The Writing Week 2025
All tickets for workshops, writing week will be available on May 1st, and tickets for the Festival will be available May 15th.
In 2025 we have Suzette Mayr leading the writing week. In 2022 she won the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and her latest novel, The Sleeping Car Porter, was published in the Fall 2022. Running from Sunday July 13 through Thursday July 17. (By popular request we have changed the traditional Monday to Friday time period so that participants are able to attend the festival’s first day – Friday July 18.)
Workshops hours run from 9 a.m. to 1 pm for five days (Sunday July 13 through Thursday July 17)
Class limit: 10
Price of workshop: $475
Location: TBD
This workshop explores the craft of fiction and narrative nonfiction. It is geared towards writers in all stages of their projects and their careers. The focus will primarily be on workshopping original material, though there will also be a more formal instruction component covering various aspects of craft and technique.
Please submit a piece of fiction or narrative nonfiction (5000 words maximum) to be read and discussed with your workshop peers, and one-on-one with the instructor. Fiction can be of any subgenre: novels, short stories, novellas, microfictions, prose-poetry hybrid, etc. Likewise, narrative nonfiction can be anything from memoirs and travelogues, to works of history and biography. If your piece is part of a larger narrative, please bring a brief synopsis of the whole. If you have a particular concern with your writing, please include a short note for the instructor; this won't be shared with the group (eg, I'd like to improve the pacing in my story, or I don't understand the motivation of my main character).
Some possible topics:
- Beginnings
- Characterization
- Dialogue
- Language and phrasing
- Effective setting
- Point of View
- Structure and pacing
- Developing or enhancing your own unique voice
- Endings
Applicants: Once you have successfully registered, please send the work you wish to have discussed to the festival workshop organizer no later than July 1st. This copy will be passed on to the instructor. You will receive copies of the other workshop participants’ work early in July and you are expected to have read these prior to the workshop. Please bring writing materials with you.
CANCELLATION POLICY: We regret that we cannot reimburse registration fees beyond June 15th