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Carolyn Rose Gimian

BIOGRAPHY
Carolyn Rose Gimian has made her home in Nova Scotia since 1986. A freelance writer and editor of nonfiction, Carolyn has been published in both magazines and books, including The Best Buddhist Writing 2006, 2007 and 2008; Finding Your Inner Mama: Women Reflect on the Challenges and Rewards of Motherhood; and The Shambhala Sun, Inquiring Mind and other periodicals. In 2008, she co-authored Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa with Diana J. Mukpo. This memoir by the widow of a well-known North American Buddhist teacher received critical praise from the international Buddhist press.

Carolyn is a senior editor of the work of Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa [1939-1987], and in that capacity, she has written hundreds of pages of biographical and textual commentary, which is included in his books. She is the editor of the eight volume Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa, as well as Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior and many other titles. In 2009, two posthumous books by Chogyam Trungpa that Carolyn edited are being published for the first time: Mishap Lineage: Transforming Confusion into Wisdom and Smile at Fear: Awakening the True Heart of Bravery.

Carolyn is the director emeritus of the Shambhala Archives, an institution she helped to establish as a repository for the archival records of many Buddhist teachers in North America. She is a past president of the Council of Nova Scotia Archives and retains an interest in all things archival, with emphasis on the archiving of audio-visual records.

Carolyn’s areas of writing interest include: publishing; biography and memoir; Eastern religion and Buddhism; book reviews; story editing for television and film; archives, conservation and information technology, especially for audio visual records; magazine interviews and profiles, and Atlantic Canadian stories. Carolyn is particularly interested in working with memoir as a vehicle to help people communicate their unique stories and insights. She also enjoys reviewing manuscripts, helping aspiring and seasoned writers to improve their writing skills, and assisting writers in formulating proposals for publications. Her media skills include: copy writing and copy editing, grant and report writing, press releases, publicity and promotion.

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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 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