CNFC MONTHLY WEBINARS

 

November 26, 2025 at 10:00am mountain/12:00pm eastern

The Intersection of Creative Nonfiction and Poetry with Jenny Chen, Connor Lafortune, and Betsy Warland

At first, nonfiction and poetry seem like strange bedfellows. One, serious and journalistic. The other, given to wordplay and flights of fancy. But the truth is: they are not very far apart at all. Please join us for a conversation with three writers who are both poets and committed creative nonfiction writers. We will learn about how one kind of work informs the other, how a nonfiction writer can get started in poetry and possible pitfalls to watch out for when crossing genres.

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J.L. Chen is a Chinese Canadian poet/writer based in Vancouver. Her work appears in Grain, Canadian Literature, PRISM, Mantis (Stanford), Tupelo Quarterly, West Trade Review, Queen’s Quarterly, and elsewhere. She was shortlisted for the 2024 Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize, and selected as a Finalist for the 2025 Robert and Adele Schiff Awards by The Cincinnati Review. Chen holds an MFA from the University of King’s College. To learn more, please visit: https://writersunion.ca/member/jl-chen

Connor Lafortune is from Dokis First Nation; he uses his understanding of the world to shape his creations as a writer, spoken word poet, and musician. Connor combines the written word with beadwork and sewing to recreate the stories of colonization, showcase resilience, and imagine a new future. In 2023, he released a single in collaboration with G.R. Gritt titled “Qui crie au loup? ft. Connor Lafortune.” He recently co-editing A Thousand Tiny Awakenings with Lindsay Mayhew through Latitude 46 Publishing. This fall, he released Can You Feel It Now? a short film co-created with Isak Vaillancourt and Ra’anaa Yaminah Ekundayo. Above all else, Connor is an activist, a shkaabewis, and a compassionate human being. Visit nmkns.ca for more information!

Author, editor, mentor, and teacher, Betsy Warland has published 13 books of creative nonfiction and poetry. The second edition of Warland’s 2010 book of essays on writing, Breathing the Page—Reading the Act of Writing (Cormorant Books), came out with ten new essays in 2023. Warland’s 1987 book, serpent (w)rite, (Coach House Press), was likely one of the foreruners of CNF. Along with her BA in Visual Art, Warland draws upon music composition strategies. In 2022, a street opera composed by Lloyd Burritt, based on her 2016 CNF book, Oscar of Between, was premiered in Vancouver.

Over the past few years, Warland has been working with Vancouver writers with lived experience of mental health issues. A Westcoast first: Off the Map, co-edited Seema Shah, Kate Bird and Warland, will be published in June, 2025 by Bell Press.

Warland received the City of Vancouver Mayor’s Award for Literary Excellence in 2016. In 2021, an annual national prize, The VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award, is announced yearly at the Vancouver Writers Festival.

 FREE for members. $30 for non-members.

REGISTER HERE

If your membership is expired or you wish to become part of our community, you can renew or join us HERE.

The Creative Nonfiction Collective Society (CNFC) is grateful to the Canada Council for the Arts for supporting this webinar series.

Past Webinars

October 17, 2025 at 10:00am mountain/12:00pm eastern – Serious Fun: Using Play to Reimagine and Reinvigorate Your Writing Practice with Karen Pinchin and Lizzie Stark

In this interactive workshop, authors Lizzie Stark (Egg, Big Crone Energy) and Karen Pinchin (Kings of Their Own Ocean) will explore how play can spark creativity and sustain your writing practice. Together, we’ll share our own techniques—from embodied research to routine hacks—that can help writers move past roadblocks and discover fresh approaches to their work. Participants will experiment with playful strategies that reframe stuck moments as opportunities, while learning how to incorporate these tools into a long-term creative process. Writers of every experience level will leave with practical, whimsical methods to reinvigorate their craft and reconnect with their sense of curiosity.

