MFA Newsletter Spring 2026
News about, from, and for students, staff, alumni, and friends of the University of King's College Writing & Publishing Program.
Stanford’s $75,000 Wallace Stegner Fellowship awarded to King’s MFA graduate poet Jenny Li Chen
Jenny Li Chen (CNF23) has been awarded the Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. Each year, over 2,000 writers around the globe apply for the Stegner Fellowship, which is regarded as one of the most prestigious creative writing fellowships in the world with only five fiction writers and five poets selected. Jenny was offered one of five spots awarded for Poetry. The appointment runs from 2026 to 2028. The two-year fellowship includes a $75,000 US annual stipend along with full tuition and fees paid by Stanford.
Jenny says: “I’m deeply grateful for my time in UKing’s MFA program, which set me on this path. Special thanks to Stephen Kimber, my cohort director, and Ken McGoogan and Carol Shaben, the best mentors I could ever have. I’m also thankful for my MFA cohort and fellow MFA writers, whose support, perseverance, and dedication inspired me to keep writing, keep submitting, and never give up.”
Creative Writing & Storytelling Conference taking place April 24-26 on King’s campus
The University of King’s College announces its second annual Creative Writing & Storytelling Conference, hosted by the Writing & Publishing MFA programs in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction.
Dates: April 24-26, 2026
Location: University of King’s College Campus, Halifax, Nova Scotia
This year’s conference theme is Writing and Storytelling as Resistance.
In conjunction with Canadian Independent Bookstore Day, taking place April 25, 2026, the conference will address how storytelling and writing contribute to a renewed artistic age of resistance. As authoritarianism expands and power increasingly narrows and corrupts, what are our duties as writers and storytellers? Who gets to tell a story? And as the traditional book publishing industry navigates the constraints and irrationality of late capitalism, what are the alternative modes of presenting, sharing, publishing, and telling stories? How can writing, an individual practice, be mobilized to create communities of resistance? What is the role of writing craft in social change?
Register now: https://ukings.ca/events/creative-writing-storytelling-conference-2026/
The third annual Spring ForeWord happens April 25 to 29, 2026 at venues around Halifax
See the full schedule: https://afterwordsliteraryfestival.com/spring-foreword/
Conference participants may especially be interested in these events:
North End Bookcrawl
Sunday, April 26: 12 pm to 2 pm
Join us as we visit some of our favourite North End Halifax book and book-adjacent destinations. This event is free but do register in advance to receive the route and other information. We’ll spend about 20 minutes in each stop, where you can take advantage of special deals and discounts, meet other book people, and get to know our festival staff, as well. It’s a very nerdy amount of fun, and we’d love to see you there. https://afterwordsliteraryfestival.com/product/bookcrawl-north-end-edition/
Tell Others: Kim Echlin in conversation with Evelyn C. White
Sunday, April 26: doors open at 3:30 pm, event 4 pm to 5:30 pm
In Tell Others: Storytelling for a World in Turmoil, critically acclaimed novelist Kim Echlin examines how we turn to literature to measure our lives against the darknesses of our time. Tell Others explores how literature resists silencing and repression with truth and imagination. Evelyn C. White conducts this conversation. https://afterwordsliteraryfestival.com/product/tell-others/
Independent Bookstore Day
Join Bookmark (5686 Spring Garden Road) for Independent Bookstore Day.
This year’s celebration at Bookmark includes:
- A chance to win a $1,000, or one of four $200 Bookmark gift certificates. Please visit indiebookstores.ca/CIBD for the full contest rules.
- Bookmark’s popular ‘Spin to Win’ contest will be back with chances to win extra points, swag and product, or donations to our local food bank.
- Lots of book swag and exclusive merchandise while quantities last.
- Date with a book.
- Double points on all qualifying purchases for our Bookmark Reader Rewards Program. If you haven’t signed up for our Reader Rewards Program, please ask us, it’s FREE.
Venture down to the King’s Co-op Bookstore (Basement of NAB, King’s campus) for Independent Bookstore Day, where there will also be in-store deals.
