Edit like an Editor: How to Edit Your Own Prose
2022-11-24 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Online via Zoom
This workshop is open to all levels of writers who have a prose manuscript they want to work on.

Limited to 12 participants.

This workshop will be conducted via Zoom.

Using tips, tricks, and hands-on exercises, workshop participants will learn about the different types of editing (including developmental editing, line editing, copyediting, and fact checking) and how to see their own work with fresh eyes.

Through reading, discussion, and exercises, this workshop will cover:

How to see your own work with an editor’s eyeSpotting common problems (info dumping, “as you know, Bob” explanations, insufficient conflict, misunderstanding genre conventions, etc.)Understanding character development (goals and motivation)How to make the most out of dialoguePoint of view, and common problems with point of view (e.g. head hopping)

This workshop is geared toward book-length manuscripts, including short story and essay collections. Applicants must submit an excerpt from their manuscript (maximum 25 pages) along with a short description of the whole project in order to be considered for the workshop. After registering below, you have until September 9 to send your document(s) to workshops@qwf.org, with “For Maria Turner” in the subject line.

By the end of the workshop, participants will have an in-depth editorial plan for their manuscript and have a solid understanding of the different types of editing and how to apply them to their own work.

Maria Schamis Turner is a freelance editor specializing in developmental editing and line editing for fiction and creative nonfiction. She is a founding editor and previous editor-in-chief and creative nonfiction editor of the literary magazine carte blanche. She worked for 10 years on literary projects for CBC Radio, including as an editor for Canada Writes. She was also the producer of the true story storytelling series This Really Happened and has taught numerous workshops on storytelling, writing, and editing.

Turneredits.com

Twitter: @turnmaria

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turnmaria

Writing Outside the Box: A Workshop on Edgy Fiction
2022-11-24 20:00 - 22:00 | QWF Office, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3, Westmount, QC, H3Z 1X4, Canada
Open to writers of all experience levels.

Due to the content in some of the exercises, this workshop is restricted to participants aged 18+.

Limited to 12 participants

We plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it, this workshop may transition to a purely online model.

Looking to shake up your process? Interested in breaking the rules a little? Designed to inspire unique approaches to creative writing, this workshop will help squash your inner editor and provoke your inner rebel, giving you the confidence you need to write more openly and honestly.

Over the course of eight weeks, participants will delve into the work of unconventional writers like Italo Calvino, Kelly Link, John Elizabeth Stintzi, and George Saunders. You’ll learn tips and techniques for producing work quickly and fearlessly. You’ll dabble with ekphrasis, magic realism, and second-person perspective, and you’ll hone your ability to give and receive constructive feedback in a wildly creative working environment.

This is a fun, provocative, and productive workshop that’s generated award-winning fiction and long-term friendships. It is suitable for writers of any experience level, from the shy beginner to the established professional, working in any medium or genre. And while filled with lesson-based exercises and guided assignments, this workshop is happily (and willfully) anti-academic. Participants are not taught writing theory but are encouraged to develop their skills through the acts of reading and writing alone. Here, you learn by doing.

There is no submission required prior to the first session. Participants will be expected to share fiction with the group as the workshop progresses.

This is the perfect way to kickstart a project, rejuvenate your existing process, or to simply step outside of your comfort zone by experimenting with new approaches to creativity.

Come play with the weird kids of creative writing. (One of us. One of us.)

Trepassey-born writer Tracey Waddleton splits her time between the island of Newfoundland and the island of Montreal. Her first book, Send More Tourists… the Last Ones Were Delicious, was published by Breakwater Books in July of 2019 and won the 2020 ReLit Award for Short Fiction. She is the inaugural recipient of the Quebec Writers’ Federation Max Margles Writing Residency and is spending/spent the month of August writing in Dublin, Ireland in 2022.

www.traceywaddleton.com

Instagram: @bartlebomb

Twitter: @traceywaddleton

Facebook: www.facebook.com/tracey.waddleton

Club de lecture insolite – Unexpected Book Club: Anglo-Quebec Lit Club
2022-11-25 13:45 - 16:45 | Palais des congrès de Montréal, 1001 Jean Paul Riopelle Pl, Montreal, Quebec, H2Z1H5, Canada
Anglo-Quebec authors and books can remain elusive to Quebec’s French-speaking readership. Reaching across linguistic and cultural barriers, three fans of the genre—a bookseller, a translator, and an author—explore this literary sphere by presenting their favourite books. This event is presented by AELAQ in collaboration with the Salon du livre de Montréal.Host: Annabelle Moreau, journalist and literary critic

Featuring:Chantal Ringuet, author and translatorGabrielle Garbeau, Librairie RacinesArizona O’Neill, artist

Friday, November 24th at 13:45 (60 min) on the Agora Stage.

