Nova Swoons 2026

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.’