September 23, 2025 at 11:00am mountain/1:00pm eastern – Beauty in the Small: Writing captivating fragments, remnants, and traces with Lorri Neilsen Glenn

A fleeting observation, a sharp insight, a brief exchange with a stranger—our lives are composed of the quotidian and the small. What happens when we pay close attention to ordinary everyday moments? What worlds open up, what nuance and detail do we discover when we find the words to capture them? In this webinar, we will explore the power and possibilities of short (and shorter) nonfiction.

Thursday, March 6th at 11:00am mountain/1:00pm eastern – The Unconventional Essay, with Adrienne Gruber

Creative nonfiction and personal essays are powerhouses in the story-telling genre – they merge real life with literary technique, including dialogue, scene building, and narrative. This workshop will assist you in finding creative ways to tell your personal stories by exploring unconventional literary non-fiction styles.

Friday, February 7th, 2025 at 11:00am mountain/1:00pm eastern – Writing Risk In Memoir

Join CNFC Executive Director Heidi Klaassen for an intimate conversation with authors Ruby Swanson, Donna Besel and Dr. Mandi Gray about the risks we take when we write about our lives. Learn about three separate journeys navigating post-publication issues—like having books banned or killed, or being sued for writing your truth. What have these authors learned about risk, rights and writing true stories? And what can be gained from being vulnerable in our storytelling?

Friday, December 13th at 11:00am mountain/1:00pm eastern – Member Readings

Celebrating the achievements of CNFC members who had work published over the past year! Readers include Adelle Purdham, Eve Krakow, Dr. Margaret Nowaczyk, Angus MacCaull, Margaret Lynch, Doley Henderson, Nancy O’Rourke, Genia Blum, Jessica Payne, and Heidi Klaassen.

Friday, November 22nd, 2024 at 1:00pm EST  – Promotion Practices For Writers
with Carolina Ortiz, Tim Blackett, and Hollay Ghadery

Curious about BookTok? Wondering how to get attention for your book in today’s media? Join us at our November webinar when we will have three specialists in book publicity. Carolina Ortiz, Marketing Coordinator of NeWest Press, Holllay Ghadery, founder of a Canadian book PR firm that specializes in amplifying smaller press titles and Tim Blackett, TikTok influencer, will all be on the panel sharing with us best practices for promoting our work.

Wednesday, October 23rd, 2024 at 1:00pm EST  – The Evolution of Creative Nonfiction: What is CNF Today?
with Bonny Reichert, Kim Pittaway, and Dean Jobb

Kim Pittaway, director of the creative nonfiction cohort at the University of King’s College MFA program, historical true crime author Dean Jobb, and memoirist Bonny Reichert explore the vast spectrum of creative nonfiction and how the genre’s definition has evolved.

Friday, Sept. 27th 2024 at 1:00pm EST  – Creating Atmosphere: Writing the Senses
with Jessica Payne and Jane Silcott

Every work of literature has an atmosphere. More than mood or tone, atmosphere is the overall feeling a text evokes. It can be a shimmery thing, an aliveness, that we can’t quite pin down. But if we look closely, we’ll see it in sounds and images, a clash of consonants, a slow-moving river of long, languid sentences, and the rat-a-tat-tat of short, sharp ones. A strong atmosphere often occurs when the setting and narrative are deeply involved with one another. The reader feels the world, not because the emotion is named but because there’s a current running through the writing that ties character to story, to voice, to setting. All of it in the same atmosphere. Rain or sun.

Thursday, May 23, 2024 at 1:00pm EST – CNFC-Humber Literary Review Creative Nonfiction Contest

Readings from the shortlisted writers and the announcement of our winners by contest judge, Lisa Bird-Wilson.

Wednesday, April 24, 2024 at 1:00pm EST  – Lighten the F@ck Up: 7 tips to make your creative nonfiction funnier, with Amy Fish

As creative non-fiction writers, our writing tends to tackle difficult topics including but not limited to childhood trauma, illness, death, assaults and violence of all types. Our stories are important but can be difficult to read. How do we give our readers a break? Join me in this workshop where we will discuss 7 practical tips for lightening up some of the darkness.

