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Kathy Mac

BIOGRAPHY
Kathy Mac (she/her) has published three books of poetry (Roseway Publishing), two books on the craft of writing (Wording Around Press), and, as Dr. Kathleen McConnell, a book of essays (Wolsak and Wynn Publishers). Her work has been a finalist for several Canadian national and regional awards, and even won some of them.

After 22 years teaching creative writing at St Thomas University in Fredericton New Brunswick, Mac is delighted to be back in Nova Scotia. She lives in Nme’kaqnuk (Sambro Head) near Halifax in the unceded traditional territory of the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy peoples.

PUBLICATIONS

2022 Wording Around with Editing. Wording Around Press. Indie published project of ENGL 3153: Literary Publishing, taught at STU.

2020 Wording Around with Prose. Wording Around Press. Indie published projecs of ENGL 3153: Literary Publishing, taught at STU.

2017 Human Misunderstanding. Three long poems. Halifax: Roseway, an imprint of Fernwood Books. Reviewed in The Fiddlehead, Spring 2018.

2013 Pain, Porn and Complicity: Women Heroes from Pygmalion to Twilight. Hamilton: Wolsak & Wynn. Five Creative Nonfiction essays.

2009 The Hundefraulein Papers. Halifax: Roseway Press. Based on years spent living with, and looking after the dogs of, Elisabeth Mann Borgese, noted oceans activist and daughter of Thomas Mann.

2001 Nail Builders Plan for Strength and Growth. Halifax: Roseway. Finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, and winner of the Gerald Lampert Award for Best First Book of Poems in Canada.

Mac has published many, many individual poems and prose pieces in many, many venues over the many, many years of her writing life

AWARDS

2022 Co-recipient of Word Feast’s Community Impact Award for co-hosting and administering the Odd Sundays Reading Series in Fredericton from 2015-2022 with Sherry Coffey and David Watts. We ran events both in person, and on-line during the 2020-21 season.

2021 “An Element” Sestina. Winner of the Dawn Watson Memorial Prize for a single poem.

2020 Winner of the Alfred G Bailey Prize for a poetry manuscript, for Sidekicks and Love Interests.

2017 Human Misunderstanding. (Halifax: Roseway, an imprint of Fernwood

Books) Finalist for the third annual Fiddlehead Poetry Prize of the NB Book Awards.

2001 Nail Builders Plan for Strength and Growth(Halifax: Roseway) was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, and winner of the Gerald Lampert Award for Best First Book of Poems in Canada.

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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