Congratulations to Lis for winning the Alice Munro Short Story Contest, to Jennifer for winning the Royal City Literary Award, and to Jeanette for publishing a short story and landing an agent

Top winners of the Alice Munro Short Story Contest: Erin Vandenberg for the youth category and Lis Jakobsen for the adult category, plus Guest Judge Marthe Jocelyn. Full list of winners here.

Hi Brian,

Lis Jakobsen here. I took two of your Burlington courses a couple of years ago.

I just want to let you know that yesterday I won first prize in the Alice Munro Festival of the Short Story Contest.

I learned so much from your classes and thank you for your wonderful teaching and wise guidance.

Wishing you the very best,

Lis

Read Lis’s story, “The Idea of a Big Blue Diamond,” on Quick Brown Fox here. For information about submitting to the Alice Munro Short Story Contest, see here.

For information about my introductory creative writing class starting July 4, see here, and for information about fall courses, Introductory to Intensive and including a Personal Stories and a Kid Lit course, see here.

Dear Brian,

Yay, Jennifer!

Thanks to your Canadian Writers’ Contest Calendar I have won my first ever prize for writing! I entered the Royal City Literary Society Write On Contest and won first place ($100) with my nonfiction piece titled, “In a Laundry Room on Virgin Gorda.”

The contest is one of the few that allows previously published pieces to be submitted. My piece had been previously published online on Feminine Collective.

I am so excited!

Thank you for your courses, your encouragement and your Contest Calendar.

Best regards,

Jennifer Smith

P.S. But wait, I was wrong! It is a $150 prize! Now I can go out for dinner AND dessert :)

For information about the 2018 Canadian Writers Contest Calendar, see here. For information about submitting to Feminine Collective, see here.

Hi, Brian.

I wanted to let you know that all those workshops and classes I took with you over the past few years have paid off. First, I have an agent (Olga Filina of The Rights Factory) who has sent my first novel out to some of the major publishers in Canada. 

I just recently won third place in the Wild Card category of Toronto Romance Writers 'The Catherine' Contest.

And, today I received a copy of The Antigonish Review, a literary magazine out of St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia where they have published my short story "The Hole in the Middle".

Thank you so much for all your lessons on writing, your editing, and your encouragement to never give up. 

Cheers,

Jeanette Winsor

For information on submitting to The Antigonish Review (and to 31 other paying Canadian literary journals) see here. For information about Olga Filina and The Rights Factory, see here.

If you’re interested in finding an agent for yourself, join me July 6 – 8 at the Windsor International Writers’ Festival, where a few agents from The Rights Factory will also be in attendance (see here), or join me at a How to Get Published workshop Saturday, Aug 18, in Collingwood with literary agent Paige Sisley (see here) or Saturday, Nov 17, in Mississauga with literary agent Stephanie Sinclair (see here).

Note: if you have any news to share with your fellow writers, send me an email at: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

See my complete current schedule here, including writing workshops, weekly writing classes, and weekend retreats in Algonquin Park, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Collingwood, Cambridge, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Saint John, NB, Sudbury, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.