Translating English Quebec
2022-11-25 17:00 - 17:45 | Palais des congrès de Montréal, 1001 Jean Paul Riopelle Pl, Montreal, Quebec, H2Z1H5, Canada
Join us for a panel discussion with English-to-French translators and the authors of the original books on the importance of translating English Quebec literature into French, the challenges of the translation process, and the influence of the two literatures on each other.

Host:

Antoine Tanguay, Founder and Director of Publishing, Éditions Alto

Participants:

Rachel McCrum, author

Jonathan Lamy, translator and author

Marcela Huerta, author

Daphné B., translator and author

Friday, November 25th at 5PM (45 minutes) on the Agora stage.

Advanced Memoir: The Second Draft
2022-11-28 18:00 - 20:00, 2022-12-05 18:00 - 20:00 | QWF Office, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3, Westmount, QC, H3Z 1X4, Canada
This workshop on memoir is designed for people who have already studied at the intermediate level with Elaine Kalman Naves. Don’t be daunted by the “advanced” label. If you’ve completed an intermediate workshop with Elaine and are interested in writing, reading, and talking about memoir, you are at a level to benefit from this workshop.

As of now, we plan to host this workshop in-person at the QWF office, with some slots open for remote participation.

Though you need not be working on a book-length narrative, you will be expected to have a specific project in mind. It can be something you were working on in a previous workshop or something entirely new.

During the course of the eight-week workshop, you will have the opportunity to submit a piece of up to 3000 words, and with luck you will have a chance to present a second time. (More details about this once we get rolling.)

Instead of a text, you will have the opportunity to read some fine memoirs, and the long lead-up to this fall workshop will give you a chance to do some advance reading. Please give priority in your summer reading to the terrific memoirs by the four writers who will be guest lecturers over the course of the session. (See below.) Once we have established who the actual workshop participants will be, we will also supply you with a list of suggested optional works to enjoy over the course of the summer.

The emphasis will be on student input. Participants will not only be presenting their own work to the group but will also be expected to give careful reading of each other’s pieces in order to provide vital critical feedback. This element of the program is equally important to the writing. As in the past there will also be in-class exercises and discussion of topics of writerly interest. In a new departure, we will start critiquing participants’ pieces at the very first session. Participants who volunteer to present early in the session will be much appreciated! Getting a head start will make it possible to present second drafts. Again, we will work out these details ahead of time once the class list is established.

Here are the names of the guest lecturers and their respective titles:

Mark Abley, The Organist

Linda Leith, The Girl from Dream City

Harriet Alida Lye, Natural Killer

Robyn Sarah, Music, Late and Soon

And please don’t forget that William Zinsser’s On Writing Well is useful to have as a reference at your fingertips!

To apply, please send the following to riley@qwf.org no later than July 6, 2022.

A 3- to 5-page double-spaced writing sample (nonfiction or fiction) that you feel is representative of your abilities.A paragraph or two outlining the writing project you plan to pursue in the workshop.

Elaine Kalman Naves is a long-time literary journalist and the author of seven non-fiction titles, and of a novel. She is a two-time recipient of the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction, the winner of two Canadian Jewish Book Awards, and of a Canadian Literary Award for Personal Essay. Her memoir Journey to Vaja: Reconstructing the World of a Hungarian-Jewish Family has been made into a documentary film. Elaine’s novel, The Book of Faith, was nominated for the Leacock Prize for Humour. She has led workshops at the QWF since their inception in 1998. To find out more about Elaine, visit her website athttp://www.elainekalmannaves.com/

Writing About Trauma (Without Being Super Annoying)
2022-11-28 20:00 - 22:00 | QWF Office, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3, Westmount, QC, H3Z 1X4, Canada
Open to all.

