The 2026 Fresh Pages Editorial Mentorship is now closed to applications.
The selected candidate will be announced in July.
A component of QWF’s Fresh Pages Diversity Initiative, the Editorial Mentorship at carte blanche is a temporary, part-time, paid opportunity designed to help an aspiring literary artist who is Black, Indigenous, or a person of colour develop skills in selecting and editing work for a literary journal.
Learn about editing literary magazines and help curate a special section of the Quebec Writers’ Federation’s online literary magazine, carte blanche.
Each year, the mentorship goes to a Quebec-based writer who shows promise and has demonstrated an interest in the chosen genre, but who has not yet had an opportunity to work as an editor.
The editorship provides:
- Approximately 15 hours of mentorship
- An $800 honorarium
- A free one-year membership in the Quebec Writers’ Federation
The 2026 Mentor
Nicola Danby is a French-English translator with a BA (Honours) in Traduction et Stylistique from McGill University and an MA in Translation from York University. She has indulged her love of words through various positions: lecturer, teacher, revisor, translator, bookseller, and librarian, to name a few. Translation Editor at carte blanche for over a decade, and literary translator in her own right, she was a member of the Translation Jury for the 2019 Governor General’s Literary Awards. She has been President of the Literary Translators’ Association Canada, and has worked with a range of translators and authors consulting on their writing. She lives in Montréal with her family.
It was such a pleasure to work under the mentorship of Greg Santos as the Fresh Pages guest editor at carte blanche this autumn. It was such a rich experience that taught me a lot about the curatorial process—something that I was completely new to. I am so grateful to have been offered this mentorship with the help of Quebec Writers Federation. I am so happy that learning opportunities like this exist for BIPOC writers and creatives to explore the literary publication process.
Mahta Riaza, 2022 editorial mentorship
2025 Program – Photography
Guest Editor: Sarra Mirghani
carte blanche Photography Editor: Shaney Herrmann
2024 Program – Managing Editor
Guest Editor: Rachel Chin
carte blanche Managing Editor: Zoe Shaw
2023 Program – Fiction
Guest Editor: Gabrielle Cole
carte blanche Fiction Editor: Liana Cusmano
2022 Program – Poetry
Guest Editor: Mahta Riazi
carte blanche Poetry Editor: Greg Santos
2021 Program – Non-Fiction
Guest Editor: Poonam Dhir
carte blanche Non-fiction Editor: Jenny Ferguson
2020 Program – Poetry
Guest Editor: Carolin Huang
carte blanche Poetry Editor: Marcela Huerta
