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2026 – 2027 Jampolis Cottage Writers in Residence

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2026 – 2027 Sponsored Residencies at Jampolis Cottage and to the participants in the 2026 Oliver-Craig Black Writers’ Retreat at Jampolis Cottage!

Atlantic Indigenous Writer’s Residency:
shalan joudry

DAWN Residency:
Sig Burwash

Delmore “Buddy” Daye Residency:
Angela Bowden

Robert Pope Foundation Residency:
Margo Wheaton

Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia Residencies:
Jaime Forsythe & Lindsey Harrington

Oliver-Craig Black Writers’ Retreat:
LeoNia Elms & Lisette Sumbu

Learn more about these writers and their residency and retreat projects below.

shalan joudry

Recipient of the Atlantic Indigenous Writer's Residency

[Biographical statement to come.]

Shalan will be working on two projects over the course of her residency. In in-person collaboration with two translators, she will work to adapt her existing poetry into French and Mi'kmaw. In solo residency, she will draft several short stories toward a debut fiction collection.

Sig Burwash

Recipient of the DAWN Residency,
sponsored by The DAWN Fund

Sig Burwash is a visual artist and writer who works primarily in drawing, painting, sculpture, and comics. They have travelled internationally for artist residencies that include Wonder Valley Experimental Living Cabin Project at A-Z West (California), Villa Lena Foundation Residency (Italy), and The Banff Centre (Alberta). Burwash has exhibited across North America and Europe. Their work is in the permanent collections of the Canadian Council for the Arts Art Bank, Nova Scotia Art Bank, Yukon Tourism and Culture, and UBCO. Drawn & Quarterly released their debut graphic novel, Vera Bushwack, in 2024. They now live in Unama’ki- Cape Breton Island.

Sig will use their residency to focus intensively on the next development phase of their new graphic novel, Old Mud. This dual-timeline narrative explores two queer individuals—Jean in 1987 and Dusty in 2027—whose lives intertwine in a small East Coast fishing community. Both outsiders working in a male-dominated fishing industry, they navigate identity, belonging, and resilience against the backdrop of eroding coastlines and warming waters.

Angela Bowden

Recipient of the Delmore "Buddy" Daye Residency,
sponsored by the Delmore "Buddy" Daye Learning Institute

Angela Bowden is an African Nova Scotian daughter, mother, aunty, sister, niece, author, poet, activist , and storyteller from the historic community of Vale Road, New Glasgow. A seventh generation descendant of Black Loyalists, her work explores silence, identity, healing, joy, and the power of Black stories. She is the author of UnSpoken Truth: Unmuted and Unfiltered (2021), a poetry collection that reclaims and gives voice to the lived and inherited impacts of slavery and its aftereffects, speaking truth to power through storytelling rooted in African Nova Scotian experience. Her children’s book Black Boy Black Boy (2025) celebrates Black identity and pride, with a companion book, Black Girl Black Girl set for release in 2027. A TEDx speaker and community voice, Angela shares stories that uplift, empower, and affirm Black experiences across generations.

Angela's residency will progress her manuscript-in-progress, Dear Sis, I’m Sorry, a braided literary memoir rooted in African Nova Scotian inheritance and a diasporic return to Ghana. Dear Sis, I'm Sorry situates personal reckoning within the broader inheritance of Black womanhood across the diaspora, moving between memoir, historical reflection, lyrical prose, and poetry.

Margo Wheaton

Recipient of the Robert Pope Foundation Residency,
sponsored by the Robert Pope Foundation

Margo Wheaton is the author of Rags of Night in Our Mouths and Wild Green Light (with David Adams Richards). She lives and writes in Kjipuktuk (Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia) on the traditional and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq. Her debut poetry collection, The Unlit Path Behind the House, won the Fred Kerner Award from the Canadian Authors’ Association and was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award, the J.M. Abraham Award, the Fred Cogswell Award for Literary Excellence, and the Relit Award. Margo holds a Masters degree in English and a Certificate in Adult Education, both from Dalhousie University. She works as a writing mentor, editor, and workshop instructor.

