our 2025 Writer in Residence
​Paulo da costa

This program is made possible with the generous support of Scott Saxberg, Cache Island Resources
The Alexandra Writers' Centre is thrilled to welcome, paulo da costa, as the 2025 Writer in Residence. 

Born in Angola, and raised in Portugal, paulo da costa is a writer, editor and translator living in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies (Moh’kins’tsis / Calgary, Alberta). He is thrice the recipient of the James H. Gray Award for Short Nonfiction (2024, 2023 and 2020), the 2024 Outstanding Calgary Artist Award, as well as the 2003 Commonwealth First Book Prize for the Canada-Caribbean Region, the W. O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize and the Canongate Prize for short-fiction. His poetry, fiction and non-fiction have been published widely in literary magazines around the world and translated into Italian, Spanish, Serbian, Slovenian and Portuguese.

Trust the Bluer Skies: Meditations on Fatherhood, a book of creative non-fiction, was published in 2024 with
University of Regina Press.
https://www.paulodacosta.ca/
--> Scroll down for the list of information sessions, workshops, and consultation schedules. <--

ONE-ON-ONE consultations

The Writer in Residence will be available for one-on-one consultations over the 3-month residency. Submit a writing sample or just come to chat about the writing life and get advice. 

Consultations are available for CURRENT MEMBERS ONLY
​
One consultation per person.
​Online and in person consultations available.
Submission Guidelines and Booking Information
​1.Read the instructions and requirements CAREFULLY before booking your consultation and submitting your manuscript(s).
2.Book your consultation HERE.
You do not need to create an account to book a consultation.
3.You will receive an email with information about your consultation within a week of booking, including the zoom link if you are meeting online.
4.Email your manuscript to [email protected], including required information as outlined in the Submission Requirements.

​Additional Notes:
  • Want to change or cancel your booking on SignupGenius.com? Go back to the sign up link or to the confirmation email you received after you booked. You will see a link that states ‘Already signed up? You can change your sign up.’ Click that link and follow the steps to make changes to your sign up slot. Email us if you encounter any issues.
  • Want to update your manuscript? Resend your manuscript with the subject line ‘RESUBMISSION: WIR 2025 Consult.’ We will only keep the latest version of your documents.
 
Submission Requirements
  • Only current AWCS members can secure a manuscript consultation.
  • Manuscripts must be submitted as early as possible and no later than 7 days before the consultation date.
  • Prose submissions must be no more than 2,500 words.
  • Poetry submissions must be no more than 5 poems, each no longer than a page.
  • Submissions must be in MS WORD (.doc or .docx). (Exception: You may submit .pdf files for content that requires specific word placements on the page. For example, if you are submitting shape poems, free verse, and/or playing with line breaks and white space in your poems.)
  • Submissions must have the filename: FirstNameLastName_Title.doc
  • To help the Writer-in-Residence focus and tailor their feedback, please include the following information in your email:
    • What are two specific questions you want addressed in your manuscript review?
    • Is the work a standalone piece or part of a larger work?
  • Manuscripts must follow the following format:
    • Font size: 12pt, double-spaced
    • Default/standard 1-inch margins on all sides of the word document.
    • Conventional publishing fonts: Times New Roman, Arial, Georgia (unless it is an artistic publishing choice to use a different font.)
    • For each submitted file, include the author’s name and the title of the piece on the first page.
    • Place the following information in the header on every page: LastName_Title_PageNumber
  • Consultations are 50-minutes long. Please be mindful of the time to allow for ample preparation in between consults.

events & workshops

SEPTEMBER

In these Shoot the Breeze session come ready to talk about anything and everything writing. Have questions, need some support in some area of the writing life, looking for ways to stay motivated, this is the place to air all the troubles you may be facing and build your community. 
Readers crave the truth. This workshop will explore what makes creative nonfiction a challenging, yet compelling and rewarding genre for authors. We will peek into what has traditionally defined creative nonfiction, while unravelling what it is not and what it could potentially become. We will touch on the world of personal essays and memoirs, the lyric essays and narrative journalism. By examining these diverse literary forms, workshop participants will gain a deeper understanding of the array of writing styles and approaches that writers employ to convey their true experiences and stories. As self-aware authors, we will also pay close attention to the searing language of truth, to the wavering line between remembering and imagining. In
drawing attention to elements such as voice and tone, authentic detail, perspective, and dynamic language, this workshop will examine both conventionally structured nonfiction work as well as boundary pushing narratives that reside on the fringes of the genre. This workshop will refine any author’s writing skills, inspire you to take new risks when speaking your truth, and to possibly embark on a new adventure project while embracing the boundless possibilities that creative nonfiction has to offer.

