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Tricia Snell

BIOGRAPHY
Tricia Snell writes books, stories, poems, essays/articles, and book reviews.

In summer, 2025, her story, “So Late in the Season,” will be published in an anthology, Not the Same Road Out (Tidewater Press, New Westminster, BC, Ed. K.J. Denny). Her story (fiction), “Out to the Horses,” was longlisted for the 2019 CBC Short Story Prize and published in Room Magazine (December 2019, Issue 42.4).

Past publications include a fiction chapbook, Nellie: An Imagined History (Little Books Collective, Lunenburg, NS, Sept. 2024) and a poetry chapbook, Rooted, published with the same micropress in 2023, and the nonfiction book / directory, Artists Communities, with Allworth Press in 1996 (2nd ed. 2000).

Her writing has also been published in Every Day Fiction, Art Papers, Oregon Humanities, The Oregonian, and The Grove Review, and been read by actor Barbara Rappaport on the PEN Syndicated Fiction Project / National Public Radio show, The Sound of Writing. She is currently working on a novel.

Tricia’s stories explore issues of identity, feminism, nature, work, music, and animals. Her background includes work as a writer and administrator for arts, education, and environmental organizations.

Tricia has taught writing workshops (generative, craft, and critique), literature courses, and novel study groups for a variety of universities, nonprofits, and community writing centres. She currently teaches from her home studio in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

Tricia has an MFA (Fiction) from George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia) and an ARCT (Flute Performance) from the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto, Ontario).

Tricia is also a musician. In her South Shore area of Nova Scotia, she plays flute & Celtic whistles for an actively gigging trio called Trillium.

 

PUBLICATIONS

NELLIE — An Imagined History

On the Liverpool docks in 1885, eleven-year-old Nellie says goodbye to her mother forever. She’s bound for Quebec, Canada on the SS Circassian, along with seventy-two other destitute “British Home Children.” A historical fiction chapbook, NELLIE: An Imagined History is written in the sharp, hopeful voice of Nellie as she crosses the Atlantic and takes her first steps in a land both harsh and wondrous.

© Tricia Snell
Publisher: Little Books Collective (Sept. 30, 2024)
ISBN 978-1-7383766-2-9
Item weight: 89 grams (3.125 oz)
Dimensions: 5.625 x 8.5 inches
32 pages
Illustrations: Dave Clingan
Book design: Berdene Owen

To purchase click here.

AWARDS

CBC Short Story Prize (long-listed) for “Out to the Horses,” 2019

PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award for “A Glass of Vodka,” Washington, DC, 1993

Sherwood Anderson Foundation Writers Award, Virginia, 1992

Mary Roberts Rinehart Fiction Award, Virginia, 1992

 

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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