Quebec Writers' Federation

Shut Up & Write! with QWF (In Person)
2025-05-02 12:30 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | QWF Office, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3, Westmount, QC, H3Z 1X4, Canada
Friday, May 2, 2025, 12:30 pm–3:00 pmFree, In PersonQWF Office (Room 3, 1200 Atwater Ave., Westmount)

Register for the session by filling out the RSVP form below.

Looking for some dedicated, quiet writing space?

Join us for an in-person Shut Up & Write session at the QWF office!

Do all that writing you’ve been meaning to do, and meet a few of your fellow QWF members. Using the Pomodoro technique, participants write in 25-minute bursts, with 5-minute breaks in between.

This event is for QWF members only. Not a member? Learn about becoming a member.

Please note that these sessions are designed for silent writing, rather than discussing or getting feedback on work.

12:30–12:55: Writing 112:55–1:00: Break1:00–1:25: Writing 21:25–1:30: Break1:30–1:55: Writing 31:55–2:00: Break2:00–2:25: Writing 42:25–2:30: Break2:30–2:55: Writing 5

To register, RSVP below.

Getting to the QWF Office

Our office is located on the top floor of the Atwater Library and Computer Centre, in Room 3.

Address: 1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3Westmount, QC H3Z 1X4

Closest Metro: Atwater Station

Closest Bus lines: 24, 63, 90, 104, 138, 144, 150

Accessibility:

The QWF Office is fully accessible by wheelchair from the side entrance on Tupper Street. Once inside, there is an elevator to the second floor, where the QWF office is.

Learn more about the office location and accessibility.

If you registered and can no longer attend, please email john@qwf.org to notify us.

Subverting the Canon: Writing Plays As Though Race, Class, Gender and Sexual Orientation Mattered
2025-05-03 12:00 - 2025-05-11 16:00 | Quebec
With Corrina Hodgson

Subverting the Canon: Writing Plays as if Race, Class, Gender and Sexual Orientation Mattered is an innovative workshop designed to challenge conventional storytelling and enable playwrights to craft narratives that reflect the diversity of human experience. Focusing on perspectives historically marginalized in traditional theatre, participants will explore how inclusivity and authenticity can enhance the impact of their work.

This workshop is essential to fostering a vibrant artistic community. At a time when audiences demand stories that resonate with the complexities of contemporary life, it’s essential that playwrights are able to address themes of identity and social justice. By offering writers a space where they can hone their craft while exploring these crucial issues, the workshop cultivates voices capable of engaging, educating and inspiring.

In this workshop, participants will learn theory in the first two sessions with the trainer, receive a writing assignment to complete during the week, then return to theory and practice in week 2.

Dates: May 3, 4 + 10, 11 2025Location: In person location TBD & Over Zoom upon requestTime(s): 12-4 PMRegistration Fee: $45Number of Participants: 8

Novel Essentials: The Art & Craft of Long-Form Fiction
2025-05-05 18:00 - 20:00, 2025-05-12 18:00 - 20:00, 2025-05-19 18:00 - 20:00 | QWF Office, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3, Westmount, QC, H3Z 1X4, Canada
Have you had an itch to write a novel, but haven’t known how to tackle such a large project? Now is the perfect time to dust off your ideas! This workshop is a boot camp for budding writers eager to turn their novelistic dream into a reality. From iron-clad structures and story tropes to the ins-and-outs of how character motivation pushes a great plot, this 10-week intensive workshop will impart professional tips and tricks-of-the-trade essential to bringing long-form fiction to life.

The workshop will focus on practical knowledge not covered in a typical writing workshop: initial idea development; a deep dive on novelistic structure; how to build the perfect plot; character development and motivation; scene development; and how to handle secondary and tertiary characters, to name a few. Each week, you will learn one or more essential techniques and/or theories, as well as participate in short, practical exercises that will help you build your novel. As you master the elements, you will have opportunities to develop and workshop your original novel concepts.

