Members Blog

Interview with Angus MacCaull about the new CNFC Memoir Book Club

Wanda Taylor, CNFC’s Vice-President, is an award-winning author, journalist, and college professor. She writes both fiction and nonfiction across children’s and adult markets. She has bylines in numerous publications, including Quill & Quire and the Globe and Mail. Additionally, her features, essays, and poems have been published across Canada, the US, and the UK. Her newest nonfiction book is set for release with Nimbus Publishing, Spring 2024. Angus MacCaull is a recent graduate of the King’s College MFA in creative…

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Interview with Beth Kaplan

Christopher Moore and Beth Kaplan have both served on the CNFC board and the conference committee. With the release of Beth’s new book Midlife Solo, a memoir-in-essays, they felt the membership might be interested in their conversation about the nuts and bolts of putting together an essay compilation. __ Christopher Moore: Beth Kaplan has taught nonfiction writing at two Toronto universities for decades and is the author of three previous memoirs as well as a number of other works. All…

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Interview with 2024 CNFC Contest Judge, Lisa Bird-Wilson

Interview with 2024 CNFC Contest Judge, Lisa Bird-Wilson Volunteer Margaret Lynch interviews 2024 CNFC/HLR Contest Judge, Lisa Bird-Wilson who shares her thoughts on writing, reading, and what she’s looking for in contest submissions. Lisa Bird-Wilson is a Saskatchewan Métis and Cree writer whose work appears in literary magazines, newspapers, and anthologies across Canada. Her most recent book, Probably Ruby (2021), is published internationally and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, for the Amazon First Novel Award,…

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Autobiographical Poetry

Autobiographical Poetry: Interview with Kate Rogers About Hollay Ghadery: Hollay Ghadery is an Iranian-Canadian writer living in Ontario. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions (2021) and winner of The Canadian Bookclub Award for nonfiction/memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box, came out Radiant Press in 2023 and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, is scheduled for release with Gordon…

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Interview with Colleen Brown

Hollay Ghadery is an Iranian-Canadian writer living in Ontario. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions (2021) and is a finalist for The Canadian Bookclub Awards. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box, came out Radiant Press in 2023 and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, is scheduled for release with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024. Hollay is a poetry…

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Not Just Mine To Tell

Mary Fairhurst Breen is the author of the memoir Any Kind of Luck at All and the children’s books Pride and Persistence: Stories of Queer Activism and Awesome Andie’s Best of the Block. As a queer feminist author, writing is Mary’s current form of activism after decades spent working for social change and protesting for equal rights. She lives in Toronto. __ In 2021 I published a memoir, after years of revisions necessitated by both life events and intense consultations with interested parties. The people whose…

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How to Write About Trauma in Memoir

Brittany Foster is a freelance writer and editor living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She holds a Graduate Certificate in Publishing from Toronto Metropolitan University and is a student in the MFA in Creative Nonfiction program at the University of King’s College. She’s also writing her first book — a memoir titled You, Me, and the Tree. You’ll find her writing or editing bylines in a wide variety of publications, including a short story anthology, a Canadian historical fiction trilogy, the…

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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…

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One CNFC member’s very unusual publishing journey

“You have stolen my image,” read the subject line. I waited until I had a few minutes of spare time to read the rest of the email. It was Friday. Deadline day at the Haliburton Echo, a weekly community newspaper where I’d been interning for two months. I had until noon to file all my stories and photos for the week. When I finally read the email, sent by an Indian photographer by the name of Udayan Sankar Pal, I…

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How to Host a Literary Cabaret in Six Easy Steps

Do you miss seeing and talking to your fellow creative nonfiction writers in the long months between conferences? Do you want to develop more awareness of great nonfiction in your own town? The CNFC can help you create your own literary cabaret evening right where you are. We have a modest fund to help with promotion, including the design and distribution of digital flyers or posters, and can contribute toward venue rental, if need be.

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