King’s MFA summer residency begins June 6 with celebrated writer-in-residence Amanda Leduc
The summer Writer-in-Residence this year is celebrated author Amanda Leduc. Her Giller-longlisted book, Wild Life (Penguin Random House, 2025), was recently nominated for the 2026 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. She is also the author of the essay collection Disfigured (Coach House Books) listed as one of CBC’s Top Nonfiction Books of 2020. Leduc will be talking to both fiction and nonfiction students during the week and will be featured in a public author talk at Halifax Central Library.
King’s Summer Residency runs from June 6 – June 14.
“We anticipate our biggest class ever arriving on campus with around 120 to 125 students,” says King’s MFA Writing & Publishing Director Gillian Turnbull. “This year will be the first year we spotlight our Fiction alumni at the new Kimber Reading Series, a parallel to the nonfiction version, the Sedgwick Reading Series. Both events, along with Leduc’s author talk and our mentor reading night, will take place at Halifax Central Library.” The reading events begin at 7 pm.
Dates:
June 8: Sedgwick readings
June 9: Kimber readings
June 11: Amanda Leduc WiR
June 12: Mentor readings
King’s welcomes two new MFA Mentors, Adrienne Gruber (CNF) and Chelene Knight (Fiction)
ADRIENNE GRUBER is an award-winning writer originally from Saskatoon. She is the author of five chapbooks, three books of poetry, including Q & A (Book*hug Press, 2019), Buoyancy Control (Book*hug Press, 2016), and This is the Nightmare (Thistledown Press, 2008), and the creative nonfiction collection, Monsters, Martyrs, and Marionettes: Essays on Motherhood (Book*hug Press, 2024). She won the 2015 Antigonish Review’s Great Blue Heron poetry contest, SubTerrain’s 2017 Lush Triumphant poetry contest, placed third in Event’s 2020 creative non-fiction contest, and was the winner of SubTerrain’s 2023 creative non-fiction contest. Both her poetry and nonfiction have been longlisted for the CBC Books awards. In 2012, Mimic was awarded the bp Nichol Chapbook Award. Adrienne lives with her partner and their three daughters on Nex̱wlélex̱m (Bowen Island), B.C., the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples.
CHELENE KNIGHT is the author of Braided Skin (Mother Tongue, 2015), the memoir Dear Current Occupant, winner of the 2018 Vancouver Book Award and long-listed for the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature. Her novel, Junie (Book*hug, 2022) is winner of the 2023 Vancouver Book Award, long-listed for the inaugural Carol Shields Fiction Prize, and a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Prize for LGBTQ fiction. Her book of narrative nonfiction, Let It Go: Free Yourself From Old beliefs and Find a New Path To Joy is out with HarperCollins Canada. Chelene’s guided journal, Safekeeping, is also out now (Anansi, 2025).
King’s Co-op Bookstore ‘Jules Recommended’
The King’s MFA program has a longstanding connection and friendship with King’s Co-op Bookstore — where you can purchase over a hundred titles written by King’s MFA alumni, students, and faculty!
Bookstore assistant manager Jules Wilson shares their ‘Recommended Reads’.
The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy
by Ursula K. Le Guin, featuring a new introduction by Ken Liu, edited by Susan Wood
My own introduction to Ursula K. Le Guin came just days before she died. Can you imagine? Not just meeting Le Guin, but immediately grieving her? The love was so big, it felt like getting pulled into a parade when I’d planned simply to stand on the curb. Despite knowing of Le Guin’s work, I’d prematurely determined it wasn’t for me. Then, an essayist and CNF author I admire named Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle as one of her greatest craft influences. I checked the series out from the library and devoured it in a week. I’ve never had a reading experience like it!
The Language of the Night contains twenty-four essays, revised by Le Guin a decade after the book’s initial publication in 1979. Grouped into five sections, each section is introduced and contextualized by critic and educator Susan Wood. Individual essays include “Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?”, “Dreams Must Explain Themselves”, “The Child and the Shadow”, and “Escape Routes”. Le Guin’s insights are just as relevant today, inviting writers to consider collaboration among peers, censorship and artistic responsibility, and wrestling with concepts of truth and joy.
Guilt as medicine: the power of a single great sentence
“Self-doubt is often not an assessment of reality but of confidence”
by Jessica H. Payne (CNF22)
When I first met Chris Moore (CNF22) in the King’s MFA program, he was then dean in the Faculty of Science at Dalhousie. I didn’t yet know he would become a good writing friend. I certainly didn’t know that a drunk driving accident in his youth changed the trajectory of his life or that he too loved a single great sentence. I was self-protective, aware of his career as a psychologist, and how my experience of psychiatric institutionalization within my family clouded my judgement.
