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Shauntay Grant

BIOGRAPHY
Shauntay Grant is a children’s author, poet, playwright, and multimedia artist. She is the author of Africville (Groundwood Books), shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Awards and winner of the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award. A multidisciplinary artist with professional degrees in creative writing, music, and journalism, she “creates artworks that are engaging and accessible, but also challenging, rigorous, and informed by deep research” (The Royal Society of Canada). Her honours include a Joseph S. Stauffer Prize in Writing and Publishing (Canada Council for the Arts), an Established Artist Recognition Award (Arts Nova Scotia), a Best Atlantic Published Book Prize for Up Home (Atlantic Book Awards), a Robert Merritt Award for The Bridge (Theatre Nova Scotia), and a Poet of Honour prize from the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.

She shares her blend of words and music internationally at festivals and events, and collaborates with visual artists and art galleries to create poetry-themed artworks, installations, and exhibitions. A former poet laureate for the City of Halifax, her poetry for children and adults has been published in educational resources, anthologies and literary journals. She lives in Halifax and teaches creative writing at Dalhousie University.

PUBLICATIONS

AWARDS
  • Joseph S. Stauffer Prize (Canada Council for the Arts); Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award (Canadian Children’s Book Awards); Robert Merritt Award (Theatre Nova Scotia); Established Artist Recognition Award (Arts Nova Scotia); Black Artist Recognition Award (Arts Nova Scotia); Spoken Word Canada Poet of Honour (Canadian Festival of Spoken Word); Best Atlantic Published Book Prize (Atlantic Book Awards); Governor General’s Literary Award finalist; Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Awards finalist; Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Awards finalist; Ann Connor Brimer Award finalist; Hackmatack Awards finalist.

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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