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Since 2001, the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program has supported the development of emerging writers in Nova Scotia who are on the cusp of book-length publication and who are committed to their writing and creative development. It is a disciplined, focused, and supportive one-on-one mentorship program through which writers expand and hone their craft.

For questions about this program, contact program lead Linda Hudson at wits@writers.ns.ca.

The Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program pairs professional authors with emerging writers, matching the experience and craft of mentoring authors with the project goals and manuscripts of apprentice writers. Writers from across Nova Scotia—with projects in all genres of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and writing for young adults or middle-grade readers—are welcome to apply.

Apply for Mentorship

The fee for a selected apprentice is $2250 (payable through instalments), of which $2000 is conveyed to their mentor and $250 is retained by WFNS to defray administrative expenses.

Up to four self-supported mentorships will be offered to apprentices in 2027.

Four full ($2250-value) scholarships will also be offered to apprentices in 2027:

  • Budge Wilson Scholarship for a writer who is 55 years of age or older (by the application deadline), sponsored by Glynis Wilson Boultbee & Paul Boultbee
  • Cynthia French Scholarship for a writer applying to work on a poetry manuscript, sponsored by Les French in memory of Cynthia French
  • Two Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) Scholarships, for which all applicants are eligible

At least two of the above scholarships will be offered to writers from equity-deserving communities. This includes but is not limited to writers who have faced marginalization on the basis of their ethnicity, gender, sexuality, or disability. This prioritization of equity-deserving writers depends on applicants’ voluntary self-identification.

Through a single application form, prospective apprentices can apply for self-supported mentorship, scholarship-supported mentorship, or both opportunities.

This program was made possible by the late Alistair MacLeod, who generously donated the protégé portion of his 2001 Portia White Prize to the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia to ensure the continuation of its mentorship pilot program. Alistair MacLeod’s passing on April 20, 2014, was mourned by the Atlantic literary community, but we continue to lean on and grow from his books, his teaching, his steadfast friendships, and his commitment to his home province.

Past Program Participants

Mentorships help apprentice writers overcome barriers to their growth and development, provide mentoring authors with an opportunity to refine their mentorship and instructional skills, and reaffirm the creative conviction of everyone involved.

Below, Carmel Mikol (host of Hyacinth Podcast) interviews 2016 participants Carol Bruneau (mentor) and Nicola Davison (apprentice) about the benefits of the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program and how it helped them write two award-winning novels.

Each mentor dedicates 50 hours to working with their apprentice over a sixteen-week period—February through May—meeting with them regularly, discussing written feedback on the manuscript-in-progress, and conducting follow-up exchanges via email. These relationships are enriched through regular apprentice-only and program-wide meetings.

  • Each meeting-apprentice pair meets every two weeks, with the precise schedule determined by the pair.
  • All apprentices meet every four weeks to discuss their challenges, share their progress, and develop a supportive writing network.
  • All mentors and apprentices in the program meet in late January (to review program details and begin scheduling), in mid March (to check in at the program’s mid-point), and in mid May (to prepare for the capstone event).

Meetings are generally conducted virtually, though any mentor-apprentice pair has the option of meeting in-person.

The Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program concludes in early June with in-person and video readings by apprentices, performed and screened as part of WFNS’s annual public Celebration of Emerging Writers in Halifax.

WFNS promotes this reading and the mentorship participants widely in order to encourage public engagement with new writers and showcase the program’s role in building capacity in Nova Scotia’s writing community.

WFNS encourages applicants to seek funding from arts organizations and charitable foundations to support any MacLeod Mentorship.

Prospective applicants can apply for partial funding through the Nova Scotia Talent Trust Scholarship Program if they are “pre-professional” (emerging) in all forms of creative writing and have lived in Nova Scotia for at least two years. This option requires significant advanced planning, as the annual Nova Scotia Talent Trust deadline for “fall/winter studies” is the preceding May 1.

Prospective and successful applicants can apply for public funding through the Canada Council for the Arts Research and Creation program. Only successful applicants are eligible for support through the Arts Nova Scotia Grants to Individual program. To ensure your mentorship will be eligible for Canada Council or Arts Nova Scotia support, you must submit your funding application before your mentorship’s start date (i.e., February 1). If already successful, you should include your acceptance email from WFNS as a support document.

Please note that you may need to begin your mentorship (and submit the program fee) before receiving the results of any third-party funding applications.

If you obtain third-party funding for a MacLeod Mentorship but are ultimately not selected as an apprentice, WFNS staff can assist you in identifying and contacting Nova Scotian authors who would be suitable to provide a private mentorship or other comparable literary services.

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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