Limited to 12 participants

We plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it, this workshop may transition to a purely online model.

There was a time when bad things would happen to me, and I would be like, this is so terrible, my life is so awful. Then, I became a writer. Now, when bad things happen to me, I think: this kind of thing is so awful… for people who are not writers. This is going to make such a good essay.

Being a writer is a superpower. Writers are often uniquely sensitive, which can make us vulnerable — but that sensitivity, when channelled appropriately, can turn into our greatest strength. When we learn to transmute our challenging, painful, and even traumatic experiences into art, we learn a very real kind of invulnerability: a capacity to spin agony into gold, a way in which we are always safe, always on top, and can always have the last word. At its best, this skill can allow us to wrest power back from our worst experiences and literally pave a road to fame, fortune, healing, and transcendence. There are, however, a few essential skills we must learn along the way.

In this eight-week workshop, Montreal-based poet and nonfiction writer Tara McGowan-Ross will take the participants on a journey through their shadows, mistakes, betrayals, and heartbreaks, towards the end of creating a powerful and transformative piece of work. She will cover subjects ranging from basic critical thinking and how to apply it, to how to create a safe container for your difficult feelings, to the ethics of writing nonfiction, which inevitably includes other people with opinions and boundaries — to injecting the kind of skill, humour, and humanity required of a work so that it may avoid the most common pitfall of writing trauma narratives: being, like, super annoying.

Tara McGowan-Ross is an urban Mi’kmaw multidisciplinary artist and writer. She graduated from Concordia University’s philosophy program with a minor in Creative Writing in 2016. She is the author of poetry collections Girth and Scorpion Season, and the memoir Nothing Will Be Different. She has served on numerous editorial boards, including Goose Lane’s Icehouse imprint, and has been anthologized in Best Canadian Poetry and Anthologie de la poésie actuelle des femmes au Québec. She lives in Montreal, where she is a theatre critic, a rebel educator, a Substack columnist, and the host of Drawn & Quarterly’s Indigenous Literatures Book Club.

girthgirl.ca

taramcgowanross.substack.com

@girthgirl (Instagram/Twitter)

(Un)broken: Leveraging the Poetic Line
2022-11-29 18:00 - 20:00 | QWF Office, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3, Westmount, QC, H3Z 1X4, Canada
Open to all.

Limited to 12 participants.

We plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it, this workshop may transition to a purely online model.

With few exceptions, poets have access to one tool that other writers do not: the line. A defining feature of its genre, the poetic line plays many roles in shaping a poem’s character. The line can serve simultaneously as pacing device, secondary grammar, image container, rhythm driver, and spotlight for sound.

In contemporary free verse, attention is often paid to breaking the line. While valuable, this thinking locates a line’s gravitational pull largely at its end, sometimes excluding other possibilities. Lines, after all, are made as well as broken. And through this making, a poem’s fingerprint takes shape.

This generative poetry workshop offers poets of all levels the chance to develop a broader and more nuanced understanding of how poems derive power from the line’s possibilities—including, but also extending beyond, its breaking. We’ll consider first lines, line integrity, flavours of enjambment, and the line as both sound-vessel and gloss. We’ll also reflect on what happens between lines by thinking about juxtaposition, stanza, and pacing.

Overall, the goal is to support participants in enhancing their free verse at the line level as they generate new work. Participants can expect to draft four to six new poems and have at least one poem workshopped by the group. Early sessions will involve generative writing prompts and craft discussions, while later sessions will focus on workshopping. To anchor our craft discussions, we’ll look at work from a variety of contemporary poets. Writers should bring one of their own poems to the first session as a way of introducing themselves and their work.

Sarah Wolfson is the author of A Common Name for Everything, which won the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Canadian and American journals such as The Walrus, The Fiddlehead, TriQuarterly, Prairie Fire, CV2, Michigan Quarterly Review, and PRISM international. Her work has earned notable mention in Best Canadian Poetry and funding from the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference. She holds an MFA from the University of Michigan. Originally from Vermont, she now lives in Montreal, where she teaches writing at McGill University.

@SarahWolfson1 (Twitter)

https://www.facebook.com/sarah.wolfson.14 (Facebook)

The Art of Writing Speculative Fiction
2022-11-29 20:00 - 22:00 | QWF Office, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3, Westmount, QC, H3Z 1X4, Canada
Open to all.

