Hi Members and Friends 

As the sun starts to warm up, and the grant deadlines come rushing in, we are busily planning the content of our workshop series for the coming year, and I’m really excited to be able to share it all with you. Even as we are tying up the last of the loose ends for WordSpring, we are starting to see plans for WordsFall taking shape too, while the last of the podcast interviews is about to be finished. 

Lots of things are happening! And it’s pretty exciting to see.

Our hopes for further public outreach programs are coming to fruition too, and I look forward to giving you some more information about that as soon as we can. I’ll say this - we are going to be celebrating the Book Awards short list a lot more in the coming months.

In the meantime, we’ve got lots of professional development events you can check out.

Register for upcoming WFNB Events:

Our next live, hybrid workshop is ready for registrations.

Author/editor Frances Peck will be in Moncton on May 8 to give a professional development workshop on writing sentences that sing. It’ll be a great session. If you can’t make the trip to Moncton, you can tune in via zoom. 

Register here, to save your spot.

Frances will also be reading, speaking and signing her books at the Moncton Public Library on the evening before our workshop (May 7 at 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm) if you would like to join her.

Frances will conduct two more online workshops in July and September, which will form the first of our professional development “WordCraft” series. She’s a great teacher, so don’t miss the opportunity to take part.

WordSpring is just around the corner.

If you need to stay at the Rodd Moncton Inn, you only have until May 2 to make your reservations at the group rate. And remember that if you can’t take part in the whole weekend, you can just come for Saturday, or just pay per workshop.

Get Involved

Writing Groups

WFNB member Jeremy Cairns advises us of changes to writers’ groups meeting in Saint John:

• Saint John Writers - Every Sunday, 10am-12 @ Second Cup Cafe
• Saint John Voices - Sunday, April 28th, 6:30-8:30pm @ Wasted Day
• Saint John Publishing Forum - Saturday May 11th, 3:30-5, Saint John Library

Saint John Voices features a published writer and a merch table every month where they can sell their books. If any WFNB writers would like to participate, it’s a great way to get in front of a crowd and possibly sell a few copies. All proceeds go to the author. Beyond the featured reader, it’s an open mic where readers get approx. 7 minutes. They have a panel of experts offering feedback to readers if they choose to receive it.

New Resources for Writers

Workshops and Retreats:

WFNB member Peter Von Ziegesar celebrates his third season organizing the Tennants Cove Writers’ Workshop. He is looking for writer applicants from New Brunswick and the rest of the Maritimes. The 2024 TCWW summer session will be held from July 28 through August 3, 2024. All WFNB members get a 20% discount on tuition.

At TCWW, the focus is on the craft of writing, whether you are starting a new manuscript or revising an old one. The retreat is located in a multi-generational farm in Kars, New Brunswick. The eight-bedroom farmhouse sits on a nature preserve of 175 acres with a view of the cove and the wide, slow Saint John River. Bring your bug spray, your guitar, and your sense of humour. We're serious writers who seriously retreat.

Our participants received fresh insights as they met individually or met as a group with screenwriter and novelist Melissa Scholes Young and creative nonfiction writer and memoirist Peter von Ziegesar. In addition to hands-on instruction and quiet times to write, they ate home-cooked meals, hiked in the fields on the 175-acre farm, and swam and kayaked. There were spectacular sunsets and breakthroughs in every area. The inspirational bonding among the writers continues even today.

“My experience at Tennants Cove Writers Workshop was nothing short of transformative,” says Alastair Woods of Toronto. “I had been writing my novel during stolen moments before work, after dinner and between meetings, and suddenly, I had this incredible opportunity to dedicate myself to writing amidst stunning natural beauty and a supportive creative community. I am incredibly grateful to Peter, Melissa and TCWW for the gifts they gave me. I made more progress on my novel in seven days than I had in the previous seven months.”

To apply or learn more, please use this link.

Renowned poet, Margo Wheaton, is offering a poetry writing workshop on Saturday, April 20, at the Halifax Central Library at 1 pm.

Upcoming Contests, Submissions, and Grants

The 2024 CBC Poetry Prize opened on April 1.

Writers can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems up to 600 words in length. The winner will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and have their work published on CBC Books. https://www.cbc.ca/books/literaryprizes/cbc-poetry-prize-1.4090929

PEN Canada is pleased to announce that submissions for the 2024 RBC PEN Canada New Voices Award are now open.

The annual award aims to encourage new writing and to provide a space where unpublished writers can submit short stories, creative nonfiction, journalism, and poetry. A jury of distinguished Canadian writers will judge the shortlisted submissions, and the winning entry will receive a $3,000 CAD cash prize and mentorship from a renowned Canadian author.  The deadline for submissions is midnight on Sunday, May 19th, 2024.https://pencanada.ca/news/now-accepting-submissions-for-the-rbc-pen-canada-2024-new-voices-award/

Geist submissions and the 19th Annual Geist Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest are now open!

How it works: Send us a story and a postcard—the relationship can be as strong or as tangential as you like, so long as there is a clear connection between the story and the image.

Deadline: May 20, 2024 at 11:59PM PDT.

Winning entries get cash prizes and publication in Geist, so dig through your drawers and find a postcard that inspires the micro-lit writer in you.https://www.geist.com/contests/the-19th-annual-literal-literary-postcard-story-contest

Sunspot Lit’s “Goldilocks Zone” offers authors/artists $500 plus publication.

Sunspot Lit is looking for the perfect combination of craft and appeal in stories, CNF, novel or novella excerpts, artwork, graphic novels, poems, scripts/screenplays. Literary and genre accepted. Closes April 30. Entry fee: $10. Enter through Submittable: https://sunspotlit.submittable.com/submit/280344/goldilocks-zone-2024-500-for-fiction-cnf-poetry-art-or-graphic-novel or Duotrope: https://duotrope.com/listing/34958/goldilocks-zone-contest-authors-artists.

The Icelandic Festival of Manitoba is once again looking for help advertising for our annual poetry and prose contest.

It is free to enter. Cash Prizes. Due date is June 7th 2024. Please check the website for full list of rules and all the details about the contest. 

https://www.icelandicfestival.com/festival-events/contests/poetry-short-story-contest

The 2024 Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize.

The deadline has been extended to April 30th, giving you a little more time to enter the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize!

Awarded for fiction under 2000 words: 1st Prize: 2,000€, 2nd & 3rd Prizes: 1,000€

NEW THIS YEAR:  Increased cash prizes, plus a new residency, and all longlisters will receive one year’s access to the literary consultancy’s “being a writer” platform.

https://desperateliterature.com/prize/

Enjoy the beginnings of Spring, folks! I’ll be seeing you soon, I hope.

Kris