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Sue Murtagh

BIOGRAPHY
Sue Murtagh (she/her) lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is a graduate of the Alistair MacLeod mentorship program (Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia) and the Humber School for Writers, where she worked with mentor Danila Botha. Her writing has appeared in The Nashwaak Review, Grain, carte blanche, the Humber Literary Review, The New Quarterly, and yolkliterary.ca.

Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press published her debut short story collection, We’re Not Rich, in October 2024. Award-winning writer Alexander MacLeod edited the linked collection. The Walrus featured an excerpt from the book, a story called Extermination, in its print and digital editions.

Sue was the judge for the 2025 David Adams Richards prize in the New Brunswick Writers’ Federation’s annual writing competition.

 

PUBLICATIONS

We’re Not Rich, Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press, ISBN 978-1-77471-340-2

Grain Magazine, 2021
The Nashwaak Review, 2021
carte blanche (digital), 2022
The Humber Literary Review, 2022
The New Quarterly, 2024
yolkliterary.ca, 2024
The Walrus, 2024

AWARDS

2016 Budge Wilson Prize winner

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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