I was soon impressed, not only by the quality of Moore’s writing, the brilliant tragic hopefulness, but also the quality of his character. Chris Moore is someone who will look you in the eyes and genuinely ask “How are you?” and really want to know. Entering the MFA to study amongst a community of writers, Moore says he felt exhilarated, “And, to be honest, a bit intimidated. There were so many talented writers in the program. I felt a bit like an outsider, but was also very eager to soak everything in.”
I was lucky to be in conversation with Moore for the Toronto launch of his book, The Power of Guilt: Why We Feel it and its Surprising Ability to Heal.
Snow came down thick and fluffy, the night before our conversation and Moore’s flight was delayed a day. He arrived for the launch, shoes thick with slush. “You need someone to shovel this walk for you.” He bellowed over the wind. “Don’t get me started with that.” I replied, then gave him a squeeze and took the snack platters from his wife Kristen who was trying to balance on the ice. “Thank you, but you don’t need to do that,” Moore said, referring to helping with the platter. I joked I would feel guilty if I didn’t.
The room filled with old friends and new as Queen Books’ windows fogged from the warmth, and I asked the first question. “When did you know you wanted to become a writer?”
“In one sense I have never thought of myself as a ‘writer’ in the sense that writing is my purpose or my vocation. I am a scientist and an ideas person: someone who likes to understand the world, including the psychological world. A part of the process of understanding the world is engaging and debating with other like-minded people. For this you must be able to communicate clearly through writing. So, I knew I would have to become a ‘writer’ when I made the decision to devote myself to communicating scientific ideas to a nonspecialist audience and that moment came as I approached retirement from my academic position.”
We discussed how his writing practice with this book differed from his academic writing and Moore responded in his English accent worn over his years living in Halifax. “My writing practice is not routine. I tend to write when I have time and feel the urge. I am not one of those writers who has a writing schedule, say six to nine every morning, although I understand the importance of a routine. Fortunately for me, I tend to get ideas popping up in odd moments and places, then I feel the need to get the idea down even if it is just a note on my phone.”
When he transitioned to writing for a general audience, he realized creative nonfiction required a heightened sensitivity to the reader, based on how they would engage with the text, and that’s where he spent most of his time learning. “The Kings MFA was enormously helpful in retraining me in that way.”
The MFA education on the business side of publishing was especially valuable in helping Moore look for an agent and secure HarperCollins as his publisher. “I think the key benefit was the training in ‘pitching.’ It took me a while to find an agent – there was a full year after the program where I pitched and got nowhere – but in the end the query letter I developed in the MFA program did the job.” Moore emphasized the value of becoming “agented.” “Once that relationship was in place, the refinement of my proposal was completed very quickly, and we had the deal with Collins within two months. The important point is that it may not matter how good a writer you are or how good your manuscript is, if you cannot navigate the structures that gatekeep entry into the traditional publishing world, then it is very difficult to make progress toward publication.”
Moore doesn’t hold back in his book and that’s where the medicine is. The chapter where he exposes his anger in an Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) session with his psychotherapist Dr. F is unflinchingly vulnerable. The power of the writing lies in witnessing how a trusted relationship with a therapist, and befriending guilt, has the power to heal.
As a scientific writer and researcher, Moore knows being willing to be challenged or proved wrong is essential. “The notion of ‘settled science’ is anathema to the actual scientific process. When you understand that, it generates a deep humility about what you are doing. You take your place in the long chain of scientific discovery. Science communication has a role in helping to transmit the current state of understanding more broadly, but it should never be taken to be telling people the final facts of the matter!”
I pressed Moore for writerly advice. “I haven’t got anything genuinely novel that probably lots of smart people have not said before. But the things I learned and carry with me now are:
- Don’t let self-doubt win. It’s natural to doubt yourself before a project comes fully together, but that self-doubt is often not an assessment of reality but of confidence.
- Sometimes you need to step away, go for a walk, and let ideas percolate.
- Progress is often not measured by the number of words on the page. Sometimes coming up with a single sentence can be the key to unlock a lot of future progress. So, be satisfied with those single great sentences!”