Limited to 12 participants.

We plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it, this workshop may transition to a purely online model.

Speculative Fiction, a literary genre that can encompass anything from science-fiction and fantasy to magic realism, slipstream, alternate history, horror, steampunk, fairy tales and fables, dystopia, and surrealism, has been with us for as long as we’ve been telling stories. In recent years, it has grown in importance as writing genres continue to cross and blur, and even the most conventional writers of literary fiction experiment with speculative tools as a means to add wonder and power to their tales.

This workshop is open to both new and experienced writers, whether of speculative fiction or of other genres. In each session of this eight-week workshop, we will delve into a different topic and/or element of craft. The sessions will typically include a presentation, examples from the work of experienced writers, an in-depth, participative discussion, and a hands-on exercise. In addition, each participant will have the opportunity to present their own work of speculative fiction—be it a short story or an excerpt from something longer—for detailed discussion and feedback. There will be clear ground rules for workshopping that are designed to ensure that our discussions remain constructive and respectful at all times.

Some of the topics that the workshop will cover include:

What is speculative fiction and what distinguishes it from other types of fiction? What are its special powers and challenges?Questions of content and your story’s four limbs: idea, world, character, plot;Questions of structure and your story’s bones: point-of-view and narration, chronology, tense, tone;Special focus on world-building;Special focus on character-building, voice, and dialogue;What kind of story are you writing? What are you trying to say?How to edit and improve your speculative fiction and prepare it for publication.

Su J Sokol is a social rights advocate and a writer of speculative and interstitial fiction. Originally from Brooklyn, xe now resides in Montréal. Sokol is the author of Cycling to Asylum (2014), long-listed for the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic; Run J Run (2019); and Zee (2020), finalist for the Janet Savage Blachford Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Sokol’s short work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies. This summer, Sokol’s debut novel was translated into French and published under the title Les lignes invisibles by VLB Imaginaire. Check out Sokol’s website at www.sujsokol.com

Facebook: cyclingtoasylum

Instagram: cycling2asylum

Twitter: cyclingtoasylum

Playwriting 101: A Playwriting Intensive
2022-11-30 20:00 - 22:00 | Online via Zoom
Open to all.

Limited to 12 participants.

This workshop will be conducted via Zoom.

Playwriting is an artform about curiosity, obsession, energy, entertainment, transformation, and illumination. It’s about inspiration, dedication, and practice. It’s about following your impulses and shaping those impulses; about creating a series of freedoms and constraints that focus inspiration into a text that can be used as a blueprint for performance. Unlike most other forms of writing, a play text must leave space for other creators to bring their artistry to the work. Director, actors, designers and technicians eventually fill in those spaces left by the writer to transform what is on the page into a three-dimensional performance that necessitates an audience for it to be fully realized. Having written plays that have been staged throughout Canada and beyond (Stratford Festival, Shaw Festival, Soulpepper Theatre, Segal Centre, Centaur Theatre), Erin Shields has developed a number of exercises, strategies and best practices to imagine, explore, and write plays.

Playwriting 101 is an invitation for writers of other genres to try their hand at playwriting and for playwrights to deepen their practice. Throughout this eight-week workshop, participants will bring their own particular understanding of story, character, and theme to the table, to explore how to apply those same skills to the art of playwriting. Each class will focus on one of the following dramatic elements: character, conflict, desire, premise, form, plot, and structure. Through conversations, focused exercises, and sharing work, participants will gain an understanding of how to organically and technically write a play. The process will alternate focus each class between the micro elements (character, dialogue) and macro elements (theme, story structure), as writers gradually learn how to build the world of the play with nuanced characters.

During these eight weeks, participants will write. A lot. By the end of the workshop, writers

will have a strong understanding of the basic elements of a play and how to use those elements to write their own play.

Erin Shields (www.erinshields.ca) is a Canadian playwright. Most of her work highlights the negation or misrepresentation of women in classical texts by adapting these stories through a feminist lens for a contemporary audience. Erin’s adaptation of Paradise Lost premiered at The Stratford Festival of Canada and won the Quebec Writers Federation Prize for Playwriting. Erin won the 2011 Governor General’s Award for her play If We Were Birds, which premiered at Tarragon Theatre. Other theatre credits include: Jane Eyre (Citadel Theatre), Piaf/Dietrich (Mirvish Productions/Segal Centre),The Lady from the Sea (The Shaw Festival). Upcoming productions include Queen Goneril for Soulpepper Theatre and Ransacking Troy for The Stratford Festival.

