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Michelle Hébert

BIOGRAPHY
Michelle has an MFA in creative non-fiction from the University of King’s College, a Master of Social Work degree, and training and experience in adult and community education. Her books include Enriched by Catastrophe: Social Work and Social Conflict after the Halifax Explosion (Fernwood 2007) and  Every Little Thing She Does is Magic (Vagrant 2024),  a Toronto Star 20 ‘Must Read’ books of Summer 2024. Her debut memoir, A Good Girl’s Guide to Lying: Losing my Memories, Searching for Truth, & Confronting Complex Trauma, will be published by Nimbus in September 2026.

Michelle combines her social work and writing skills to offer services for writers. This includes supporting memoirists as they write about difficult subjects, helping writers struggling with imposter syndrome or writer’s block, and guiding writers to go deeper into themselves and their stories. Find out more at her website, michellehebertwrites.com

Michelle lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia/Mi’kma’ki with four cats and a dog (who thinks she’s a cat). She posts about writing, mental health, cake, and her cats on Bluesky (@hfxwordy) and Instagram (michelle.hebert.writes).

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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