While an emphasis will be placed on long-form writing, all writers looking to master essential elements of fiction writing are encouraged to attend. You do not require prior workshop experience or an idea for a novel to take this workshop. Participants interested in developing fiction of all kinds are more than welcome!

L. E. Sterling (Erin Vollick, also published under L. E. Vollick) is the author of numerous novels spanning contemporary, Young Adult, fantasy, science-fiction, dystopian and romance genres. Her hit series, the True Born Trilogy, was optioned for television, and True Born, the first novel in the trilogy, was recognized internationally with the 2017 Athena Award® in Young Adult literature. With a B.A. and M.A. in Creative Writing and a Ph.D. in Literature, Sterling taught creative writing and literature for many years. She has appeared at BookCon NYC, the LA Times Festival of Books, and Ad Astra.

Craft Meets Magic: The Alchemy of Short Fiction
2025-05-05 20:00 - 22:00, 2025-05-14 17:45 - 19:45, 2025-05-21 17:45 - 19:45 | QWF Office, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3, Westmount, QC, H3Z 1X4, Canada
Is there an art form more maddening than the short story? Demanding the complexity of a novel, the lyricism of a poem, and the economy of a joke, the work is tedious and the rewards (for most of us) are slim. Still, for us cursed few, the short story is an addictive nut to crack. After all, there’s little more thrilling than the prose of a writer who can do more with a handful of pages than most can do with 300. The complexity of a novel! The lyricism of a poem! The economy of a joke!

Join us, if you dare, for an 8-week workshop where participants will share and critique each other’s work with an eye towards craft. Specifically, we will ask ourselves questions like, “What are characters made of?” “How is a plot built?” “Do I really need to describe everything?”

Equally important to studying these questions will be putting them aside, as we celebrate and cultivate the magic that makes art artin the first place–that intangible whatever that defines our passion for fiction. After all, what else do we have to keep us warm as we trudge through draft to draft?

As time allows, we’ll also read stories by published authors like ZZ Packer, Donald Barthelme, Jhumpa Lahiri, Joy Williams, and George Saunders. Participants will be asked to read and prepare responses to a short story (distributed from me by email) prior to our first meeting.

Frankie Barnet is the author of Mood Swings (McClelland & Stewart), which was a finalist for the Grand prix du livre de Montréal; Kim: A Novel Idea (Metatron); and An Indoor Kind of Girl (Metatron). Her work has appeared in places such as PRISM International, EVENT, Joyland, The Erotic Review, and Biblioasis’ Best Canadian Short Stories Anthology. She has an MFA from Syracuse University and lives in Montreal.

Writers Out Loud: A Night of Trans Joy
2025-05-06 19:00 - 20:30 | Librairie Pulp Books & Cafe, 3952 Wellington Street, Montreal, Quebec, H4G1V3, Canada
The Quebec Writers’ Federation invites you to Writers Out Loud: A Night of Trans Joy—an evening of literary conversation and community celebration.

Join us as we hear from four exciting and talented Quebec writers. Author and moderator Chris Bergeron will sit down with writers Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, Blxck Cxsper, and Lenore Claire Herrem to discuss their work, their experiences of trans joy, and how those experiences colour their writing. A Q&A with the audience will follow the panel discussion.

RSVP on Facebook

Photo by Geneviève Charbonneau

Chris Bergeron is diverse and fluid: after beginning a career in journalism and eventually winding up at the helm of the weekly cultural magazine Voir, she now dedicates her artistic vitality to Cossette, a leading global marketing agency. She offers speaking engagements on leadership, diversity, inclusion, and trans rights. Chris lives in Montreal.

Photo by Julie Langenegger

Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay lives in Montreal (Tiohtià:ke) and is a writer, poet, actress, and advocate for trans rights. She published a poetry collection, Les secrets de l’origami and has written for several magazines and publications, including Lettres Québécoises, Estuaire, XYZ, Moebius and Le Devoir as a columnist. Her children’s book La voix de la nature was nominated for the Prix du Livre Jeunesse des Bibliothèques de Montréal. Her first novel, La fille d’elle-même, won the Prix des Libraires du Québec 2022 and is distributed in Europe with JC Lattès and in English as Dandelion Daughter with Véhicule Press. The translation was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award ’24. This year, the book will be translated into Spanish. She is currently working on the sequel to the novel.

