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Making Memories Work for You: Memoir & Personal Essay (virtual) with Sandra Phinney

Interested in writing stories for your family? First-person essays for publication? A full-length memoir? If so, this workshop is for you!

While exploring the meaning of “memoir,” you’ll discover the power of prompts to springboard story ideas; tips on good storytelling; various ways of structuring your memoirs; and how to give your stories depth and scope. Each session will include sample reading materials and a weekly exercise or two to stretch your writing skills.

About the instructor: Sandra Phinney‘s stories have been published in over 70 publications, including Nature Canada, Canadian Geographic, and The Toronto Star. She’s also a regular contributor to JourneyWoman.com. Although Sandra continues to pen a story or two for magazines and newspapers, she’s now focusing on writing essays and books. Her fourth nonfiction book was a travel memoir, Waking Up In My Own Backyard (Pottersfield Press). Currently, she’s completing a book of essays with the working title Coming Home and has three other nonfiction books in the works. Sandra delivers writing workshops exploring the worlds of creative nonfiction, memoir, and travel writing. In 2021, she was the Literary Artist-In-Residence for four weeks at the Joggins Fossil Cliffs UNESCO site, and in 2024, she was a mentor in WFNS’s Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program. Sandra lives off-grid with her husband on the Tusket River outside of Yarmouth, NS. In her spare time, you’ll find her paddling a canoe.

Photo by Sue Hutchins

Recommended experience level: New and emerging memoir and personal essay writers, including those who are more experienced in other forms or in other genres of nonfiction (About recommended experience levels)

Participant cap: 12

Location: Zoom

[RESCHEDULED] Dates of 4-week workshop: Wednesdays, Oct 22 + Oct 29 + Nov 5 + Nov 12, 2025 (7:00pm to 9:00pm Atlantic)

Registration for 2025 General Members: $189

Registration for non-members: $219 (includes discounted fall 2025 General Membership in WFNS)

Registration for this workshop is full.
To join the waitlist, email Program Manager Andy Verboom at communications@writers.ns.ca

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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 and 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.

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 information, strategies, and skills that suit their career stage. 

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 you’re uncertain of your experience level with regard to any particular workshop, please feel free to contact us at communications@writers.ns.ca