Sudbury Wordstock reading list, young writers contest now open

Still looking for a summer read or project?

Sudbury's biggest literary festival is still a few months away, but organizers have released this year's reading list and are now taking submissions for contests with cash prizes.

Wordstock Sudbury Literary Festival, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last year, comes back to town the weekend of Nov. 1. In advance, festivaldirector Heather Campbell is encouraging local bookworms and wordsmiths to look ahead.

"We like to get people aware of what's coming in the fall so they can start reading the books and be excited about meeting some of the authors that are coming," Campbell told CBC Radio's Up North this week.

This year's visiting authors include local writers like Kim Fahner, Greater Sudbury's former poet laureatewhose debut novel, The Donoghue Girl, comes out this fall. Other authors will include Emily Austin of St. Thomas, Ont., whose work has been longlisted for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, and Drew Hayden Taylor, an Ojibway writer from Curve Lake First Nationwhose 2024 book Cold is on this year's festival reading list.

The Wordstock reading list is available online, and Campbell saidthe local library collects books on the list so they're easily available for the community.

There's also the Youthwords writing contest for young writers, which is taking submissions until Oct. 20. There are two categories, poetry and short stories, and prizes range from $75 for runners up to $150 for first place. This year's theme is "shift."

"Emerging writers can be sharing their thoughts on what it's like to come out of the pandemic, or maybe they're having a shift in their life somehow, or maybe they have a shift of perspective on something," Campbell said.

Morgan Sheppard, a young writer who now works for Wordstockas an event planner, won the poetry grand prize in 2022. She saidthe contest opened her eyes to new possibilities.

"It was really an opportunity for me to take my writing and just show people," she said. "It really made me rethink how I wanted to continue with poetry for my life and how I want to pursue different pathways through writing."

Young writers can find contest details on the festival's webpage.

The festival also features an annual poetry slam, with monthly open mics taking place ahead of time so local poets can practice leading up to November.

Early bird tickets for the festival go on sale Aug. 5. This year's festival takes place downtown at Place des Arts.