Blxck Cxsper is a multidisciplinary artist, storyteller, and cultural disruptor based in Montréal. Known for their genre-bending music that blends hip-hop, R&B, and Afro-Caribbean influences, Cxsper uses sound as a tool for emotional transformation and political resistance. They are the founder of Trans Trenderz, a record label dedicated to uplifting transgender musicians and building equity in the music industry. Blxck Cxsper is also a writer, actor, and director and is currently working on a novel that expands the fictional universe of Blxck Cxsper—a former superhero turned vigilante fighting against institutional corruption to protect the marginalized.

Lenore Claire Herrem is a transdisciplinary artist from Saskatoon and has been working in Tio’Tia:Ke (Montréal) since 2013. Formally trained in theatre performance, she also works in studio arts, animation, digital art, video art, and performance art. She works under the character name Sandy Bridges for cabaret and web series, and Precious Puppies is the name of her humble animation & merchandising empire.

RSVP on Facebook

Shut Up & Write! with QWF (Virtual)
2025-05-10 10:00 - 12:30 | Online – Please RSVP to receive a Zoom link
Saturday, May 10, 2025, 10:00 am–12:30 pm ETOnline via Zoom—RSVP below to receive the Zoom link

Looking for some dedicated, quiet writing space?

Register below to do all that writing you’ve been meaning to do. Using the Pomodoro technique, participants write in 25-minute bursts, with 5-minute breaks in between.

This event is for QWF members only. Not a member? Learn about becoming a member.

The Zoom link will be sent out a day or two before the session.

Please note that these sessions are designed for silent writing, rather than discussing or getting feedback on work.

10:00–10:25: Writing 110:25–10:30: Break10:30–10:55: Writing 210:55–11:00: Break11:00–11:25: Writing 311:25–11:30: Break11:30–11:55: Writing 411:55–12:00: Break12:00–12:25: Writing 5

To receive the Zoom link, RSVP below. You will receive the Zoom link a few days before the session.

Note: RSVPs for virtual Shut Up & Write! sessions close 24 hours before the session begins. If there is no option to RSVP, RSVPs are closed.

Lecture Logos Readings 10-Year Anniversary
2025-05-12 19:00 - 21:00 | UNIA Liberty Hall, 2741 Notre Dame Street West, 2741 Notre Dame Street West, Montreal, Quebec, H3J 1N9, Canada
The Lectures Logos Readings team invites you to celebrate with us our tenth anniversary on Monday May 12, 2025 at 2741 Notre-Dame West, Montréal, QC H3J 1N9, 7-9 pm. The guest readers are: Deanna Smith, Alice Zorn, Fabrice Vil, and Magalie Lefebvre Jean.

Exceptionally, there’ll be 16 open-mic spaces.

Lunch and Learn with the Montreal Review of Books
2025-05-13 12:00 - 13:00 | Online – Please RSVP to receive a Zoom link
Tuesday, May 13, 2025, 12:00–1:00 pm ETOnline via Zoom, Registration Required

Register for Zoom link

How does an author get their book reviewed? How can an aspiring book reviewer get started?

If you’re asking yourself these sorts of questions, don’t miss this Lunch & Learn with the Montreal Review of Books (mRb)!

mRb is a free, nationally distributed journal of reviews, features, and essays on English-language books by Quebec writers and publishers. They cover literature, non-fiction, poetry, memoirs, history, graphic novels, children’s books, and more.

In this iteration of our Lunch & Learn series, we will be joined by mRb Editor-in-Chief Malcolm Fraser. Malcolm will give us an overview of the journal, including how they select the books they cover and how they assign reviewers to these titles.

Come join us on May 13, from 12nn to 1pm ET to learn more about the work Malcolm and the team do. Feel free to bring questions!