I joined Moore, his wife Kristen, and their friends for dinner at Gio’s after the event. We ordered negronis and ate too much pasta. “Thank you for doing this.” Moore said, clinking my glass. He didn’t know that doing this was part of my own healing, that being a person with a history of mental illness interviewing an expert psychologist put us on level ground. I smiled, and said “Of course.”
Alongside participating in Book Clubs for Inmates, a registered charity that fosters empathy, connection, and supports rehabilitation among incarcerated individuals using the power of literature, Moore is already conceptualizing his next writing project, which I am sure will have some medicine and many single great sentences within.
Can we learn to feel better in a sick world?
“There’s so much support and such a sense of community”
By Lana Hall (CNF23)
When psychiatrist and professor Joanna Cheek (CNF24) applied to the King’s MFA in Creative Nonfiction program, a question had been circulating in her mind for years: What if peoples’ mental health conditions weren’t a sign of weakness, but a normal reaction to a world that’s both literally and figuratively on fire?
“I actually found that I was noticing system problems that were bigger than what I could address in my office,” says Cheek, who teaches and practices psychiatry at the University of British Columbia’s School of Medicine. “I felt like a lot of self-help books were missing social context.”
So, taking a hint from the oft-quoted words of author Toni Morrison, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it,” Cheek set out to do just that.
Her book, It’s Not You, It’s the World: A Mental Health Survival Guide For All, released by HarperCollins in February, provides resources for strengthening our mental health, while acknowledging what she calls the “ailing systems” — social, economic, geopolitical, environmental — that are often a catalyst for mental health concerns.
“I wrote it in hopes of decreasing the stigma that’s misplaced onto individuals,” she says about the book. “If we just individualize and treat, we’re trying to get rid of the distress. But that’s not the actual problem. My book’s really saying that we can’t just be healthy by only trying to feel better in a sick world.”
Once we learn how to be more resilient, we can begin making changes to those systems that keep us in a cycle of feeling depressed, anxious or hopeless, the book argues. That argument was shaped and polished during Cheek’s time in the King’s MFA program.
Heading into the King’s MFA program, Cheek, who had previously completed a 10-month Journalism program at the University of Toronto, had the advantage of a clear and comprehensive book idea. As a freelance health journalist, she was starting to gain a reputation as an expert on the interconnectedness of mental health and larger social crises, with bylines in the Toronto Star, CBC and The Conversation. But her nonfiction classes at King’s helped refine the book’s title, framing, and ultimately, what she wanted readers to take away from it. “The program helped me make it sexy, and it really worked,” she says. “I think they really helped me frame it in a way that agents and publishers and general audiences could understand.” Cheek worked with mentors Kelly Thompson, who specializes in writing and speaking about trauma, and Cooper Lee Bombardier, who she felt was savvy about incorporating a diversity, equity and inclusion lens into his writing. “It was just the perfect combo,” says Cheek. “My book does really write about lived experiences and other peoples’ experiences, and I wanted to be able to do that without appropriating or harming the people that I’m highlighting.”
For Cheek, the program wasn’t only about honing her longform craft skills, but also about making connections, both personal and professional. She met her agent, Transatlantic’s Marilyn Biderman, during one of the program’s winter residencies. When her manuscript proposal was finished, she sent it to Biderman who agreed to represent her, and soon after, landed a two-book deal with HarperCollins. “It was quite the whirlwind. But without the program, I would have never been in the right room,” say Cheek.
While workshopping manuscript chapters, Cheek also came to appreciate the breadth of professional experience her fellow students brought to the program, with many having worked in the mental health field or having lived experience of trauma themselves. In part, she attributes this to the vast age range the King’s MFA program attracts, including plenty of students in middle-age and beyond. “The wealth of experience and lived experience in particular was so helpful,” she says. “I felt really lucky to come [to the program] at this later-in-life time.”
Much of Cheek’s last few months has involved launch events and speaking engagements for It’s Not You, It’s the World. But as she looks ahead to her second book under contract with HarperCollins — about the societal benefits of neurodiversity — she still relies on the relationships made in the program, both for emotional support and for practical suggestions.
“There’s just so much support and such a sense of community that continues after the program ends that I’m so lucky to have.”