Facebook: Erin Shields

Instagram: shieldserin1

Website: www.erinshields.ca

The Art of the Short Story
2022-12-01 18:00 - 20:00, 2022-12-08 18:00 - 20:00 | QWF Office, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3, Westmount, QC, H3Z 1X4, Canada
Open to all.

Limited to 12 participants.

We plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it, this workshop may transition to a purely online model.

Open to writers of all levels, this 10-week workshop is an investigation of the modern short story. What exactly is a story? What distinguishes it from an anecdote, or a lie? Most of us recognize a good one when we meet it on the page. It moves us, often unexpectedly, to laughter or tears. And it marks us, reaching inside us and shifting, sometimes subtly and other times with a jolt, our views about ourselves and the world. The best stories articulate truths that we hadn’t, until the moment of reading, thought to put into words.

There is no set of rules for how to write a good story. Each writer has to find their own way, and each story demands fresh experiments. Writing is like living. It requires close listening and relentless improvisation. The best way to learn how to write a good story is to read one. In this workshop, we’ll read “In the Cart” (1897) by Anton Chekhov, and investigate Chekhov’s views about this genre. We’ll also look at his technique: how he used elements like detail, narrative point of view, and speech to create a story strong enough to withstand the tests of time and translation. Over a century after Chekhov’s death, his stories are still read and loved in places totally unlike Czarist Russia. What secrets can his work reveal to us in 21st-century Quebec?

Our first four meetings will be devoted to discussing “In the Cart” (accessible online; also translated as “The Schoolmistress,” and “A Journey by Cart”). Exercises relating to various elements of craft will be offered. The last six meetings will be reserved for workshopping our own stories and continuing the exploration of what exactly a story is, and how to write one.

Claire Holden Rothman is a Montreal writer, translator, and fiction editor who has published two collections of stories and three novels. The Heart Specialist (2009) was long-listed for The Scotia Bank-Giller Prize, and My October was long-listed for the Giller and short-listed for the Governor General’s Award. Her most recent novel, Lear’s Shadow, was short-listed for Quebec’s 2020 Jacob Isaac Segal Award, and won the 2019 Vine Award for Jewish Canadian Fiction. For many years, Claire taught English literature and creative writing at Marianopolis College. She has also taught fiction workshops at McGill and Bishop’s Universities.

The Annual "Write Here, Write Now" December Reading
2022-12-04 14:00 - 17:00 | Online – Please RSVP
The last few years have not been kind—many of us feel there is too much darkness in the world. Our poetry and prose cannot be as boisterous a celebration of the upcoming holidays as in previous seasons.
For the 2022 edition of their annual December reading, Write Here, Write Now members present more pensive and nostalgic pieces—but that does not mean the mood will include no leavening. There is joy and hope to be found even in the heart of darkness.
The last poem of the day is a WHWN standard that captures the whimsy of a child’s vision of the festive season. Everyone is most welcome!
Write Here, Write Now is supported by Bishop’s University Lifelong Learning Academy.
Bishop’s University is located on the Traditional and Unceded Territory of the Abenaki People.

Winter Solstice Poetry Reading
2022-12-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Librairie Bertrand, 430 Rue Saint-Pierre, Montréal, Quebec, H2Y 2M5, Canada
Join Kelly Norah Drukker, Gabrielle McIntire, and Carolyn Van Der Meer for an evening of poetry in Old Montreal.

Kelly Norah Drukker is a Montreal-based writer. Her poetry collection Small Fires (MQUP, 2016) won the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry and the Concordia University First Book Prize, and was a finalist for the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal. Petits feux (trans. Lori Saint-Martin, Paul Gagné) appeared in 2018.

