Vinh’s new book, The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse, and Mélikah’s new book, Baldwin, Styron, and Me, and join us for this night of readings, conversation, and celebration.
Saturday, April 26
6:30PM – 9:00PM (Doors open 6:00PM)
Park Place Theatre, 5480 Point Pleasant Drive (in Point Pleasant Park, lower parking lot)
Tickets: $10.00
Sunday Night at Spring ForeWord
With Emma Donoghue, K.R. Byggdin, and Jaime Burnet
Emma Donoghue returns to AfterWords, with her new book The Paris Express. Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a thrilling ride and a literary masterpiece that captures the politics, fears, and chaos of the end of the nineteenth century. Emma joins award-winning writer and festival fave K.R. Byggdin in conversation. And to start the night, Jaime Burnet reads from her highly anticipated second novel, Milk Tooth.
Sunday, April 27
7:00PM – 9:00PM (Doors open 6:30PM)
Park Place Theatre, 5480 Point Pleasant Drive (in Point Pleasant Park, lower parking lot)
Tickets: $10.00
On Writing
With Emma Donoghue
Hear all about Emma Donoghue’s writing practice and process, while enjoying lunch at The Carleton, Halifax’s legendary and award-winning entertainment venue. This wide-ranging conversation, hosted by Stephanie Domet, will explore every aspect of the writer’s work. Though this conversation will be of particular interest to writers, readers are equally welcome and will find much to chew over. Yes, lunch pun intended. In fact, lunch is included in the ticket price, and will be served throughout the event.
Monday, April 28
Doors Open at 11:30AM. Conversation and lunch from 12:00PM to 1:00PM, followed by book sales and signing.
The Carleton (1685 Argyle Street, Halifax)
Tickets: $35.00 (includes lunch; vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free options available)
Come out to our first Open Mic for writers on Thursday, April 17 at 7-8:30pm.
Any style of writing goes, by new or experienced writers. Feel free to try out your original writing on a small live audience — or just come listen! Light refreshments will be served.
Email canninglibrary@gmail.com to be added to the list of readers!
The Atlantic Book Awards Society seeks nominations for the 2025 Atlantic Legacy Award. This award honours individuals who have made a lasting contribution to the development of the literary arts in Atlantic Canada, people who have gone above and beyond the call of duty and who have, through innovation, risk-taking, self-sacrifice, and/or creativity, provided opportunity or inspiration (or both) for those sharing Atlantic Canadian stories through writing and publishing.
Shean Poets & Writers invite you to an afternoon of poetry. Put a poem in your pocket and bring it along. Be it haiku or lyric, free verse or rhyme, traditional or modern, funny or sad, seasoned or shy, we’d love to have you join us. Register when you get there. Questions: tpmvfh@gmail.com
Share your writing with us or just come listen. Poetry, fiction, nonfiction all are welcome!
What can you expect?
Doors open around 6:45 for this PWYC event. Slot signup on-site. This is a great place to practice public reading and test out new work in a friendly group of like-minded creatives. We always have a good time, lots of applause and laughs.
The bar is open, and there’s limited (order-in) food service.
The venue is mostly on one level but there are three stairs to get to the washroom. The front door isn’t automatic, please knock if you need assistance!
Join us as the shortlisted titles for the Atlantic Book Awards and the Nova Scotia Book Awards are revealed. Raise a toast to the nominated authors and find out about upcoming events of the Atlantic Book Awards Festival, May 29 to June 5.
Atlantic Book Awards include the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, the J.M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award, the Ann Connor Brimer Award for Atlantic Canadian Literature (YA), the Atlantic Publishers Award for Best Published Book, and the Alistair MacLeod Award for Short Fiction. Nova Scotia Book Awards include the Margaret and John Savage First Book Awards (Fiction & Nonfiction), the George Borden Writing for Change Award, the Maxine Tynes Nova Scotia Poetry Award, Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award, and the Dartmouth Fiction Award.
You are cordially invited to the King’s MFA Book Club, an event that celebrates books written by graduates and faculty members of the University of King’s College’s MFA Program.
This month, we will be discussing I Don’t Do Disability, by Adelle Purdham.
Come chat about the book, have some coffee, and meet the author!
In partnership with the University of King’s College’s MFA Program
Souvankham Thammavongsa is the author of four poetry books and the short story collection How to Pronounce Knife, winner of the Giller prize and Trillium Book Award. Her stories have won an O. Henry prize and appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, and Granta. She lives in Toronto.
Admission free | All welcome | Book sales courtesy of Bookmark
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
