QWF workshops are known for their collegiality and open, respectful environments. All participants are expected to help foster a safe space where we can work together creatively, sharing ideas, feedback and opinions.
When signing up for a workshop, make sure to read the workshop description in its entirety. If you have questions about a workshop, please reach out to us at workshops@qwf.org before registering.
Expectations
Attending a workshop, particularly one that runs for several sessions, is a commitment. Slots are limited, and a lot of our workshops have waiting lists. Workshops are also designed for a group to grow together over the course of its sessions. If you are unsure of your schedule or ability to fully take part in a workshop, you can get in touch with us to consider various options.
- Check the eligibility criteria. Most workshops are labelled “Open to all,” but some may require participants to meet certain eligibility criteria or complete an application. Please ensure you understand the workshop’s eligibility requirements and meet them before registering.
- Please arrive on time. Let either your workshop leader or QWF know if you are going to be late or absent for any of your sessions. Likewise, please vacate the office on time after the workshop has ended.
- Double-check required material. Please bring a pencil/pen and paper or a notebook/laptop computer. Some workshops leaders will ask for additional material; these will either be detailed in the workshop description or will be communicated to you via email.
- Note that most QWF workshops are hybrid. Most of our workshops are held in person at the QWF office, with up to two virtual spots for people unable to attend in person due to distance or disability. If your workshop is hybrid, please read the Guide to Hybrid Workshops to understand the format and what to expect.
- Allow everyone time to talk. Ensure you are making time and space for fellow participants to engage and learn. Avoid behaviors that can dominate discussions, such as regularly talking over other people, speaking for prolonged periods of time, answering every question first, and asking off-topic or several questions at once. If you are not finding equitable opportunity to contribute in a recurring workshop, please share your concern with the workshop leader or QWF.
- Fill out the evaluation form after the workshop. During the last session, evaluation forms, either physical or virtual, will be distributed to all participants. Please fill yours out; your feedback is invaluable in helping us plan future workshop offerings.
Guidelines for Receiving Feedback
The process of giving and receiving criticism is a great step towards improving your craft, but it can be challenging. Your work is your baby; you’ve invested a lot of yourself in its creation. The prospect of revealing our writing makes us all feel vulnerable.
You’re not trying to educate readers about your text, you’re trying to get them to educate you about your text.
Elbow and Belanoff, Sharing and Responding
- Don’t defend your work. Just listen. Some comments will be more valuable than others, but every comment is information for you about a reader’s response. You don’t have to make any changes you don’t want to make. Tip: Take notes that you can review later, out of the heat of the moment.
- After you’ve listened, you will have a chance to respond. You may correct factual errors, if any, but not other people’s reactions. As a rule, it’s best to ask questions rather than explaining, clarifying or justifying. For example:
- “At what point in the story did you stop caring about the main character?”
- “Which images in the poem did you find heavy-handed/irrelevant/fuzzy?”
- If most of your readers didn’t understand some aspect of your piece, that’s important information for you.
Guidelines for Giving Feedback
The most successful workshops are those where the participants earn each other’s trust. Your goal is to help your colleagues improve their work by giving honest—but sensitive—feedback. Your comments should always apply to the writing and not to the author.
The following tips will help you to strike the right tone when you’re called upon to give your feedback.
- Your criticism can be both honest and supportive. Before you speak, determine what you think are the piece’s strengths and weaknesses. The writer needs to know both. One time-honoured way to give feedback is the “sandwich” method, where you say something positive, give your constructive criticism, then finish with another positive.
- Follow up your general comments with specific examples from the text. For example:
- Pinpoint specific lines or words that illustrate your points.
- If you think the work needs tightening, point out passages you think could be cut or passages that should be moved to make it more cohesive.
- Don’t try to change someone’s work into something you would have written; your goal is to help each writer make their piece most fully itself. If your reactions are matters of taste and not, e.g., matters of grammar or clarity, acknowledge that.
- Remember that the narrator in a work is not the writer and the narrative voice is not the same as the writer’s voice. Even if the piece is in the first person and/or is based on the writer’s personal experience, it represents a transformed self.
Be respectful, whether critiquing someone else’s work or responding to their comments on yours.
A Note about Controversial Material
Part of making QWF and its workshops safe spaces is striving to eliminate bias and negative stereotypes. This includes our writing. That doesn’t mean that no negative or distressing thing can ever be presented in a workshopped piece. On the contrary, good writing is one of our best tools to explore and counter bad behaviour with clarity and compassion.