Gabrielle McIntire is Professor of English Literature at Queen’s University. Her first book of poetry, Unbound, was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2021. She is also the author of Modernism, Memory, and Desire: T.S. Elliot and Virginia Woolf (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and the editor of The Cambridge Companion to The Waste Land (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

Carolyne Van Der Meer is the author of four published books: Motherlode: A Mosaic of Dutch Wartime Experience (WLUP, 2014); Journeywoman (Inanna, 2017), Heart of Goodness: The Life of Marguerite Bougeoys in 30 Poems | Du coeur à l’âme : La vie de Marguerite Bourgeoys en 30 poèmes (Guernica Editions, 2020); and Sensorial (Inanna, 2022).

Canadian Parents for French Quebec & Nunavut Virtual Cultural Event: DECEMBER | Bilingual Story Time
2022-12-07 19:00 - 20:00 | Virtual
Join us for a bilingual bedtime story session with children’s author, Candace Amarante.
Amarante will be reading Le ciel me sourit, a short poem she wrote that metaphorically describes the lunar phases of the moon.
The story-time session will be followed by an art activity, where participants are invited to draw and share the way they see the moon.
Target age group: 3-6 years old
Register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe6y142aKIo4PCBIcAjv1NzBMUuq0fVB_MIEGuqwcuUt2s-bA/viewform

The Pipeline Play Reading Series
2022-12-07 19:00 - 2022-12-10 21:00 | La Maison Internationale des Arts de la Marionnette, 30 Av. Saint-Just, Montréal, Quebec, H2V 1X8, Canada
Infinithéâtre’s annual Pipeline play reading series is back! Join us from December 7th-10th at Maison Internationale des Arts de la Marionnette (MIAM) for four FREE readings of in-development plays by Québec writers, including this year’s Write-on-Q winner. Come check out these new and promising pieces!

Holiday Book Giveaway
2022-12-14 11:00 - 16:00 | QWF Office, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3, Westmount, QC, H3Z 1X4, Canada
The Quebec Writers’ Federation is hosting a holiday get-together and book giveaway!

Stop by the QWF office for a friendly chat in the company of good friends and good books. QWF members get to take three free books (while supplies last). Non-members can come register and also get three free books. Bring your friends and/or family!Light refreshments will be available.

Where: Atwater Library, Room 3 (upstairs).When: Wednesday, Dec 14, 11am-4pm

Note: Wearing a mask is strongly encouraged and appreciated when not eating/drinking.

Confabulation presents: The Shortest Story XIII
2023-01-13 20:00 - 22:00 | Centaur Theatre, 453 St. Francois-Xavier, Montreal, Quebec, HZY 2T1, Canada
Our annual 2-minute story tradition continues. True stories, as quick as we can tell them.

Illuminated Grant Writing
2023-01-14 10:00 - 13:00, 2023-01-21 10:00 - 13:00, 2023-01-28 10:00 - 13:00, 2023-02-04 10:00 - 13:00 | QWF Office, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3, Westmount, QC, H3Z 1X4, Canada
This series of four workshops will examine how writers with projects for print, spoken word, or storytelling can make a strong literary arts grant application. From drafting a project description to balancing a budget, we will also discuss artistic risk, impact and cultural appropriation. Focus will be on funding programs at the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and an arts council program officer will join us to answer questions. This series is intended for Quebec-based writers at all stages of their practice: emerging, mid-career, or established. There will be tasks to complete between sessions and participants must have an original literary arts project in mind.

Access to MS Word or similar writing software will be necessary as well as a willingness to share work, and give and receive feedback in a workshop setting.

Tawhida Tanya Evanson is a poet, author, multidisciplinary artist and producer. Her two poetry collections are Bothism (Ekstasis 2017) and Nouveau Griot (Frontenac 2018), and her debut novel Book of Wings (Véhicule 2021) won the 2022 New Contribution Literary Prize, was on the 2022 CBC Canads Reads Longlist, and was one of Quill & Quire’s 2021 Books of the Year. With a 25-year practice in spoken word, she has performed in over a dozen countries and released several studio albums and videopoems including the award-winning Almost Forgot my Bones. In 2013, she was Poet of Honour at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and received the Golden Beret Award for her contribution to the genre. Director of the Banff Centre Spoken Word residency and VP of The Quebec Writers’ Federation, she is at work on an Afrofuturist film premiering in spring 2023 and a French translation of her novel. She moonlights as a whirling dervish.

