WWC2026 - Masterclass - Beyond Character vs Plot driven: the differences between Literary Upmarket, and Commercial Fiction
Saturday, August 15, 2026 | 9am-11:45pm
Hyatt Regency Calgary - Walker
with Mira Landry
NOTE: Have you registered for Festival Pass? You MUST have a pass to enter a masterclass. If you haven't yet, choose the appropriate ticket combo below to purchase a pass with your masterclass.
People often say, "I know it when I read it", but what is truly the divide between calling a novel literary or commercial fiction? And how can you determine if your manuscript hits one or the other, or falls in that coveted space, Upmarket? It's far more than plot driven vs. character driven, but we'll analyze what those terms really mean, along with active vs. passive readers, prose differences, thematic structure, “postcards”, and more.
(A basic understanding of plot structure and character arcs is needed for this masterclass.)
Mira Landry has been an associate literary agent with Corvisiero Literary. Born and raised in British Columbia, she has traveled to over eighty countries and now resides in Colorado with her husband where she still seeks adventure in both real life and on the page.
She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia and a Certificate of Creative Writing from Simon Fraser University. After a decade building her own business as a photographer, she began her career as an agent in 2022 and is eager to help authors turn their art into a career. As a past conference chair for Colorado Gold, she’s dedicated to building writing and literary communities through events and educational programming. This has extended to her co-hosting a new podcast, Writers Who Read, analyzing recently published novels using Literary Forensics.
