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Poetry Intensive: Organic Structures (virtual) with Basma Kavanagh

Intensive workshops combine elements of WFNS’s traditional creative writing and professional development workshops with peer-to-peer feedback (facilitated by the instructor) to guide writers through the feedback, revision, and submission processes that form the path from completed draft to submitted manuscript.

Participants must have a completed draft before the workshop begins and must commit to reading other participants’ drafts between workshop sessions.

In this intensive workshop, participants with (nearly!) complete poetry manuscripts will employ a range of techniques to uncover the unique structural possibilities suggested by their work. Exploring intuitive, sonic, thematic, experimental, and practical channels, participants will tune into the latent strengths and shapes of their project. Between-session reflections and assignments will help participants to feel their way towards several options, while in-session discussions and exercises will draw on cohort expertise, bringing fresh eyes and ears to each project, developing our collective and individual abilities to discern what does and doesn’t work and any forms struggling to emerge. As one or two strong options surface, we’ll discuss finessing the existing work, softening calcified notions about poems we may have spent years developing, and writing any connective tissue needed to strengthen the new structure. Ultimately, between the participants’ explorations and instructor and cohort feedback, each poet will find an energetic and resonant form for their current project, and the capacity to apply what they’ve learned to future projects.

About the instructor: Basma Kavanagh is a Lebanese-Canadian artist whose multidisciplinary practice includes writing, drawing, printmaking, artist’s books, textiles, and performance. She has exhibited and performed artwork across Canada and in the US. Her performance/installation Poemtree, with poet Sean Howard, was featured at both Lumière Cape Breton and Halifax’s Nocturne. She has published three volumes of poetry, Ruba’iyat for the Time of Apricots (Frontenac House, 2018), Niche (Frontenac House, 2015) and Distillō (Gaspereau Press, 2012). Basma has been an artist in residence at the Penland School of Craft, the Banff Centre, and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. Her work has been supported by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Arts Nova Scotia, and the Manitoba Arts Council, and she recently completed an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from University of King’s College.

Recommended experience level: Emerging and early-career poets with a complete or nearly-complete book-length poetry manuscript (About recommended experience levels)

Participant cap: 6

Location: Zoom

Dates of 5-week workshop: Tuesdays, Apr 1 + Apr 8 + Apr 15 + Apr 22 + Apr 29, 2025 (7:00pm to 9:00pm Atlantic)

Registration for 2025 General Members: $239

Registration for non-members: $304 (includes 2025 General Membership in WFNS)

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1113 Marginal Road

Halifax, NS B3H 4P7

902 423 8116

contact@writers.ns.ca

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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