A workshop is also one of the best venues for the exchange of ideas, including tough subjects. We support freedom of expression, with a concomitant responsibility to treat each other with mutual respect. Therefore, no submission on any topic or written from any point of view should be refused respectful consideration in a writing workshop. Workshop leaders and participants may respond negatively to work they deem offensive, but they should strive to articulate the issues and avoid personal accusations, for the sake of keeping the channels of communication open. Authors should understand that they may be questioned regarding their work’s intent, and they should be prepared to entertain those questions.
Specifically:
- If you are offended by a piece of writing, please articulate your critical judgment in a calm and measured way, or the writer will not hear you.
- Whether you expect it or not, if someone is offended, please receive their feedback in a spirit of openness. Remember that they may be feeling hurt.
- Take this opportunity to work together toward greater understanding.
If your work contains particularly sensitive or distressing material, consider informing the workshop leader and other participants beforehand. This is not to censor content but to create a safe and respectful space for everyone to share and receive feedback.
Venue and Accessibility
In-person workshops usually take place at the QWF Office, located at Room 3, Atwater Library. When entering or exiting during the library’s operating hours, you can use the front door, 1200 Atwater Avenue. However, when accessing the building outside of the library’s operating hours, you need to use the side door at 4023 Tupper Street. Visit the Atwater Library’s website to see its operating hours.
The library has wheelchair access at all times from the back entrance from Tupper Street. To reach the accessible entrance, follow the painted blue lines from the Tupper Street sidewalk, which lead down the slope to the library basement. Once at the entrance, press the buzzer on the right-hand side of the door to open it, then continue to the elevators. The QWF Office is located in Room 3 on the top floor.
Please note that the office is QWF’s working space, which is shared with another organization. We expect everyone to please keep our space clean. In particular:
- Do not leave garbage or move items on our desks. In general, please do not touch anything on our desks, unless you have been given explicit permission to do so.
- Do not throw broken glass or food waste in either the garbage or the recycling. If someone breaks a glass, please put the broken glass in a garbage bag, tie it, dispose of it in one of the garbage bins in the office. Please also put a note on the garbage bin saying that it contains broken glass. Garbage bags can be found on the bookshelf at the back of the office.
- You are welcome to use any cups or appliances in the coffee nook, which is the table with the coffee maker and tea kettle, but please do not use dishes by the microwave, as those are for staff use only.
- Do not run the coffee machine and tea kettle at the same time – it might trip the circuit breaker!
- If using our cups and dishes, please wash them in the sink afterwards.
- Please refill the Brita pitcher if you empty it.
- Please wipe the table if it gets messed up.
- The QWF office is a fragrance-free zone. Please help us keep the air clean by not wearing perfume, aftershave, or cologne.
You are welcome to connect to the QWF Wi-Fi. The current username and password are printed on a sheet of paper that is posted on the side of the bookshelf across from the door.
Bicycles should be chained outside and not brought inside the library. Paid street parking is available on Tupper Street.
A Note on Intellectual Property
The participants’ writing is their property, and is not to be shared or reproduced, or appropriated in any way without the express written permission of the author.
Policy on AI Bots and Audio/Video Recording in Workshops
In the interest of protecting our workshop leaders’ intellectual property and our participants’ privacy, and to maintain the conditions necessary to engender trust in the group, QWF does not allow AI bots to participate in online workshop sessions. Anyone in violation of this policy will be asked to leave the workshop and refunded the balance of their workshop fee.
For the same reasons, QWF generally does not record audio or video of our workshops. Virtual participants are not permitted to record workshops, whether in full or in part. However, workshop leaders may make certain exceptions to the recording policy: in those cases, consent must be obtained from all participants.
Hybrid Workshops with QWF
Most of our workshops follow a hybrid model, with most participants attending in person and up to two virtual slots for people who cannot come to the QWF office due to distance or disability. For tips on participating in a hybrid QWF workshop, see our Guide to Hybrid Workshops.
QWF Conflict Resolution Process
The QWF has a process in place for any writer who feels personally attacked or unsafe in a workshop because of responses offered to their writing submission, or because of harassment of any kind in the context of the workshop. Please see our conflict resolution process for more details.
QWF Privacy Policy
If you sign up to participate in a workshop, we collect your name, email, and address to facilitate communication. Your name and email will also be shared with the workshop leader. Unless you request us not to, we may also contact you about future workshops we think you would be interested based on your choice. Please see our privacy policy for more details.