Class Notes:
Katharine Lake Berz (CNF27) wrote three features about Ukrainian survivors of Russian violence in The Toronto Star: “She was pregnant when taken prisoner by Russia. This Ukrainian medic told captors her secret — and it may have saved her life.” and “He faced Russia’s brutality for years. But like Ukraine, Serhii persevered,” appeared in December, and “Russia’s invasion, four years on: How the war in Ukraine is pulling families apart,” was published in February.
Daniel Boyce’s (CNF24) agent, Hilary McMahon at Westwood Creative Artists, recently sold the rights to Sea Silver, Daniel’s nonfiction work about how the oceans’ smallest fish shape our lives and feed the planet, to Douglas and McIntyre (Canada) and Godine (US). Publication is tentatively scheduled for 2027-28.
Jenny Li Chen (CNF23) has been awarded the Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. She published the poem “Algorithm Duplex” in the March 2026 issue of the Literary Review of Canada and “Jar of Soil” in West Trestle Review’s Spring 2026 edition.
Moira Dann (CNF16) is halfway through an MA in Public History at University of Victoria, with plans to graduate in 2027. With her coursework complete, she’s commenced an annotated historical fiction project about the wealthy Dunsmuir women of Victoria, who had money, but no agency … and how they got around that! Come September, Moira will again be offering the obit-writing course she developed, in the King’s Teaching Creative Writing workshop, as part of U Vic’s Continuing Studies program.
Nancy Dutra (CNF25) published an article, “Canadian Grammy nominee Laila Biali has a steadfast faith,” in Broadview Magazine.
The book tour for “One in Six Million” (Goose Lane Editions, 2025) has led Amy Fish (CNF23) to the most interesting places and conversations — from the back of a kosher deli in Denver to the pulpit in Chicago to a (Zoom) book club in Hong Kong. As Chair of the Webinar Committee for the Creative Nonfiction Collective Society, Amy says “We’ve been able to feature some King’s colleagues this year (Jenny Chen, Fay Martin, Jo-Ann Roberts) and we are always looking for new ideas/guests. Please contact me (via her website) if you are interested.
One of Nancy Forde’s (CNF26) photographs recently graced the cover of The New Quarterly’s Winter 2026 issue. Her bio appears on the opening page. This is the third time one of Nancy’s photos has landed on the cover of this exceptional literary journal.
The bestselling author of Baseball Life Advice, Stacey May Fowles (CNF15) returns with the honesty, humour, and heart that readers love in a memoir exploring infertility, motherhood, mental health, and the work demanded of women. The Lost Season: A Memoir of Infertility, Motherhood, and the Worry and Work Demanded of Women (McClelland & Stewart, June 2026) is a raw, powerful exploration of undoing and becoming.
Joan Francuz (CNF16) next book, Please Touch Everything: A History of the Ontario Science Centre, is heading intoproduction at Dundurn Press and scheduled for release this June.
CNF Mentor Lorri Neilsen Glenn book The Old Moon in Her Arms: Women I Have Known and Been was a 2025 Sarton Finalist in memoir for the Story Circle Network’s Women’s Book Awards.
Patti-Kay Hamilton (CNF27) is one of four recipients of this year’s Margaret Lynch MFA Award.
Michelle Hébert’s (CNF24) third book and debut memoir, A Good Girl’s Guide to Lying: Losing My Memories, Searching for Truth, & Confronting Complex Trauma (the book she worked on during the MFA program) will be published by Nimbus on September 15, 2026. For the past six months, Michelle has been mentoring and providing trauma-informed support to writers, especially those working on memoir. You can learn more about her services at michellehebertwrites.com.
Alison Karlene Hodgins (CNF19) is the new Print Editor at explore, Canada’s most-read and most-awarded outdoor adventure magazine.
Rebecca J. Hogue (CNF27) is conducting a short survey directed at writers and she’d love to hear from you: https://forms.gle/oozXxDnuqUQ2AvfH9. Rebecca explains, “I’m exploring ways to blend my backgrounds in writing and instructional design. I’m particularly interested in developing webinars and tutorials that support writers: practical, engaging sessions that help them strengthen their craft, navigate the writing life, and build sustainable creative practices. My goal is to create a series of offerings—some free, some fee‑based—that allow me to keep teaching, support the writing community, and share what I know in a way that feels meaningful and sustainable.” Rebecca will share the survey results on her blog: rebeccahogue.com. She also began a new podcast — Definitely Not Famous: More Extra than Ordinary — to elevate the stories of everyday people. Available at https://definitelynotfamous.com.
