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50th Anniversary Composition Project

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) and the Nova Scotia Choral Federation (NSCF) are both turning 50 years old in 2026. In celebration of this shared anniversary—and the rich, often entwining histories of music and storytelling in Nova Scotia—WFNS and NSCF are partnering on the 50th Anniversary Composition Project, which will commission new choral works that set Nova Scotian poetry to music.

For questions about this program, contact program lead Oriana Duinker at director@writers.ns.ca.

WFNS invites submissions, from Nova Scotian professional artists, of unpublished short poems (up to 1 page) on the themes of voice, home, or belonging.

The submission fee is $15 for up to three poems.

WFNS’s peer assessment process will provide a shortlist of six poems, with assessment prioritizing writers from equity-deserving communities.

The two composers selected by NSCF (detailed below) will act as final judges, choosing two poems from this shortlist to set to music. The writer of each chosen poem will receive an honorarium of $400.

NS Choral Federation's Call for Composers

Simultaneously, NSCF invites portfolio submissions from Canadian composers. NSCF’s peer assessment process will select two composers, each of whom will set to music one poem from the WFNS shortlist.

The selected composers are expected to choose poems from the shortlist that resonate with them, align with their composition styles, and suit either an upper voice choir or a lower voice choir.

Completed compositions—the text of the chosen poems and the music they are set to—will be added to NSCF’s music lending library and made available for free to choirs across Nova Scotia. Both completed compositions will be performed at NSCF’s capstone 50th anniversary event in June, 2027.

The shortlist of Composition Project poems will be announced by the end of August, 2026.

All submitted poems will be anonymized and assessed by a peer assessment jury based on the following criteria, weighted equally:

  • the merit of the poem,
  • the translatability and adaptability of the poem for a choral composition, and
  • the poem’s response to any of following thematic briefs, each of which is open to broad interpretation:

Voice

Finding your voice, expressive voice, authentic voice, physical voice, collective voice, not having a voice, etc.

Home

Ideas of Nova Scotian identity, culture and landscape, being away from home, making a home, etc.

Belonging

Ideas of acceptance, safety, stability, collective identity, etc.

To submit to the Composition Project, writers must meet the following criteria.

  • You must be an established resident of Nova Scotia, having lived in Nova Scotia full-time for the 12 months prior to the submission deadline. (Out-of-province post-secondary students and seasonal residents are ineligible.)
  • You must be a professional artist, literary other otherwise, according to Arts Nova Scotia’s criteria.
  • You must be 19 years of age or older by the submission deadline.
  • You must submit only once to the 50th Anniversary Composition Project.

To be eligible for consideration, submissions must meet the following criteria.

  • Your submission must include no more than three individual poems:
    • Each poem should respond to one or more of the thematic briefs—voice, home, or belonging—which are outlined in more detail above.
    • Each poem must be no more than 1 standard page in length (i.e., an 8.5″ x 11″ page with 12pt or larger font).
    • Each poem must be unpublished.
    • Each poem must be submitted via the form below as an individual .doc, .docx, or .pdf file.
    • Each poem must not include your name anywhere in the text or file name.

Multiple submissions are not permitted.

  • All poems (up to three) must be submitted via a single submission form.
  • You may not submit writing that is currently being considered—or has been accepted—for future publication by another organization.
  • 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 to you by email. 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 submissions do not apply to multiple WFNS programs. You are always permitted to submit the same unpublished writing to multiple WFNS programs and special publications at the same time.

  • No explicit sexuality.
  • No graphic violence.
  • No racist, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and/or other discriminatory language.

Submissions accepted June 19 to July 16

For the 50th Anniversary Composition Project

Submission fee

The submission fee is $15, whether you submit one, two, or three poems. This fee contributes to compensation for peer assessment jurors, and it and cannot be refunded.

Pay submission
fee online

To pay fee by phone, call us between 10am and 3pm on weekdays at 902 423 8116 with your credit card details.

To pay fee by mail, send a cheque (payable to “Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia”) post-dated for no later than the submission deadline.

Submission form

When the below form is successfully submitted, it will be replaced with a confirmation message.

Declarations of eligibility

By submitting to the 50th Anniversary Composition Project, you make each of the following declarations:

• I am an established resident of Nova Scotia, having lived in Nova Scotia full-time for the 12 months prior to the submission deadline.
• I am a professional artist according to Arts Nova Scotia's criteria (link opens in a new tab).
• I am 19 years of age or older.
• My submitted poem or poems are my sole, original work and unpublished in any format—whether traditionally, partner-/hybrid-, or indie-/self-published, whether in part or in whole, whether in print or digitally.
• My submitted poem or poems are 100% human-created. No part of my poem or poems has been generated or modified by so called "AI," including LLMs (large language models) and other exploitative, copyright-violating algorithmic technologies.
• This is my only submission to the Composition Project.

If it is discovered that any of the above declarations is false, any poems you submit will be deemed ineligible.
If the name you commonly use or publish under differs from your legal name, please include your legal name in parentheses—i.e., "Common Name (Legal Name)." If your poem is chosen for a composition, your legal name will be required for honorarium payment.
Please write in the third person (i.e., using your name and pronouns rather than "I"). If your poem is shortlisted, this bio will be published alongside the announcement. This bio may be edited for clarity, brevity, or formatting (e.g., italicization of titles).
Please enter a URL where readers can find more information about you, more of your writing, or a social media profile. If your poem is shortlisted, this bio will be published alongside the announcement.
Poems submitted by members of any of these equity-deserving communities will be marked for prioritization by WFNS's peer assessment jury. Please note that the list of equity-deserving communities above is not meant to be exhaustive but to reflect the communities of particular concern to this project's funder, Arts Nova Scotia.

Before uploading your submission file(s):

  1. Ensure each poem is no longer than 1 standard page (8.5" x 11" with at least 12pt font).
  2. Ensure each poem is contained in a separate .doc, .docx, or .pdf file.
  3. Ensure your name does not appear within the poem file(s), whether in text or in file name.
Drag & Drop Files, Choose Files to Upload You can upload up to 3 files.

Investor & partner

The Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia thanks Arts Nova Scotia for supporting this special project and the Nova Scotia Choral Federation for its partnership in conceiving and delivering the 50th Anniversary Composition Project.

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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