Second annual Creative Writing & Storytelling Conference

This year’s conference theme is Writing and Storytelling as Resistance.
In conjunction with Canadian Independent Bookstore Day on 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 while 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?

Friday, April 24

1 p.m.–2:15 p.m.

Workshop: Rock the Boat | Lezlie Lowe and Jo-Ann Roberts 

2:30 p.m.–3:45 p.m.

Workshop: Building Books as Varied as our Movements | Emma Kuzmyk 

2:30 p.m.–3:45 p.m. | Session: Hearing Voices 

1. On the necessity of Having Diverse Voices in Publishing: The Example of Comics in French | Enzo Le Doze 
2. Daughters of the Nightingale – Untold Stories | Kelly Williamson
3. Fuh True?: Using Voice as Resistance | Anandi Carroll-Woolery 

4 p.m.–5 p.m. | Session: Creating Together 

1. Sintering: A Model for Writing as Solidarity | Lorraine Hudson
2. “I’m okay, I promise! How Oversharing Can Heal Us: On Shame, Loneliness, and Audience Relationship | Rachel Ruecker 

Saturday, April 25

9:30 a.m.–10:45 a.m.

Workshop: Writers Against the Grain: Pushing Back at Public Narratives | Rob Csernyik 

9:30 a.m.–10:45 a.m. | Session: Control and Resistance 

1. I am Not in Control, and I Like it That Way: Resisting Optimization for Writers | Zack Mason
2. What’s the Fix?: Writing Characters Who Use Drugs, Writing Against Stigma | Richard Elliott 

11 a.m.–12:15 p.m.

Workshop: Start Spreading the Word: Pitching and Writing Commentaries | Dean Jobb 

11 a.m.–12:15 p.m.

Panel: Building a Literary City | Stephanie Domet, Ori Duinker, Elliott Gish, Gillian Turnbull 

1:30 p.m.–2:45 p.m. | Session: Storytelling as Resistance 

1. Indigenous Literature as an Act of Resistance | Amanda Peters
2. Storytelling for a World in Turmoil | Kim Echlin 
3. Hear Yourself Think: Reach New Audiences for Your Writing through Oral Storytelling | Heather Bell

3 p.m.–4:15 p.m. | Keynote Lecture 

Stitching Stories; Or, Imagining the Biography of Those Who Did Not Write

Sonja Boon 

7 p.m.–9 p.m. | Evening Social

Cafe Lara
3121 Kempt Rd., Halifax

Sunday, April 26 

 9:30 a.m.–10:45 a.m.

Workshop: Buy it, Build it, or Burn it All Down: Writing in and Against Institutions | Aruna Dhara and Sarah Fraser  

11:15 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Workshop: Sincerely a Writer: Using Letters to Radicalize Love and Collapse Physical and Emotional Distance | Alaina Veronique 

11:15 a.m.–12:30 p.m. | Panel: Embodied Selves 

1. More than a “Pink” Chart: Illness Narratives as Resistance | Rebecca Hogue
2. Romance and the True “Abject” in Elizabeth Scott’s Living Dead Girl | Caitlin Boos
3. Creating Connection and Holding Space | Amy Grace