Liana Hwang (FIC27) started a podcast, The Word Doc, geared toward other physicians, such as herself, interested in writing. Listen on Spotify or wherever you subscribe to your favourite podcasts.
Sandra Vlaar Ingram (CNF26) has been signed for her MFA book project, Big Change: How Menopause Became Menopause Inc. (and What it Means for You), by agent Hilary McMahon of Westwood Creative Artists. Hilary also represents other familiar faces from King’s including Dean Jobb, Kelly S. Thompson, and more.
In May, HarperCollins Canada will release the paperback edition of Nonfiction Cohort Director Dean Jobb’s true crime bestseller A Gentleman and a Thief: The Daring Jewel Heists of a Jazz Age Rogue. A New York Times Editors’ Choice, the book was a finalist for the Crime Writers of Canada and Richardson Nonfiction awards and the Chicago Writers Association’s Book of the Year award.
Monica Kidd’s (CNF25) forthcoming book Holding Ground: The World’s Eroding Coastlines (HarperCollins Canada, 2027) takes readers to the world’s most inspiring and threatened coastlines in an era of increasing erosion and deadly flooding, providing an investigation into what it means to have one’s homeland erased, and how we might all pull ourselves back from the brink. Sold to editor Lauren McKeon (CNF16) at Harper Canada.
Linda Lefler (FIC27) and other members of the Tufts Cove Writers Collective host a writer’s open mic, “dARTspeak,” in Dartmouth every first Thursday of the month. Come and give a five-minute reading of your own work in any genre. Find dARTspeak on Facebook and Instagram.
CNF Mentor Lezlie Lowe (CNF16) has sold her third book, Drinking Problem: Why Water Fountains Matter to Our Cities, to Alana Wilcox at Coach House Books, in an exclusive submission, by Carolyn Forde at Transatlantic Literary Agency (world).
Angus MacCaull (CNF23) wrote about the explosion of band merch and how Spotify’s war on AI hurts indie artists for Exclaim! He also reported on a new Canadian peace museum led by a grassroots organization for Broadview. Finally, he’s excited to share that he’s signed with Tom Cull of Cull & Co. Literary Agency in the UK to represent his memoir manuscript about coming to terms with tinnitus as a young clarinetist, Ghost Tones.
Deirdre Macdonald (CNF15) launched Her Hat in the Ring: Toronto Milliner El Jamon and Her Circle (Marquis, 2025) about the Ukrainian-Canadian milliner Lily Jamon, born on a small farm in Sirko, Manitoba, who made her way via Depression-era Winnipeg to Toronto where she became one of the most celebrated milliners of mid-twentieth century Toronto. She was the first milliner (hat designer) hired by the Stratford Festival. Deirdre’s goal in writing Her Hat in the Ring, was to shine light on yet another untold story of a talented Canadian woman. Her Hat in the Ring is available through Bookmark in Halifax, and will be available at the Stratford Festival Theatre Gift Shop. For more information, please visit Deirdre’s website deirdremacdonald.ca.
James MacDuff’s (CNF24) memoir The Illogical Adventure: A Memoir of Love and Fate (Pottersfield Press, 2025) and Jo-Ann Roberts’ (CNF23) book, Storm the Ballot Box: An Insider’s Guide to a Voting Revolution (Nimbus, 2025) have both been shortlisted for the Margaret and John Savage First Book Nonfiction Award. The Nova Scotia Book Awards celebrations is set to take place on June 1.
Fiction Mentor Elisabeth de Mariaffi runs the literary magazine Riddle Fence, which recently announced its Spring Fiction and Poetry Prize with special guest judges Billy-Ray Belcourt (Fiction) and Karen Solie (Poetry). Entries have the chance to win an $1000 grand prize and publication in Riddle Fence issue 59. Open to Canadian residents only, the deadline for submissions is April 30, 2026. For information and to submit: https://riddlefence.com/submit/submit-2025contests/.
