Stratford Writes Stratford, Ontario

Resources

Places to learn the craft, find funding, enter contests, and get your work in front of editors. Members add to this list as they find things worth passing on.

Canadian writing organizations

  • The Writers' Union of Canada The national organization of professionally published writers. Contract advice, professional development, and a public directory of members.
  • Writers' Trust of Canada Runs some of the country's largest literary prizes and financial support programs for Canadian writers.
  • League of Canadian Poets Membership organization for poets, with awards, National Poetry Month programming, and a reading circuit.
  • CBC Books Canadian book news, interviews, and reading lists — plus the annual CBC Literary Prizes.

Grants & funding

  • Ontario Arts Council — Grants Provincial funding for Ontario writers, including recommender grants and literary creation projects. Check each program's own eligibility rules and deadlines.
  • Canada Council for the Arts Federal arts funding, including programs for individual writers and for translation.

Contests & submissions

  • CBC Literary Prizes Annual short story, poetry, and nonfiction prizes open to Canadian residents. Deadlines rotate through the year, so check the site for what's currently open.
  • Poets & Writers Searchable databases of literary magazines, contests, small presses, and agents. US-focused but widely useful.
  • Chill Subs A friendlier way to browse literary magazines by genre, response time, and fee — good for building a submissions list.
  • Submittable The platform most journals and contests use to accept work. Free account, and it tracks what you've sent where.

Craft reading

  • Bird by Bird — Anne Lamott On perfectionism, first drafts, and finishing things. The one most members end up recommending.
  • On Writing — Stephen King Half memoir, half toolkit. Practical about revision and about how much of the work is just showing up.
  • The Art of… series — Graywolf Press Short, sharp books by working writers on single elements of craft — description, syntax, time, mystery.
  • Steering the Craft — Ursula K. Le Guin Exercises in sentence-level craft, written for exactly this kind of group.

Local

  • Stratford Public Library Programs, meeting space, research help, and access to databases that are otherwise paywalled.
Editor's note: this is a good place to add local bookshops, festivals, open-mic nights, and other Perth County writing groups. Delete this note once you've filled the section in.

Found something the group should know about? Send it our way and we'll add it here.