Winter Writers Retreat 2023 | Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
2023-01-16 00:00 - 2023-01-28 23:59 | Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 107 Tunnel Mountain Drive, Banff, Alberta, T1L 1H5, Canada
The Winter Writers Retreat is a self-directed program that offers time and space for writers to retreat, reconnect, and re-energize their writing practice. In addition to a single room, and a small private studio, you will be surrounded by a community of artistic peers with the opportunity to attend inspiring talks, performances, and meet with guest faculty to consult on your work.
What does the program offer?
This self-directed residency offers the opportunity to work away from the constraints of everyday life. Delve deep into your creative project and take advantage of the artistic community of your peers around you. This program provides opportunities for consultations with mentors, and optional group sessions led by guest mentors that allow writers to explore literary tools, aspects, and devices that you may find useful in your practice. You may also sign up for additional walks and day trips within Banff National Park as well as campus-wide activities organized by our Participant Resources team.
This 13-day residency provides thematic teaching from faculty members, Q&A sessions, public events, and one-on-one workshopping. Instructors will discuss ideas, experiences, and obstacles that participants may be encountering with their writing across genre. This flexible program allows you to choose the amount of support you are looking for. All program elements are optional.
Who should apply?
We welcome writers from all backgrounds, and all gender identities and expressions. Writers in all creative genres are invited to apply. The program is designed for emerging and established writers with a proven publication record seeking a period of dedicated time to work on a project in any genre.
Winter Writers Retreat 2023 only accepts projects that are being written in English.
This program is not open to applicants who have taken part in a Banff Centre residency in the last year, nor to current faculty members of any other Banff Centre programming.
Application Deadline: September 21, 2022
*Financial Aid of 100% of tuition and 50% of food and accommodation is available for this program.

Winter Writers Retreat 2023 | Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
2023-01-16 10:00 - 2023-01-28 19:00 | Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 107 Tunnel Mountain Drive, Banff, Alberta, T1L 1H5, Canada
The Winter Writers Retreat is a self-directed program that offers time and space for writers to retreat, reconnect, and re-energize their writing practice. In addition to a single room, and a small private studio, you will be surrounded by a community of artistic peers with the opportunity to attend inspiring talks, performances, and meet with guest faculty to consult on your work.
What does the program offer?
This self-directed residency offers the opportunity to work away from the constraints of everyday life. Delve deep into your creative project and take advantage of the artistic community of your peers around you. This program provides opportunities for consultations with mentors, and optional group sessions led by guest mentors that allow writers to explore literary tools, aspects, and devices that you may find useful in your practice. You may also sign up for additional walks and day trips within Banff National Park as well as campus-wide activities organized by our Participant Resources team.
This 13-day residency provides thematic teaching from faculty members, Q&A sessions, public events, and one-on-one workshopping. Instructors will discuss ideas, experiences, and obstacles that participants may be encountering with their writing across genre. This flexible program allows you to choose the amount of support you are looking for. All program elements are optional.

Book Publishing Explained for Writers
2023-01-21 13:00 - 15:00 | QWF Office, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3, Westmount, QC, H3Z 1X4, Canada
This is the first of two workshops to be offered in 2023 on the theme of getting published. Watch for a longer interactive workshop in the fall.

A veteran of Canada’s book industry will demystify how the publishing process works, from acquisitions to the finished product to how books get into the market. He will explain the importance of the pitch letter in finding a publisher or agent, why hitting deadlines is paramount to successful publishing, and the dual roles of the marketing department and the author’s input in creating a bestseller. He will also share his thoughts on literary agents—and how to find a publisher without one—in a nuts and bolts seminar on the arcane world of book publishing.

Former publisher of House of Anansi Press, founding publisher of University of Regina Press, Vice President of Marketing for Margret Atwood’s Longpen, and Director of Marketing and Publicity at McClelland & Stewart, Bruce Walsh has published many bestselling and award-winning books in his 30-year career. He is on the boards of Pen Canada and the Port Medway Readers Festival, is helping to program the Lunenburg Literary Festival, and is Vice Chair of the Disabilities Committee for the South Shore Libraries.

He is consulting with writers and other book professionals after stepping down as publisher due to illness and can be contacted directly at Kickinghorse@live.com.

