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Read By The Sea Literary Festival 2026

Date:
Time:
-
Location:
Bissell Park, 2748 River John Station Rd, River John, NS B0K 1N0 Canada
Link:
https://readbythesea.ca/
Calendar:
Community event

Dream of a sunny day, relaxing in a lawn chair, a cool drink in your hand, listening to Canada’s finest authors reading to YOU! That’s Read by the Sea Summer Literary Festival on the North Shore of Nova Scotia.

In 2000, a small group of women from Nova Scotia’s North Shore established Read by the Sea as a means of bringing some of Canada’s best authors to the region each summer.

More than 25 years later, Read by the Sea has evolved to include a variety of exciting events.

Read by the Sea aims to promote Canadian literature by celebrating good books, the people who write them and the people who read them; and by encouraging new or non-readers to discover the joy of reading. The festival fosters diversity and accessibility to both the authors and the audience, regardless of cultural, racial, gender, age, ability, socioeconomic or other circumstances.

In order to encourage everyone to participate, there are no admission fees to Read by the Sea events – although the festival does accept donations to support its mandate.

This year will feature authors from the North Shore of NS and will include Harry Thurston, Dian Day, Jennifer Hatt, and our MC, John Ashton. Our children’s author will be Camilla Thompson. As well, there will be a book fair from 11am – 2pm of local authors.

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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