Register for the session to get the Zoom link. For inquiries, please reach out to QWF at riley@qwf.org.

This session will be recorded and posted on QWF’s YouTube channel.

Register on Zoom

Book Launch: Quietly, Loving Everyone by Curtis John McRae
2025-05-15 19:00 - 21:00 | Cardinal Tearoom, 5326 St Laurent Blvd, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Véhicule Press invites you to the launch of Curtis John McRae’s debut short story collection Quietly, Loving EveryoneJoin us for an evening of readings and conversation with the author and Dimitri Nasrallah. The event is free and open to all.

Quietly, Loving Everyone, Curtis McRae’s debut collection of stories, assembles a meditative and often profound cycle of portraits pulled from everyday Canadian life. A young boy raises James Dean from the dead, only to find out the cult icon is not the playmate he’d hoped for. A university student riddled with ulcers silently spirals after being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. A young girl takes a road trip with her older sister to Cape Cod, and years later reconstructs the tragic circumstances behind what she remembers. A couple goes on a date at an old porn theatre that is the last remaining vestige of a neighbourhood that has moved on. McRae plays witness to characters at those crucial beginnings or ends of relationships, with lovers, friends, family, and most importantly themselves.

Curtis John McRae is editor-in-chief at Yolk Literary Journal. His fiction has appeared in The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Chronicling the Days anthology (Guernica Editions, 2021), and others. He lives in Montreal.

Shut Up & Write! with QWF (In Person)
2025-05-16 12:30 - 15:00 | QWF Office, 1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3, Westmount, QC, H3Z 1X4, Canada
Friday, May 16, 2025, 12:30 pm–3:00 pmFree, In PersonQWF Office (Room 3, 1200 Atwater Ave., Westmount)

Register for the session by filling out the RSVP form below.

Looking for some dedicated, quiet writing space?

Join us for an in-person Shut Up & Write session at the QWF office!

Do all that writing you’ve been meaning to do, and meet a few of your fellow QWF members. Using the Pomodoro technique, participants write in 25-minute bursts, with 5-minute breaks in between.

This event is for QWF members only. Not a member? Learn about becoming a member.

Please note that these sessions are designed for silent writing, rather than discussing or getting feedback on work.

12:30–12:55: Writing 112:55–1:00: Break1:00–1:25: Writing 21:25–1:30: Break1:30–1:55: Writing 31:55–2:00: Break2:00–2:25: Writing 42:25–2:30: Break2:30–2:55: Writing 5

To register, RSVP below.

Getting to the QWF Office

Our office is located on the top floor of the Atwater Library and Computer Centre, in Room 3.

Address: 1200 Atwater Avenue, Room 3Westmount, QC H3Z 1X4

Closest Metro: Atwater Station

Closest Bus lines: 24, 63, 90, 104, 138, 144, 150

Accessibility:

The QWF Office is fully accessible by wheelchair from the side entrance on Tupper Street. Once inside, there is an elevator to the second floor, where the QWF office is.

Learn more about the office location and accessibility.

If you registered and can no longer attend, please email john@qwf.org to notify us.

World Premiere of Michaela Di Cesare's play Mickey & Joe (Good. Bad. Ugly. Dirty)
2025-05-17 20:00 - 22:00, 2025-05-18 20:00 - 22:00, 2025-05-20 20:00 - 22:00, 2025-05-21 20:00 - 22:00, 2025-05-22 20:00 - 22:00, 2025-05-23 20:00 - 22:00, 2025-05-24 14:00 - 16:00 | Mirella & Lino Saputo Theatre, 8370 boul lacordaire, Montreal, Quebec, H2K 4K2, Canada
150 years (give or take) after the “unification” of Italy, a forgotten player finds herself trapped in limbo with her sworn enemy. Dirty Mickey, hailing from the dark Southern underbelly of an otherwise glorious country, was a soldier in the resistance. Joe was the golden boy of the Risorgimento (literally, resurrection), forever remembered as a political hero. What will happen when Mickey, an outlaw who was silenced, murdered and erased for his benefit, comes after his legacy today? This contemporary spaghetti western challenges our collective memory, or collective amnesia.