For all levels of writers interested in the challenges and power of speaking the truth of our experiences and memories.
Are you retired and can write as you please? Are you raising a family while following your dream of writing?

Regardless of your unique situation there are strategies to make a living, to find community, to seek paying markets, to use the technical helping tools of the trade. Learn to deal with excellent and terrible book reviews.

Find a supportive writer’s group. Enhance the writing on the page by delivering compelling live presentations of your work. Stage presence is increasingly essential to draw more fans to our writing.

OCTOBER

In these Shoot the Breeze session come ready to talk about anything and everything writing. Have questions, need some support in some area of the writing life, looking for ways to stay motivated, this is the place to air all the troubles you may be facing and build your community. ​
Many great universal works of literature and popular fiction engage the tropes and tricks of Magic Realism.

From Gulliver’s Travels to Midnight’s Children, from Marquez to Saramago the imaginary and extraordinary worlds are brought to earth so we can relate and believe them. Magic, fantasy and reality become seamless, and the leap of believability opens new doors of perception and engagement.

These stories are powerful tools to imagine other possibilities for humans and our societies, as well as offering unique tool for one’s writing to engage in sharp critiques of the world.

​Join paulo, whose books have magic realism elements and have received national and international awards.
Are you retired and can write as you please? Are you raising a family while following your dream of writing?

Regardless of your unique situation there are strategies to make a living, to find community, to seek paying markets, to use the technical helping tools of the trade. Learn to deal with excellent and terrible book reviews.

Find a supportive writer’s group. Enhance the writing on the page by delivering compelling live presentations of your work. Stage presence is increasingly essential to draw more fans to our writing.

NOVEMBER

In these Shoot the Breeze session come ready to talk about anything and everything writing. Have questions, need some support in some area of the writing life, looking for ways to stay motivated, this is the place to air all the troubles you may be facing and build your community. ​
​Are you retired and can write as you please? Are you raising a family while following your dream of writing?

Regardless of your unique situation there are strategies to make a living, to find community, to seek paying markets, to use the technical helping tools of the trade. Learn to deal with excellent and terrible book reviews.

Find a supportive writer’s group. Enhance the writing on the page by delivering compelling live presentations of your work. Stage presence is increasingly essential to draw more fans to our writing.
From one sentence-long to 1000 words stories, join paulo in learning the necessary skills to hone your writing craft in order to deliver a compact and compelling narrative. Learn to effectively distill a story down to its most impacting emotional moment. Successful micro-fictions surprise the reader and leave a lasting impression in their mind. paulo has been writing sudden fiction since the 90’s and has published over 100 sudden fictions in his writing career. His micro fictions have won competitions, have been anthologized internationally, translated to other languages and recorded in audiobooks. His most recent fiction work, The Midwife of Torment and Other Stories is a collection of 77 sudden fictions.
paulo da costa will share his journey as a multicultural and multilingual author. He will explore the possibilities that will open for writers who choose to explore their diverse linguistic and/or cultural heritages through their works. A multicultural identity is a rich source of inspiration, while simultaneously filled with challenges and possible perils. How to avoid falling into the trap of cultural cliches? How to be a bridge and a translator of subtle cultural nuances in our characters’ actions or their views’ of the world? At the end there will be time for discussion with participants wishing to further explore these multifaceted issues that are shaping the future of writing in our country and globally.
Alexandra Writers' Centre Society
460, 1721, 29th Ave SW
Calgary, AB T2T 6T7

403.264.4730
General Inquiries: [email protected]