Deadline: Friday, September 1, 2023
This program is open to you if you are Black, Indigenous, or a person of colour.
Learn about editing literary magazines and help curate the fiction section of the Quebec Writers’ Federation’s online literary magazine, carte blanche. Part of QWF’s Fresh Pages Initiative, this temporary, part-time, paid opportunity is designed to help an aspiring literary artist who is Black, Indigenous, or a person of colour, develop skills in curating and editing a literary magazine.
The mentorship provides:
- Approximately 15 hours of mentorship between September and November 2023
- An $800 honorarium
- A free one-year membership (or extension of membership) in the Quebec Writers’ Federation
The mentorship will go to a Quebec-based writer who shows promise and has demonstrated an interest in fiction, but who has not yet had an opportunity to work as an editor. The applicant does not need to be a QWF member.
The selected candidate will work with fiction editor Liana Cusmano to curate issue 47’s fiction section of carte blanche magazine.
Your Mentor
Writer, spoken word artist, and arts educator Liana Cusmano (aka Luca/BiCurious George) was the 2018, 2019 and 2023 Montreal Slam Champion, runner-up in the 2019 Canadian Individual Poetry Slam Championship, and a participant in the 2019 Spoken Word Residency Program at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Their poems and short stories have been published in short story collections, anthologies and literary magazines, They wrote the screenplay for the short film La femme finale, screened at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, and wrote and directed the award-winning Matters of Great Unimportance, screened at the 2019 Blue Metropolis Festival. They are Fiction Editor at the literary journal carte blanche and their first novel, Catch & Release (2022), was published by Guernica Editions. They were also a 2022 finalist for the QWF Spoken Word Prize.
Eligibility
- Applicants must live in Quebec and be Black, Indigenous, or a person of colour.
- There is no age or publication requirement. Applicants do not need to be a current QWF member. We invite students and seniors to apply.
- Writers who have already worked as an editor for a professional magazine or literary journal are not eligible to apply.
Timeline
- Call for applications: August 21, 2023
- Deadline for applications: September 1, 2023
- Notification of results: Mid-September 2023
- Publication of special fiction section in carte blanche: Winter 2023
How To Apply:
Please submit the following:
- A cover letter (maximum 1 page), including:
- Why you are interested in this editing mentorship
- Confirmation that you meet the eligibility criteria
- Your full name and a way to contact you
- A sample of your fiction writing (maximum 2 pages)
Submit to [email protected] or by mail to:
“Fresh Pages” Editing Mentorship
Quebec Writers’ Federation
1200 Atwater Ave., Room 3
Westmount, QC H3Z 1X4