2025 Ireland Writing Retreat
2025-05-18 00:00 - 2025-05-27 23:59 | Doolin, Ireland, Doolin, County Clare, Ireland
May 18-27, 2025 join a small group (12 maximum) of writers focused on making a connection with Land. This retreat, in Rural Ireland (Doolin, County Clare) is at a UNESCO geopark and a town that has created a cooperative to promote ecotourism that contributes to their way of life rather than destroys it. Retreat is 10 days with 4 writing workshops with Irish writers, 2 meals/day included (with 1 left out so you can explore the village’s farm-to-table and sea-to-table offerings), and more. Please see: https://www.nature-culture.net/ireland-retreat-2025preview (note prices of $1500-$2500 are in USD). Co-led by QWF member Lis McLoughlin, and Irish Rural Writing Collective founder and director Ryan Dennis.

UNMET Book Launch Halifax
2025-05-18 13:00 - 14:30 | Halifax Central Library, 5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3J1E9, Canada
The book launch for the poetry collection UNMET (Biblioasis) by stephanie roberts at the Halifax Central Library with Annick MacAskill.

Poetry Launch with Terese Mason Pierre
2025-05-18 13:00 - 14:30 | Halifax Central Library, 5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3J1E9, Canada
Join us on May 8th at 7pm in launching Terese Mason Pierre’s poetry collection, Myth! Local poets Faith Paré and Misha Solomon will also be reading some of their work for us. Please register to let us know you’ll be attending.

"The Sustainability Class" - book launch / lancement du livre
2025-05-22 19:00 - 20:00 | Librairie Pulp Books & Cafe, 3952 Wellington Street, Montreal, Quebec, H4G1V3, Canada
Join us in welcoming Vijay Kolinjivadi & Aaron Vansintjan to Pulp Books on May 22 for an enlightening conversation about their book The Sustainability Class, building an ecological future, and how “lifestyle environmentalism” has made cities more unsustainable and inaccessible to the working class. Hosted by Quebec Solidaire’s MNA for Verdun, Alejandra Zaga Mendez, this will not be an evening to miss! // Nous vous invitons au lancement de Vijay Kolinjivadi et Aaron Vansintjan le 22 mai prochain pour une conversation enrichissante sur leur livre, The Sustainability Class. Les auteurs discuteront de la construction d’un avenir écologique avec l’honorable Alejandra Zaga Mendez, députée pour Verdun. Bref, une soirée à ne pas manquer! Début de l’événement à 19h / ouverture des portes à 18h45

Soliloquies Launch, 29.2
2025-05-22 19:00 - 21:00 | Cardinal Tearoom, 5326 St Laurent Blvd, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Soliloquies Anthology is launching their 29.2 issue!
Hear readings by contributors, as well as our featured readers Morgan Gordon and Jade Palmer.

Poetry Launch: Christine Wu and Jessica Bebenek
2025-05-22 19:00 - 21:30 | Quebec
Thursday, May 22, 2025, 7:00–9:30 pm ETmai/son (DM hosts for address)

Join Christine Wu and Jessica Bebenek for the Montreal launch of their poetry collections, Familial Hungers by Wu (Brick Books) and No One Knows Us There by Bebenek (Book*hug Press).

Featuring guest reader Liz Howard and musical guest Andrew Whiteman.

BYOBAdmission is free. All are welcome to attend.

Message Jessica Bebenek at @notyrmuse or Christine Wu at @homemadepoem on Instagram for the address.

About No One Knows Us There

In this stunning debut collection, Bronwen Wallace Award finalist Jessica Bebenek presents two distinct and moving portraits of early womanhood. The first is that of the devoted, caregiving granddaughter navigating hospital hallways and the painful realities of palliative care. The second is that of a woman a decade older, compassionately looking back on her younger self. In this second half, Bebenek rewrites poems from the first, honouring unimaginable loss and turning it into genuine healing.