Write Here, Write Now -- New Anthology Competition
2023-01-22 13:30 - 15:30 | Online – Please RSVP
Come and join us on Sunday 22nd January, at 1.30pm, for the Zoom launch of our new book anthology competition.
Write Here, Write Now is seeking submissions of short work in any genre and on any theme. The deadline is April 11th, 2023, and those accepted will be published in a paperback and ebook format in September 2023.
At the Zoom launch, you will have the opportunity to find out more about the competition, get information on the submission details, meet the editorial board, and ask any questions you may have about the project.
About the anthology editor:
Rebecca Welton is a writer and editor. She was shortlisted for the Fresher Prize in short stories, and currently runs creative writing workshops for WHWN and BULLA. She is the editor of Hope and Resilience in the Time of Covid, an anthology of community writing and artistry. Rebecca is both a developmental editor and a qualified copyeditor. She works with writers to craft their work into the best version possible.
Write Here, Write Now is supported by Bishop’s University Lifelong Learning Academy.
Bishop’s University is located on the Traditional and Unceded Territory of the Abenaki People.

Writers Out Loud: Muslim Awareness Week
2023-01-31 18:30 - 20:00 | Atwater Library Auditorium, 1200 Atwater Avenue, 2nd floor, Westmount, QC
Free, in-person event.

The Quebec Writers’ Federation and Muslim Awareness Week (MAW—2023) invite you to a special panel featuring authors Toula Drimonis and Ehab Lotayef in conversation with Montreal Gazette columnist Fariha Naqvi-Mohamed. Featuring Guest of Honour Frank Baylis, M.P.

Fariha Naqvi-Mohamed is a television and print journalist and the founder and editor-in-chief of CanadianMomEh, the number one diversity blog in Canada. Fariha made history as the first woman to wear the hijab on Quebec television in her role as a video journalist for CityNews Montreal.

Toula Drimonis is a Montreal-based opinion columnist, news producer and writer, with a focus on politics, social justice, immigration, and women’s issues. In 2022 she published her first book, We, the Others: Allophones, Immigrants, and Belonging in Canada.

Ehab Lotayef is a Canadian poet, writer, community activist, and IT Manager of Egyptian origin. As a poet and writer, Ehab published a bilingual poetry collection, To Love a Palestinian Woman in 2010. His play, Crossing Gibraltar, was produced by the CBC in 2006.

Frank Baylis is a professional engineer, business entrepreneur, film producer, and former Parliamentarian. He is well known for his leadership in promoting equality and fair treatment for all Canadians. As a Member of Parliament, Frank was a founding member of the Parliamentary Black Caucus, which develops constructive community policies and works to address systemic, anti-black racism.

A Literary Conversation with Baharan Baniahmadi
2023-02-01 19:00 - 20:30 | Westmount Public Library, 4626 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Westmount, Quebec, H3Z 1G1, Canada
With Baharan BaniahmadiHosted by Shelley PomeranceIn collaboration with QWF

Join author Baharan Baniahmadi for a discussion about her book Prophetess, winner of the QWF’s 2022 Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. Prophetess is an unflinching allegorical novel that explores trauma, women’s rights, and religious tradition in Iran.

Banff Centre | Late Winter Writers Residency Online 2023
2023-02-06 00:00 - 2023-02-17 23:59 | Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 107 Tunnel Mountain Drive, Banff, Alberta, T1L 1H5, Canada
This two week online residency provides broad thematic teaching from faculty members, Dani Spinosa and Kate Siklosi, Q&A sessions and workshopping. Instructors will discuss ideas, experiences, and obstacles that you may be encountering with your writing of both poetry and fiction. *Financial aid available.
Learn more and apply by Nov 23: https://bit.ly/3qBB2Kf

Atwater Library Lunchtime with: Marc Raboy
2023-02-09 12:30 - 13:30 | Atwater Library and Computer Centre, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Westmount, Quebec, H3Z 1X4, Canada
IN PERSON AND BY ZOOM: For the Atwater Library Lunchtime Series, author Marc Raboy gives a presentation on his book Looking for Alicia: The Unfinished Life of an Argentinian Rebel, winner of the Quebec Writers’ Federation’s 2022 Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction.To REGISTER and get the Zoom link, click here.Registration is not required for in-person attendance.Free admission and everyone is welcome.
