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Immerse yourself in a creative writing workshop this summer!
The 2025 workshop is scheduled to run from July 7-11, 2025
About the workshop:
Since 1992, the Humber School for Writers (HSW) has offered an immersive, focused workshop to jump start your creative writing. Mornings are spent in classes with one of Humber’s esteemed writing advisors, and afternoons are devoted to craft and industry talks by Canada’s top authors, poets, publishers, editors and agents. You’ll connect with peers and build your literary support network. Whether you’re a beginner or a more experienced writer, there’s something for you in our July writing workshop!
Workshop co-ordinator:
Nathan Whitlock is a novelist, culture writer, editor, professor, and podcaster with extensive experience and connections within the writing and publishing worlds. He will be available throughout the week to help facilitate the workshops and presentations, and to assist attendees with any concerns or issues they may have. Contact Nathan at Nathan.Whitlock@humber.ca.
About the authors:
In recent years, attendees have been given insights into their work and the life of a writer by such celebrated authors as Jenny Offill, Kyo Maclear, Nita Prose, Sheila Heti, Michael Redhill, Naben Ruthnum, Noor Naga, and Saeed Teebi. The Summer 2025 mentors are:
Fiction
Alicia Elliott is the author of the essay collection A Mind Spread Out on the Ground and the novel And Then She Fell. Her short fiction was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2018, Best Canadian Stories 2018, and The Journey Prize Stories 30. Her work has won the Amazon First Novel Award, the First Nations Communities READ Award, Indigenous Voices Award, the Forest of Reading Evergreen Award, and a National Magazine Award, and has been shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
Amy Jones is the author of the story collection What Boys Like and the novels We're All in This Together, Every Little Piece of Me, and Pebble and Dove. A film version of We’re All In this Together, directed by and starring Kate Boland, was released in 2023. Her work has won the Northern Lit Award, the Metcalf-Rooke Award, and the CBC Literary Prize for Short Fiction, and has been shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, the ReLit Award, and the Bronwen Wallace Award. Amy has taught creative writing at Lakehead University, University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, and as part of the Flying Books Mentorship program. She has also served as the Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop’s e-Writer in Residence.
Shyam Selvadurai is the author of the novels Funny Boy, Cinnamon Gardens, Swimming in the Monsoon Sea, The Hungry Ghosts, and Mansion of the Moon. He is the editor of the anthologies Story-Wallah: A Celebration of South Asian Fiction and Many Roads Through Paradise: An Anthology of Sri Lankan Literature. His work has won the WHSmith/Books in Canada First Novel Award, Lambda Literary Award, the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award, a Canadian Screen Award, and the New York Cinema Independent Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and has been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the DSC South Asia Literature Prize, the Trillium Award, the Aloa Literary Award, and the Premio Internazionale Riccardo Bacchelli. He has served as Festival Curator for the Galle Literary Festival.
Creative Non-Fiction
Sheima Benembarek is a journalist who has written for The Walrus, Broadview, Maisonneuve, and the Literary Review of Canada. She has worked as special reports editor at Strategy, a senior editor for Toronto Life, an events manager for The Walrus, a business development and brand communications lead at Corporate Knights, and as an associate editor at Broadview. Currently, she is a contributing writer for The Walrus. In 2020, she was chosen as one of the five RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writers of the year. Sheima’s first book is Halal Sex: The Intimate Lives of Muslim Women in North America. Her work has been shortlisted for the QWF Concordia University First Book Prize, and she was an Asper Fellow in Media at Western University’s Faculty of Information and Media Studies.
Poetry
Kate Cayley is a poet, playwright and fiction writer who has published three collections of poetry and two short story collections. Her plays have been performed in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. She has won the Trillium Book Award, an O. Henry Prize, and the Mitchell Prize for Poetry, and been a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, among other awards. She was a playwright in residence with Tarragon Theatre for nine years and has an ongoing writing collaboration with immersive company Zuppa Theatre. Her writing has appeared in Best Canadian Poetry, Best Canadian Stories, Brick, Electric Literature, Joyland, and The New Quarterly. She has been writer in residence at McMaster University, Sheridan College and the Toronto Public Library, and mentored emerging writers through the University of Toronto, the University of Guelph Creative Writing MFA, Diaspora Dialogues, and Sisters Writes. Her first novel, Property, is forthcoming from Coach House Books.
Content and Format
You should attend if
- you want to learn to write short stories, novels, poetry, memoir, creative non-fiction, Y/A (young adult) or children’s literature
- you’re already working on a book but would like to improve your writing with feedback from established writers and your peers
- you’d like to know how to find someone to publish your work
- you’d like to expand your own writing community by meeting like-minded aspiring writers
- you’d like to build your professional network through meeting top authors, agents, editors, publishers, and publishing professionals
The workshop runs from July 7 to 11, 2025, and consists of orientation programming, five three-hour workshop classes, numerous craft talks and industry lectures, and one one-on-one feedback session with your mentor.