Jessica Bebenek is a queer interdisciplinary poet and educator from Tkaronto (Toronto) who now splits her time between Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) and an off-grid shack on unceded Anishinaabeg territory. She works as a risograph printer and bookmaker at Concordia University’s Centre for Expanded Poetics, where she organized the international Occult Poetics Symposium. In 2021, Bebenek was a finalist for the Writers’ Trust of Canada RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. Her writing has been nominated for the Journey Prize and Pushcart Prize, and she is the author of eight poetry chapbooks, including I Remember the Exorcism. No One Knows Us There is her first book of poetry.

About Familial Hungers

Bittersweet, numbingly spicy, herbal and milky, Familial Hungers is a lyric feast. Ginger scallion fish, Sichuan peppercorns, ginseng tea, Chinese school and white chefs – the reader’s appetite is satiated with these poems’ complex palate. There are the bubbling expectations for immigrant daughters, the chewy strands of colonial critique, and dissolving crystals of language loss. Wu relentlessly searches the grocery shelves for the hard-to-digest ingredients of identity and belonging, offering us her nourishing honesty and courage pulled from the marrow.

Christine Wu is a Chinese-Canadian poet who was born and raised on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh (Vancouver, BC). She has a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of Victoria, a MLIS from Dalhousie University, and a MA in English from the University of New Brunswick. In 2023, she was the winner of the RBC PEN Canada New Voices Award and in 2022, she was shortlisted for the RBC Writers’ Trust Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. She now lives and writes in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, NS) in Mi’kma’ki.

Festival Montréal Mystère / Montréal Mystery Festival
2025-05-23 00:00 - 2025-05-24 23:59 | Grande Bibliothèque de Montréal, 475 Boul. de Maisonneuve E., Montréal, Quebec, H2L 5C4, Canada
Montréal is gearing up for the Montréal Mystery book festival, slated for May 23-24, 2025. For the second year, this trailblazing festival of mystery and thriller literature will be held at the Grande Bibliothèque, located in the vibrant heart of Montréal.

Over 20 distinguished authors from Quebec, the rest of Canada, the United States and Europe will converge for this two-day festival, bringing with them a myriad of tales filled with intrigue, suspense, and mystery. Montreal Mystery is a bilingual event, accommodating both English and French-speaking audiences, reflecting the rich linguistic diversity of the city.

Book presentation of The Last Dance of Mary Kelly
2025-05-24 08:00 - 17:00 | Quebec
E. David Brown’s new novel The Last Dance of Mary Kelly is being released on May 13th. It is available as both an e-book and print book on Amazon and Orca as well as other sites. On May 24th from 11 to 3 he is doing a presentation at the Chapter Indigo on the West Island in the shopping centre across from the Fairview Mall.

Shut Up & Write! with QWF (Virtual)
2025-05-24 10:00 - 12:30 | Online – Please RSVP to receive a Zoom link
Saturday, May 24, 2025, 10:00 am–12:30 pm ETOnline via Zoom—RSVP below to receive the Zoom link

Looking for some dedicated, quiet writing space?

Register below to do all that writing you’ve been meaning to do. Using the Pomodoro technique, participants write in 25-minute bursts, with 5-minute breaks in between.

This event is for QWF members only. Not a member? Learn about becoming a member.

The Zoom link will be sent out a day or two before the session.

Please note that these sessions are designed for silent writing, rather than discussing or getting feedback on work.

10:00–10:25: Writing 110:25–10:30: Break10:30–10:55: Writing 210:55–11:00: Break11:00–11:25: Writing 311:25–11:30: Break11:30–11:55: Writing 411:55–12:00: Break12:00–12:25: Writing 5

To receive the Zoom link, RSVP below. You will receive the Zoom link a few days before the session.

Note: RSVPs for virtual Shut Up & Write! sessions close 24 hours before the session begins. If there is no option to RSVP, RSVPs are closed.