Wednesday, March 20, 2024 at 1:00pm EST – The Modern Writer’s Tech Toolbox, with Omar Mouallem

Omar Mouallem cracks open his toolbox to demo the latest gadgets, software and phone apps designed to make 21st Century writing more efficient. He’ll introduce you to prose-polishing A.I., intricate story timeline/plotting software, word processors designed for managing huge projects, and distraction-killing apps to keep your butt in your seat. He’s also give advice on optimizing basic tools like spreadsheets and maps to organize bounties of research and demo some of the scary ways that Chat GPT might help you.

Wednesday, February 21, 2024 at 1:00pm EST – Self-Care For Writers: In The Courage Room with Karen Connelly

In Self-Care for Writers, The Courage Room facilitator and writer Karen Connelly will lead us on an inspired, challenging and creative exploration into the meaning and practice of ‘self-care.’ How do we “take care” of ourselves as writers? Is ‘self-care’ the same or different for creative people as it is for anyone else? Is ‘self-care’ a form of indulgence? How can we assuage some of the more intense and painful emotions that writing might stir up for us, especially after we’ve finished writing?

Saturday, December 9, 2023 at 1:30pm EST – Member Readings

Saturday, November 18, 2023 at 1:30pm EST – “Scoring and Reciprocity: Deepening our Reader’s Engagement” with Betsy Warland.

The purpose of this workshop is to learn how to assess pacing, or scoring in your own writing. Betsy leads us through scoring our own texts with questions like: Are the sentences/poetic lines essentially all the same length? Are the dramatic and evocative strategies too similar, even predictable?

Saturday, October 21, 2023 at 1:30pm EST – “In Conversation with Douglas Sanderson (Amo Binashii) and Andrew Stobo Sniderman: Craft, Collaboration, and Reconciliation”

The authors of Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, A White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation talk about how they collaborated on this highly-acclaimed bestseller.

Saturday April 22, 2023 at 1:30 pm EST – “The Joys (and) Challenges of Children’s Nonfiction“

Wanda Taylor and Nimbus Books editor and author, Whitney Moran, discuss the joys (and) challenges of writing and publishing children’s nonfiction books.

Saturday February 25, 2023 at 1:30 pm EST – “The Art of Deeply Researched Nonfiction Science Writing“

Gregor Craigie, Krista Lamb, and Dan Werb in a discussion on the art of deeply researched nonfiction science writing.

January 21, 2023 at 1:30 pm EST – “Ukrainian Canadian Writers in a Time of War”

Myrna Kostash in conversation with Ruby Swanson and Lianna Makuch.

Saturday December 10, 2022, 1:30 pm EST – Member Readings

Join writer and CNFC vice-president Chris Moore for our annual Member Reading event, featuring CNFC members Tim Christian, Rowan McCandless, Myrna Kostash, Bruno Cocorocchio, Kimberly Fraser, Sunita Devi Alves, Pat Butler, and Miriam Edelson reading excerpts from their newly-released books.

Saturday, November 12, 2022, 1:30pm EST – “Survival Stories”

From pandemic narratives to stories of overcoming family trauma, creative nonfiction offers writers a nuanced way to tell detailed accounts of survival. Jenna Butler looks at narratives of surviving and thriving in connection with the land through her Governor General’s shortlisted book, Revery: A Year of Bees.

Saturday, October 1, 2022, 1:30 pm EST – “What’s Wrong with History and Biography?” 

Charlotte Gray asks Ken Whyte (publisher, Sutherland House) and Dan Wells (publisher, Biblioasis) about the state of “researched nonfiction” in Canada.

Saturday, April 9, 2022, 1:30 pm EST – How to become a CNFC Nonfiction Contest Winner with Becky Blake and Margaret Nowaczyk

Contests are a terrific way to share your words and promote your writing. Join us for a lively discussion with past CNFC nonfiction contest winners who will share their craft tips and contest submission approaches.