David Bezmozgis in conversation with literary agents Jackie Kaiser and Bridgette Kam.
Antonio Michael Downing workshops student writing in 2023.
Editors Janie Yoon and Julia McDowell offer flash assessments of student work.
Saeed Teebi discusses his critically acclaimed short story collection, Her First Palestinian.
Fees
The deadline to register is July 4, 2025. Those who register and pay their fees by May 9, 2025, are eligible for an early bird discount.
The 2025 regular fee is $1,200. Students who register and pay by May 9, 2025, will pay $1,140. Humber School for Writers graduates from the last three years (2022 to 2025) will pay $1,104.
The fee displayed is the standard domestic tuition fee and should be used as a guideline only. Actual fees will be calculated when you complete your registration and may vary slightly.
Cancellation Policy: Humber reserves the right to cancel the workshop due to low enrollment. If the workshop is cancelled, registrants, will be notified by June 20, 2025, and a full refund of fees paid to Humber will be issued.
How to Apply
Students are encouraged to apply as soon as possible in order to improve their chance of being paired with their preferred mentor. To apply, please click on the link below and follow the steps to register for the course and submit all the information requested.
For application inquiries, please contact Nathan Whitlock at 416-675-6622 ext. 4775 or Nathan.Whitlock@humber.ca.
Reputation
Over 330 of our alumni have published over 1000 books!
Notable alumni authors include
- Eva Stachniak (The Winter Palace)
- Roberta Rich (The Midwife of Venice)
- Cathy Marie Buchanan (The Painted Girls)
- Robert Rotenberg (The Guilty Plea)
- Shari Lapeña (The Couple Next Door)
A student listens to Alissa York during the 2022 workshop at Victoria College.
Olive Senior leads a workshop class.
Testimonials
“The structure was ideal with mornings in intimate groups working on our own writing projects and afternoons attending lectures about all aspects of editing and publishing. It provided me with a lovely community of fellow writers. I found it to extremely helpful and I learned a great deal from the week.”
– Jeannie Clark, 2023 Workshop Participant
“I attended the Summer Workshop in 2023, and it really changed how I think about writing fiction. It was energizing to be around a group of other writers, and I found it helpful getting (and receiving) feedback on our work. I think I got even more out of the in-class exercises and discussion with a great teacher (Sheila Heti). I'm still friends with people I met at the workshop, and we meet regularly to work on our writing.”
– Glen Bullock, 2023 Workshop Participant
“The whole class discussions by published authors and one-time Humber students, prior to breaking off into the subject sections, were exciting opportunities to pose questions of individuals who had found paths to success. Additionally, the smaller class sections created the intimacy needed to be expressive. Being in an easily accessible spot downtown Toronto was a bonus.”
– Jeremy Tompkins, 2023 Workshop Participant
“The Summer 2023 Creative Writing Workshop was a huge learning experience for me. The program packs a lot into one week… I came away with a much greater understanding of what to do when I'm ready to try to get my fiction published. The summer workshop offered so much that my head was exploding at the end of each day. I was inspired by top authors and bonded with aspiring writers like myself. The week was a powerful experience that renewed my enthusiasm for writing.”
– Paul McKeague, 2023 Workshop Participant
“The in-person summer workshop was incredibly inspiring. It provided an encouraging and safe space to talk about writing. All the guests and mentors were approachable and genuine. They all provided honest, practical advice on how to move forward in creative writing.”
– Sarah Cheng, 2023 Workshop Participant
Location
About Lakeshore Campus
Humber Polytechnic’s Lakeshore Campus combines beautiful lakefront parkland and historic buildings with high-tech classrooms and labs. Explore local shops, bike the trails and take in the Toronto skyline.
Where to Find Us
Situated in the west end of Toronto, on the shores of Lake Ontario.
3199 Lake Shore Blvd., West Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M8V 1K8
Opportunities for Further Study
The Creative Writing Graduate Certificate
The Humber Summer Workshop in Creative Writing is a complement to the online Creative Writing graduate certificate, the two together comprising a flexible and affordable alternative to a standard low-residency MFA.
Humber’s Creative Writing graduate certificate program helps you improve your writing from the comfort of home. You’ll work one-on-one with a professional writer-mentor to improve your book-length project, learning how to develop plot, character, dialogue, style and more through feedback on your own manuscript.
We've recently added a playwright and a screenwriter to our list of available mentors – giving you the opportunity to complete a large body of work which may be all or parts of a full-length novel, memoir, feature-length screenplay or multi-character play; or a collection of poetry, short fiction or creative nonfiction essays.
This is a project-based program in which you meet the learning outcomes by working through your own manuscript. As well, you will attend weekly online classes synchronously or asynchronously to discuss craft, readings and the writing process to support your development. Writers looking for an affordable alternative to a low-residency MFA program will find this program especially helpful following the Summer Workshop in Creative Writing.
