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Jennifer Hatt

BIOGRAPHY
Jennifer Hatt is a former newspaper reporter and editor who brings words to life for periodicals, corporate clients, fiction lovers and students of all ages. She has written articles for a variety of national and regional trade magazines and since 2010 has completed three novels in her Finding Maria series. She is also a participant in the Writers in the School program, instructing grades 3-9 on the elements and rewards of creating their own newsletters, and has developed and taught communications and writing skills programs for the Nova Scotia Community College and the Nova Scotia School of Fisheries.

Jennifer’s debut novel, Finding Maria, was a semifinalist in the Kindle Book Review Best Indie Book of 2012.  She has won the Thompson Newspapers Award of Excellence for Canadian Newspapers, circulation under 15,000, non-deadline writing, for “The Silent Thief”, depicting the struggle of two men to cope with the slow loss of their wives to Alzheimer Disease. She is also the Thompson Newspapers Award of Excellence winner for East Coast Newspapers, circulation under 12,000, for “Double Vision”, an exploration of the battle over herbicide use in Nova Scotia forests. Jennifer was part of the news team that in 1992 received the Thomson North American award for coverage of the Westray Mine disaster.

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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