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East Coast Literary Awards

The East Coast Literary Awards (ECLAs) were a promotional program and free reading series that strove to highlight the best Atlantic Canadian work in fiction, poetry, and non-fiction.

The ECLA program centered on three annual literary awards stewarded and administered by the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia: the Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award, the J.M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award (known prior to 2014 as the Atlantic Poetry Award), and the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award.

Eligible titles for the ECLAs were the works of writers who lived full-time in Atlantic Canada. This residency requirement ensured that eligible authors were able to engage in our region’s cultural life and creative economy. Shortlists and winners for each award were determined through a peer assessment process, conducted by professional writers selected from throughout the Atlantic region.

Beginning in 2017, the celebration of the Richardson, Abraham, and Raddall awards was merged with the Atlantic Book Awards.

“An arts program that hopes to serve and promote a writing community…
can only do so through the support of that community.”
     —Carol Bruneau, former WFNS President

ECLA Celebration 2016
  • May 31 at Lexicon Books, Lunenburg, NS: Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award shortlist reading (featuring Marq de Villiers, Dean Jobb, and Gary L. Saunders)
  • June 1 at Box of Delights Bookshop, Wolfville, NS: J.M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award shortlist reading (featuring Phillip Crymble, Sue Goyette, and John Wall Barger)
  • June 2 at Lane’s Privateer Inn, Liverpool, NS: Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award shortlist reading (featuring Elisabeth de Mariaffi, R.W. Gray, and Mark Anthony Jarman)
  • June 4 at Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, Halifax, NS: Announcement of the award winners at the East Coast Literary Awards Celebration
ECLA Celebration 2015
  • June 3 at Box of Delights Bookshop, Wolfville, NS: Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award shortlist reading (featuring Heather Sparling, Graham Steele, and Kaleigh Trace)
  • June 4 at Lexicon Books, Lunenburg, NS: J.M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award shortlist reading (featuring Brian Bartlett, Sylvia D. Hamilton, and Susan Paddon)
  • June 4 at Lane’s Privateer Inn, Liverpool, NS: Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award shortlist reading (featuring David Adams Richards, Michael Crummey, and Darren Greer)
  • June 6 at Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, Halifax, NS: Announcement of the award winners at the East Coast Literary Awards Celebration
WFNS Literary Awards logo

Prior to 2014, the ECLAs were known as the WFNS Literary Awards.

  • September 16 at University of King’s College, Halifax, NS: Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award shortlist reading (featuring John DeMont, Richard Foot, and Stephen Kimber)
  • September 19 at Alderney Gate Library, Dartmouth, NS: first Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award shortlist reading (featuring Shashi Bhat, Ed Kavanagh, William Kowalski)
  • September 19 at Lane’s Privateer Inn, Liverpool, NS: second Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award shortlist reading (featuring Shashi Bhat, Ed Kavanagh, William Kowalski)
  • September 19 at The Nook on Gottingen, Halifax, NS: J.M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award shortlist reading (featuring Mary Dalton and Alice Burdick reading on behalf of Don Domanski)
  • September 20 at Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, Halifax, NS: Announcement of the award winners at the East Coast Literary Awards Celebration
  • September 20 in Mahone Bay, NS: Atlantic Poetry Prize shortlist reading (featuring Carole Langille and George Murray)
  • September 20 in Wolfville, NS: Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award shortlist reading (featuring Jerry Lockett and Herb MacDonald)
  • September 20 in Liverpool, NS: Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award shortlist reading (featuring Keir Lowther, Donna Morrissey, and Russell Wangersky)
  • September 21 in Halifax, NS: Readings by authors shortlisted for all three awards (featuring Lesley Choyce, Steven Laffoley, Carole Langille, Keir Lowther, Herb MacDonald, Donna Morrissey, George Murray, and Russell Wangersky)
  • September 21 in Halifax NS: Announcement of the award winners at the WFNS Literary Awards Ceremony & Celebration
  • July 28 in Wolfville, NS: Atlantic Poetry Prize shortlist readings (featuring Sue Goyette, Warren Heiti, and Anne Simpson)
  • August 11 in Shelburne, NS: Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award shortlist reading (featuring Chris Benjamin, Harry Thurston, and Ray McLeod)
  • October 11 in Liverpool, NS: Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award shortlist readings (featuring David Adams Richards, Valerie Compton, and Heather Jessup)
  • October 12 in Halifax, NS: Announcement of the award winners at the WFNS Literary Awards Ceremony & Celebration

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The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia is based in Kjipuktuk, in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. This territory is covered by the “Treaties of Peace and Friendship,” which Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) Peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1725. The treaties do not deal with surrender of lands and resources but in fact recognize Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) title and establish the rules for an ongoing relationship between nations.

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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