Julie Vandervoort

BIOGRAPHY

Julie Vandervoort writes creative non-fiction and memoir. She has worked with mentors Isabel Huggan (Humber School for Writers), Carol Bly and Philip Lopate (Vermont Studio Centre, creative non-fiction intensive) and David Carpenter (Sage Hill Writing Experience, advanced fiction program). She produced a piece called “Moving from Coping to Creating” at a national law conference and presented at the 2003 Canadian Conference of the Arts as part of the program “The Creativity Gap: How the Arts Inspire an Innovative Society”. In 2009, her essay “Measures” was chosen as a keynote presentation at the conference Imagining Amsterdam: Visions and Revisions. Julie has given many public readings across Canada and at PalabrArte in Mexico, served on grants juries, on the board of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, and as associate fiction editor of The Antigonish Review. She has worked extensively in human rights law and as an environmental activist and singer with the international Gaia Project. This project coordinated the production of a double CD in 2003 (O Beautiful Gaia: Love Songs to Earth) and a 2007 CD of music inspired by the Earth Charter (My Heart is Moved).

AWARDS

Winner of the Manitoba Historical Society prize for Best Scholarly Book; ‘Tell the Driver’

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Winner of the Long Grain of Truth creative non-fiction contest; ‘The Debit Slips’

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Winner in the Geist Postcard Story Contest; ‘People Who Know Who They Are’

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Grand Prize Winner of the PRISM international Literary Nonfiction Contest; ‘Counting Out Loud’


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Recommended Experience Levels

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) recommends that each workshop’s participants share a level or range of writing / publication experience. This is to ensure that each participant gets value from the workshop⁠ and is presented with information, strategies, and skills that suit their current writing priorities.

To this end, the “Recommended experience level” section of each workshop description refers to the following definitions developed by WFNS:

  • New writers: those with no professional publications (yet!) or a few short professional publications (i.e., poems, stories, or essays in literary magazines, journals, anthologies, or chapbooks).
  • Emerging writers: those with numerous professional publications and/or one book-length publication.
  • Established writers/authors: those with two book-length publications or the equivalent in book-length and short publications.
  • Professional authors: those with more than two book-length publications.

For “intensive” and “masterclass” creative writing workshops, which provide more opportunities for participant-to-participant feedback, the recommended experience level should be followed.

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