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The Nova Scotia Litmag Co-op seeks to support new & existing literary magazines (‘litmags’) in the province by encouraging community-building, knowledge-sharing, and collaboration among litmag editors & publishers and by assisting with promotion, volunteer recruitment, and webhosting.

For questions about this program, contact program lead Andy Verboom at communications@writers.ns.ca.

  • Access to a moderated Slack channel and regular virtual roundtable discussions for peer-to-peer knowledge exchange and professional development
  • WFNS Associate Access, which includes free, permanent eligibility to contribute to WFNS's Literary Calendar (with submission calls, contest deadlines, and issue releases) and a subscription to Subtext (WFNS's weekly email newsletter)
  • Eligibility to book free literary event space in Halifax and on Zoom
  • Access to a litmag volunteer list, including local writers, editors, & others you've expressed interested in volunteering with local litmags
  • Domain management (optional): free annual domain registration (up to $20/year + applicable taxes) for most common top-level domains (e.g., .com, .ca)
  • Server management (optional): free server space for litmag websites operating in non-proprietary environments (e.g., not Squarespace, Wix, or other all-in-one webhosting & builder services), including support in migrating existing websites to the WFNS server
  • Basic WordPress consultation & troubleshooting (up to 5 hrs/year) provided by WFNS staff

The Nova Scotia Litmag Co-op is not a granting program and cannot provide direct financial support (such as for printing costs; marketing; or contributor, editor, or publisher compensation). All support provided by WFNS and its staff is in-kind (i.e., non-monetary).

There is no cost to join the Nova Scotia Litmag Co-op or to maintain membership.

Instead of dues, member litmags and their staff are

  • encouraged to actively contribute to knowledge exchange, resource sharing, and community building;
  • required to acknowledge the Litmag Co-op on their websites; and
  • required to abide by the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia’s Statement of Inclusion and Code of Conduct policy.

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) strives to offer inclusive physical and virtual programming in which all feel welcome. To this end, we require that all participants of WFNS programming (and of member-organized programming that is supported by WFNS resources)

  1. refrain from speaking, typing, or behaving in racist, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and/or other discriminatory ways and
  2. provide reasonable advanced warning before sharing violent or traumatic subject matter, which always has the potential to distress others.

If any programming participant violates this statement of inclusion, WFNS staff, volunteers, and contractors (and hosts of member-organized programming that is support by WFNS resources) have the right to ask that participant to leave the program. 

WFNS’s full Code of Conduct is available from WFNS staff upon request by email.

To join the Nova Scotia Litmag Co-op, the applying litmag must meet the following eligibility requirements.

  • The litmag must publish primarily creative writing—or, if still in the planning stages, must intend to publish primarily creative writing—whether in print or digitally. (Litmags are welcome to join well before publishing their first issue.)
  • The litmag must include at least one publisher, senior editor, or senior production staff member who is both
    • 19 years of age or older and
    • an established resident of Nova Scotia, having lived in Nova Scotia full-time for the 12 months prior to the date of application. (Staff members who are out-of-province post-secondary students or seasonal residents are ineligible.)

Applications accepted year-round

At this time, applications are informal. Express your interest in joining the Nova Scotia Litmag Co-op to program lead Andy Verboom at communications@writers.ns.ca.

For the editors and publishers running literary magazines—the vast majority of whom are volunteers themselves—one of the hardest things to do is ask for help!

To make recruitment easier, WFNS maintains a list of potential volunteers, accessible only by Litmag Co-op members, who may reach out directly by email if they’re seeking short-term help or recruiting new editors and staff members. To remove yourself from this list, please contact us at communications@writers.ns.ca.

• If living in NS, please enter your city/town.
• If living outside of NS, please enter your Canadian province or your country of residence.
Please select any and all roles you're interested in.
Please select any and all roles you're interested in.
Litmags may seek to work with volunteers who have specific lived experiences. If you belong to any equity-deserving communities, you may identify them above.
While previous experience is not required, you may briefly summarize your experience and/or qualifications relevant to the roles you're interested in.
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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