Guest Blog Posts

Interview with Donna Morrissey

Interview with CNFC Contest Judge, Donna Morrissey In December 2022, CNFC volunteer, Nancy O’Rourke, interviewed the 2023 CNFC Contest Judge, Donna Morrissey. Read about Donna’s thoughts on writing, reading, and advice for CNFC contest writers. – Donna Morrissey has published seven national best-selling novels. She has received awards in Canada, the U.S. and England and her novel, Sylvanus Now, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize. Donna’s fiction has been translated into several different languages. She was nominated for a Gemini for her script, The Clothesline…

Read More

A Small Selection of Favourite Craft Books

AnnMarie MacKinnon is a CNFC member and board member. She shares a thoughtful list of books on the craft of writing creative nonfiction, for yourself or as a gift for another writer in your life. _ In just a week, winter will be upon us. The short days and long evenings of the season practically beg us to embrace the hygge mood and curl up with a book. And what better way to spend a few of those darker hours…

Read More

Getting Your CNF Writing into the Winner’s Circle

Nancy O’Rourke, for the CNFC Blog CNFC member and volunteer, Nancy O’Rourke, a former CNFC contest winner and jury reader, interviewed two jury readers from the 2022 contest, Allyson Latta and Becky Blake. The interview explores how potential contest writers can best prepare their submissions to improve their chances of winning. BECKY BLAKE is a two-time winner of the CBC Literary Prize (for non-fiction in 2017 and short fiction in 2013). More recently, she was the 2021 winner of the CNFC/Humber…

Read More

Help Run CNFC, for the fun of it

By Christopher Moore I’ll tell you a secret. Some of the board members and committee members at CNFC don’t have any serious credentials in finance, tech, marketing and promotion, administration, or any of those skills often thought useful for boards and committees.   On the other hand, we have some who do have experience in those fields — and it’s very good to have them. But what mainly brings together those who volunteer to help run CNFC is a shared commitment…

Read More

The Canada Council “Doesn’t Like Fact”?

Christopher Moore, for the CNFC Blog Ken Whyte runs Sutherland House, a newish publisher dedicated to Canadian nonfiction. And he is worried about Canadian nonfiction. Memoir is doing fine, he acknowledges, and it is part of his publishing program. His concern is the decline in Canadian publishing of what he calls “works of history, biography, natural science, philosophy, religion, politics, criticism, and any other researched non-fiction that intends something other than personal reflection.”  He’s concerned that part of the problem…

Read More

Book Review: Betsy Warland, Lost Lagoon/ lost in thought

Betsy Warland, Lost Lagoon/ lost in thought (Halfmoon Bay, BC: Caitlin Press, 2020). Paperbound, 86 pp., $20.00 By Susan Olding In February, 2020, a month before the pandemic upended the ordinary patterns of many people’s lives, Betsy Warland took me for a stroll around Lost Lagoon, in Vancouver’s Stanley Park. I had walked there before, alone and with other friends. I knew where the herons liked to stand and wait for their prey. I’d seen the mallards and Canada Geese…

Read More