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Meet the 2025 MacLeod Mentorship participants

WFNS is pleased to announce the 8 writers participating in the 2025 Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program as apprentices and mentors:

Jennifer Stewart

Apprentice in literary fiction

Manuscript summary: When two outsiders meet under extraordinary circumstances, their lives are upended by unexpected love, a reversal of fortune and the revelation of family secrets.

Carol Bruneau

Jennifer Stewart's mentor, Carol Bruneau, is the author of eleven books: four short fiction collections, most recently Threshold (2024), six novels, and one nonfiction book. Her novels include Brighten the Corner Where You Are, nominated for the IMPAQ Dublin Literary Award, and A Circle on the Surface, winner of the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction. Her 2017 story collection, A Bird on Every Tree, was a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction. Her first novel, Purple for Sky, won both awards in 2001. She has mentored six writers in the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program.

Melissa Goertzen

Apprentice in nonfiction essays

Manuscript summary: Melissa is writing a collection of creative nonfiction essays exploring identity, sanctuary, and resilience. Inspired by her time in New York City during the upheavals of the mid-2010s, these essays reflect on transformation and rebuilding after loss.

Evelyn C. White

Melissa Goertzen's mentor, Evelyn C. White, is the author of Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone: A Photo Narrative of Black Heritage on Salt Spring Island (2009). She is also the author of the acclaimed biography Alice Walker: A Life (2004). A former reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle, she has been widely published in Canada and the US. The Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Program awarded her the 2021 Raymond Taavel Media Award for coverage of the 2SLGBTQ+ community. She was the 2024 mentor for the Oliver-Craig Black Writers' Retreat at Jampolis Cottage.

Roberta McGinn

Apprentice in geriatric sci-fi

Manuscript summary: Six old women, united by the bizarre ability to become completely invisible, band together to fight racism. Radical events ensue, and friendships formed.

Elaine McCluskey

Roberta McGinn's mentor, Elaine McCluskey, is the author of four short-story collections and three novels, mostly set in Nova Scotia. Her most recent work, a novel entitled The Gift Child, was released in March 2024 by Goose Lane Editions. Rafael Has Pretty Eyes won the Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction. Her stories have appeared in over twenty literary journals, including Room, subTerrain, and The Antigonish Review. One story was a Journey Prize finalist, another placed second in the Fish international contest in Ireland. She lives in Dartmouth. She has worked as a journalist, a book editor, and a university lecturer.

Nailah Tataa

Apprentice in sci-fi

Manuscript summary: Nailah's Charles R. Saunders Prize-winning manuscript is a collection of interconnected stories exploring afro-futurism and speculative eco-fiction.

Julian Mortimer Smith

Nailah Tataa's mentor, Julian Mortimer Smith, is a science fiction and fantasy writer based in Yarmouth. His stories have appeared in many of the world’s top speculative fiction venues, including Asimov’s, Terraform, Lightspeed, and Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. He has also taught writing to teenagers and adults and has worked as an editor of both fiction and nonfiction. His first book, The World of Dew and Other Stories, won the 2020 Blue Light Books Prize and is published by Indiana University Press.

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The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia is based in Kjipuktuk, in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People. This territory is covered by the “Treaties of Peace and Friendship,” which Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) Peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1725. The treaties do not deal with surrender of lands and resources but in fact recognize Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) title and establish the rules for an ongoing relationship between nations.

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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