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Meet your 2023 MacLeod Mentorship participants

Thank you to everyone who applied to this year’s Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program! The jury (Jon Tattrie, Robert de la Chevotiere, and Carole Langille) had a difficult job, with more than 50 applications to consider for six spots.

In 2022, the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) celebrated the 20th year of the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program and the many writers who have benefited by the program. The 21st cohort of the program will gather for our annual Celebration of Emerging Writers on Tuesday, May 30 (starting 6pm) at Hopyard (2103 Gottingen Street, Halifax). In recent years, this celebration has given us a preview of books that went on to be published, including Wonder World by KR Byggdin, Somewhere There’s Music by Sean Paul Bedell, and In the Wake by Nicola Davison.

To those writers who weren’t accepted this year, please keep on writing! WFNS developed a new “intensive” creative writing workshop this fall—combining craft work, peer feedback, and revision—that may help you on the journey. We will offer “intensives” in children’s writing, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry this coming winter and spring. (If registration fees pose a barrier, please get in touch with Andy at communications@writers.ns.ca to discuss fee alternatives.)

Without further ado, WFNS is pleased to announce the 12 writers who will be participating in the 2023 MacLeod Mentorships as apprentice writers and mentors:

Fiction

Nadia Aumeerally is a general pediatrician and the mother of three spectacular kids. Her favourite hobbies are reading, exercising, cooking and sewing.

Nadia is working on a fictional story told from the perspective of three different mothers, whose paths cross at crucial moments in their lives. It explores subjects such as racism, domestic violence, emotional abuse, infertility, and the failings of our foster care system.

Nadia’s mentor is Anne Simpson, a poet, novelist and essayist. Anne was the recipient of the Griffin Poetry Prize for her collection Loop (McClelland & Stewart, 2003) and of the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award for her novel Speechless (Freehand Books, 2020).

Fiction

Michelle Samson is a marketer, economic developer, and former broadcast journalist from Cape Breton Island. In 2021, she quit her job in Ontario and moved back to her family’s ancestral homestead on the island’s southeast coast to write a historical fiction novel, based on the homestead, about how and why 10 generations of an Acadian family held on to a modest house for 250 years.

Michelle’s mentor is Carol Bruneau, an award-winning author of several novels and short story collections. Her most recent novel is Brighten the Corner Where You Are, a fictional re-imagining of the life of renowned folk artist Maud Lewis.

Fiction

J.P. Smith lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He enjoys writing and motorcycling, as well as hiking and camping with his family and the family dog. His 225-page manuscript is a work of fiction, which takes place in the near future, and engages pressing issues including societal upheaval and climate fears.

J.P. has been paired with mentor Darryl Whetter. A writer, professor and journalist, Darryl is the author of four books of fiction including the 2020 climate-crisis novel Our Sands (Penguin Random House, 2021).

Nonfiction

Monika Dutt and her son have made Unama’ki/Cape Breton home for the past 10 years. She works in public health and primary care, and is involved with labour justice and anti-racism organizing. Monika is working on a creative nonfiction manuscript that spans experiences as a public health physician during the COVID-19 pandemic.

AnnMarie MacKinnon, who also lives in Cape Breton, will mentor Monika. The publisher of Geist from 2017 to 2021, she is an editor, writer and instructor.

Poetry

Hollis Holden is a queer trans man who grew up reading mythology books and wishing he could talk to trees. He lives in Halifax with his partner and a lot of house plants, none of which he’s trained to speak. Hollis is currently working on a collection of poetry exploring the balance of grief and hope that comes with transition.

Serving as mentor for Hollis is Annick MacAskill, the author of the poetry collections Shadow Blight (Gaspereau Press), winner of the 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award for English Language Poetry; Murmurations (Gaspereau, 2020); and No Meeting Without Body (Gaspereau Press, 2018). Her poems have appeared in journals across Canada and abroad.

Poetry

Andrea Hubley is a poet, knitter, mycophile, and a member of the Tufts Cove Writers’ Collective. She lives in Dartmouth with her husband and daughters. Andrea is working on a poetry manuscript that explores family relationships, and reflecting on what once was, or could have been.

Working with Andrea as mentor is poet Margo Wheaton. Her poetry collections include The Unlit Path Behind the House (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016), winner of the Canadian Authors’ Association’s Fred Kerner Award for best book of the year; Wild Green Light (Pottersfield, 2021), with David Adams Richards; and Rags of Night in Our Mouths (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2022).

Investors

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) acknowledges the Canada Council for the Arts for its ongoing investment in the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program, which allows WFNS to pay mentors for their expertise and guidance while allowing apprentice writers to participate for free.

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Simultaneous Submissions

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) administers some programs (and special projects) that involve print and/or digital publication of ‘selected’ or ‘winning’ entries. In most cases, writing submitted to these programs and projects must not be previously published and must not be simultaneously under consideration for publication by another organization. Why? Because our assessment and selection processes depends on all submitted writing being available for first publication. If writing selected for publication by WFNS has already been published or is published by another organization first, copyright issues will likely make it impossible for WFNS to (re-)publish that writing.

When simultaneous submissions to a WFNS program are not permitted, it means the following:

  • You may not submit writing that has been accepted for future publication by another organization.
  • You may not submit writing that is currently being considered for publication by another organization—or for another prize that includes publication.
  • The writing submitted to WFNS may not be submitted for publication to another organization until the WFNS program results are communicated. Results will be communicated directly to you by email and often also through the public announcement of a shortlist or list of winners. Once your writing is no longer being considered for the WFNS program, you are free to submit it elsewhere.
    • If you wish to submit your entry elsewhere before WFNS program results have been announced, you must first contact WFNS to withdraw your entry. Any entry fee cannot be refunded.

Prohibitions on simultaneous submission do not apply to multiple WFNS programs. You are always permitted to submit the same unpublished writing to multiple WFNS programs (and special projects) at the same time, such as the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program, the Emerging Writers Prizes, the Jampolis Cottage Residency Program, the Message on a Bottle contest, the Nova Writes Competition, and any WFNS projects involving one-time or recurring special publications.

Recommended Experience Levels

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) recommends that participants in any given workshop 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. The “Recommended experience level” section of each workshop description refers to the following definitions used by WFNS.

  • 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, and writing for children and young adults) 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.

For “intensive” and “masterclass” creative writing 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