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Author reading: Heather Birrell with Nanci Lee and Jaime Forsythe

Date:
Time:
-
Venue:
Trident Booksellers & Cafe
Location:
1256 Hollis Street, Halifax. More info
Link:
https://kingsbookstore.ca/events/4766220260320
Calendar:
Member event

Join us for an evening of readings from Heather Birrell, Jaime Forsythe, and Nanci Lee!

Heather Birrell (Born) is the author of the Gerald Lampert award-winning poetry collection, Float and Scurry, and two story collections, Mad Hope and I know you are but what am I?. Heather teaches at a small alternative high school in Toronto, where she lives with her mother, partner, two daughters, and a whoodle named Angus.

Jaime Forsythe (Yield, April 2026) previous books are I Heard Something and Sympathy Loophole. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and currently lives close to where she grew up in Nova Scotia/Mi’kma’ki.

Nanci Lee (Hsin) is a Syrian-Chinese poet and educator based in Mi’kmaki (Nova Scotia). Nanci’s work has appeared in Contemporary Verse 2, The Malahat Review, Matrix Magazine, The Antigonish Review, The Literary Review of Canada, The Fiddlehead, Rattle Magazine, and This Magazine. In 2023, Lee was awarded the J. M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award for Hsin.

Books will be available for sale and signing!

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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