Community-run writer-in-residence programs in Canada

This project report documents the development of a web resource for writers on author residencies available across Canada. Author residencies in Canada originated at universities and then were hosted at public libraries, but now often are run by community arts organizations, especially in Western Canada. Many of these community-based writer-in-residence programs take place in writers’ houses; for example, Berton House in Dawson City, Yukon; Roderick Haig-Brown House in Campbell River, BC; R.D. Lawrence Place in Minden Hills, Ontario; Historic Joy Kogawa House in Vancouver; Wallace Stegner House in Eastend, Saskatchewan; and now Maison Gabrielle-Roy in St-Boniface, Manitoba. These writer-in-residence programs began to emerge mainly in the mid-2000s and now serve as indirect support to the book publishing industry through direct grants to writers. A web resource profiling community-run and other writer-in-residence programs was developed between April and September 2010, and shared with writers and writers’ associations in late September 2010.