Fay Martin (CNF23) is happy to announce that her book, Dementia Widow: A Memoir about Love, Death, and Survival(Iguana Books) launched on March 6. The book is available in paperback, ebook or audio wherever you get your books — but she strongly encourages patronizing local indie bookstores. To keep abreast with promotional activities, sign up for emails via www.faymartin.ca.
CNF Cohort Director Kim Pittaway published a craft article on the Brevity Blog titled “Excavate, Scrape, and Shape: Using Discards to Improve Your Craft.”
Adelle Purdham’s (CNF22) poem, “Field Shivers” was published in The Ammonite Review. She served as a peer assessor on the fiction panel for the Ontario Arts Council’s Literary Creation Projects Program.
Bonny Reichert (CNF22) has been hired by the Humber School for Writers as a Mentor to teach Memoir in the Summer Workshop in Creative Writing program.
Rachel Ruecker (CNF27) took part in Katharine Lake Berz’s (CNF27) “Bridging the Divide column” in The Toronto Star. In “Should Canadians feel hopeful about 2026? Two comedians weigh In.” Ruecker, from a generation shaped by high rent and side hustles, helped capture a country torn between hoping for the best and needing a nap.
Set Shuter (CNF22) published an Opinion piece in The Toronto Star, “OSAP grants changed my life: Why are we robbing tomorrow’s young people of the same possibility?” Additionally, she’s excited to share she’s optioned Jane Doucet’s novel Lost & Found in Lunenburg (Vagrant Press) to make into a television show. She’s written the pilot and is now seeking financing and distribution.
Fiction Cohort Director, Wanda Taylor’s documentary project, Unfinished Business, has been greenlit by CBC Television; shooting is set to begin Fall 2026. In addition, her two nonfiction children’s books for the “Great Canadians” Series (Beech Street Books) are also set for release in the Fall; one on the former Governor General Michaelle Jean, and the other on grammy award winning performer The Weeknd.
CNF Mentor Kelly S. Thompson’s newest nonfiction, Disciplinarian: A Killing, a Cover Up, and the Military Protecting Their Own (ECW Press), will release on April 6, 2027. In a drunk driving accident on a warm summer night in 1971, Kelly S. Thompson’s grandfather, Martin Thompson, decapitated Phillip Birch with his shiny blue Chevy after a Friday night spent, as many Fridays were, trying to drink away the memories of the Korean War. Luckily for Martin, his military police brotherhood answered the call, and his crime became a secret buried by both his military, and biological, family. Disciplinarian combines masterful storytelling, fascinating in-depth military and archival research with intimate accounts told in Martin’s point of view, all to unravel the stories of one tortured family, one deadly night, and the systemic pattern of cover-ups within the military that continues to harm the very people it is meant to serve.
Iryn Tushabe (CNF27) was named as one of “3 Black Canadian writers to watch in 2026” by CBC. Her book Everything is Fine Here (House of Anansi, 2025) was nominated for The 2026 Saskatchewan Book Awards Shortlist in three categories: Fiction Award, First Book Award, and City of Regina Award, as well as being named a Finalist for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction.
Palmer Vaughn (FIC27) hosts an arts and culture newsletter on Substack, Bare-Knuckle Artists where he interviews artists and creatives.
Morag Wehrle (CNF25) has a published piece on The Brevity Blog, “Right Story, Wrong Time.” She’s also teamed up with Jennifer Robin Wilson (CNF25) to offer a new writing retreat in Muskoka, Ontario. The 5-day retreat, to be held in June and September each year, is designed for focus, reflection, and creative momentum. Set in a quiet lakefront cottage, it offers a maximum of five writers a combination of facilitated craft workshops and dedicated time to make meaningful progress on their projects. For women and female-identifying writers of CNF and memoir only. Learn more at www.rowlandcottage.com.
Fay Martin (CNF23), Jo-Ann Roberts (CNF23), and Rachel Ruecker (CNF27) are offering a free webinar for Creative Nonfiction Collective Society members ($30 for non-members), “Writing Across the Ages: Old and Young Perspectives on Creative Nonfiction,” on April 23 at 1pm EST.
The MFA Scribbler is edited by Adelle Purdham (CNF22) — thank you for reading!
So many inspiring alumni & faculty!
Great job Adelle! Glad to see MKC Publication can now be read on substack.