During her time at Jampolis Cottage, Margo will work on the manuscript of her third full-length collection, including poems exploring the murder of her great-aunt, who served on a Norwegian navy vessel during WWII.

Jaime Forsythe

Recipient of a Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia Residency

Jaime Forsythe is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Yield, which will be out in mid-April 2026 with Wolsak & Wynn / Buckrider Books. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Arc, Grain, The Ampersand Review, and This Magazine. As well, her short fiction has been published in Geist and The Malahat Review, and she has creative nonfiction forthcoming in EVENT. Jaime holds an MFA from the University of Guelph and currently lives close to where she grew up in Nova Scotia / Mi’kma’ki with her family.

Jaime's residency will focus on her in-progress collection of short fiction, The Yellow Zone, which explores themes of personal and communal risk. Following characters in heightened states of alertness or vigilance who face threats that may be relational, environmental, or psychological, these stories address what it means to be safe and what our obligations are to one another.

Lindsey Harrington

Recipient of a Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia Residency

Lindsey Harrington is a Nova Scotian writer with Newfoundland roots who loves exploring societal issues through a personal lens in poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Her debut, Nobody's Mother: A Childfree Memoir, will be released in fall of 2026 with Nimbus Publishing.

Lindsey will use the time and space of Jampolis Cottage to work on her second book, Salty: A Newfoundland Outmigration Memoir. This collection will include poetry and prose exploring Lindsey's personal experience leaving the island as a microcosm of the larger phenomenon of displacement and return associated with the East Coast.

LeoNia Elms

Participant in the Oliver-Craig Black Writers' Retreat,
sponsored by the Honourable Don Oliver and The Craig Foundation

LeoNia Elms is an emerging screenwriter and aspiring novelist, born and raised in Halifax. She first gained traction on websites such as Tumblr and Wattpad for her short stories during her teenage years. She began her career in film as a costume assistant, quickly combining her love for storytelling and fashion to deliver a visual anecdote on screen. Since her early days of online writing, LeoNia has gone into screenwriting and textile styling to broaden her storytelling. In her writing, LeoNia cultivates a sense of sanguinity, drawing from real-world experiences to highlight stories of women of colour—stories that aren't focused on the systemic and generational trauma they experience, but on the fruitful and fulfilling lives they lead despite it.

During the Oliver-Craig Retreat, LeoNia will work on Left Lane, a romantic mystery following Iphigeni, a young journalist in the midst of planning the big fat Greek wedding of her dreams. Her fruitful agenda quickly falls apart as her fiancé, Laine, is arrested for murder.

Lisette Submu

Participant in the Oliver-Craig Black Writers' Retreat,
sponsored by the Honourable Don Oliver and The Craig Foundation

Lisette Sumbu, performing under the moniker Lily Rosaa, is a multidisciplinary artist and 8th-generation African Nova Scotian rooted in the historic community of Sandhill (Amherst). Carrying the torch of a long ancestral line of musicians, entrepreneurs, and activists, Lisette’s work is deeply informed by a revolutionary spirit and a commitment to community. As a founding member of The Black Rose Project, she weaves a sonic tapestry of alternative R&B infused with blues and jazz. Her creative reach extends from the stage to the screen—with notable roles in Diggstown and a lead performance in Sister Act—and into the world of literature as the author of Dreamland, a children’s book series dedicated to life’s essential lessons. Whether organizing for change or captivating audiences on Traitors Canada (Season 3), Lisette remains a formidable voice in the Atlantic Canadian cultural landscape.

During the Oliver-Craig Retreat, Lisette will work on Closing Skies, a stream-of-consciousness novel that follows a seventeen-year-old girl whose family structure abruptly collapses, leaving her vulnerable to the forces of her environment.

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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