Saturday March 12, 2022, 1:30 pm EST – Earth’s Intelligence: Three Nature Writers on Writing, Wonder and Wilderness with Camille Dungy, Harry Thurston, and John Vaillant (moderated by Rachel Rose)

We gratefully acknowledge support of this webinar from the University of King’s College Halifax.

Wednesday January 12, 2022: How to Write Winning Applications for Writer Residencies and Grants – Elizabeth Philips and Andrew Steinmetz 

Everyone struggles with those intimidating application forms for grants and programs that can make all the difference in our writing projects. This session will demystify the process of applying for writer residencies and supporting your writing with Canada Arts Council grants.

December 11, 2021: Members’ Reading Event with Moderator Lesley Buxton

Join us  for the annual Members’ Book Launch Webinar, featuring CNFC members reading a short excerpt from their newly-released books. Listen to readings from fellow CNF writers with the chance to win a copy of their book!

November 13, 2021: Writing Partnerships: Find Your Perfect Match – Cooper Lee Bombardier, Moira Dann, and Fiona Tinwei Lam

Join us for a fascinating discussion of how writers work together, from one-on-one writing partnerships to writing groups to formal mentoring. Whether you’re looking to consult, collaborate or critique, find the model that works best for you by understanding the accountability, boundaries, and trust involved in these types of partnerships.

October 2, 2021: From Hermit Crabs to Talking Skeletons: Playing with Form in CNF – Darryl Whetter

Where formal innovation in contemporary English-language fiction is rare, CNF offers a vibrant subset of formal innovations in which, for example, your creative prose can engage in a dialogue with found or curated text, from family letters to legislation to medical documentation to how-to writing and more. Novelist, poet, journalist and memoirist Professor Darryl Whetter will present a workshop which introduces numerous examples and opportunities for you to splice other texts into your own while discovering new modes of creativity and new opportunities for making nonfiction creative.

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March 20, 2021:  The Art of the Interview: Great interviews make great stories – Denise Ryan

Award winning essayist, feature writer and news reporter Denise Ryan will share her experiences, trade secrets and tips. Formatted as a dynamic interview and networking session where you ask the questions, this is an opportunity to ask what you’ve always wanted to know about how to get the interview, get informed consent, establish rapport, overcome hostility, work with a trauma-informed ethic, get past scripted answers and craft story-based lines of inquiry.

February 20, 2021:  Body & Soul: Writing About Spirituality – Susan Scott

Are there ways to write authentically and convincingly about a topic that makes some readers flinch? Spiritual memoirs can be off-putting; but if done well, they can unify the personal and cultural, the ineffable and embodied. Spiritual memoirs can help writers frame complex topics, from intergenerational trauma and explosive family secrets to experiments in shunning, skirting or switching faiths. Using lively discussion and writing prompts, we will examine how to craft an honest spiritual memoir that challenges convenient stereotypes and the confines of convention.

January 23, 2021: Writing About  Mental Health – Eufemia Fantetti and Lenore Rowntree

This craft-focused workshop will act as a model for writing about difficult topics, using mental health as an example. This webinar includes generative writing prompts, so come prepared to do some writing. The session will also be interactive with private breakout discussion groups. Participants can expect to receive a list of recommended readings at the end of the workshop.

December 5, 2020: CNFC Member Book Launch with host Betsy Warland

Esteemed Vancouver writer and one of CNFC’s founders Betsy Warland hosted the Member Book Launch Zoom Event, featuring CNFC members Joan Boxall, Kate Braid, Beth Kaplan, and Janet Love Morrison reading a short excerpt from their newly-released books.

November 19, 2020: Finding the Story – Ian Brown

This workshop will guide you to finding the story worth telling, then digging deeper, finding the actual best story within that story, and hewing to it, despite being terrified of same.