The EXCELSIS/BMO Mentoring Program
The Excelsis Group offers a professional six-month mentoring program that brings five or six emerging writers together with established writers. This important opportunity provides a writer with invaluable editorial nurturing so important to producing a well-crafted and honed manuscript. Along the way, a portion will appear in the pages of EXILE Quarterly, with the ultimate intention being to bring about the publication of a book with a Canadian publisher.
The Bank of Montreal has generously committed $30,000 per annum to this initiative. Each six-month mentorship will take place between November 1 through October 31, with five or six writers selected in a given year. The first four have been chosen:
Anne Michaels and Jessica Hiemstra
Anne Michaels, esteemed poet and novelist, has been translated into 50 languages and her works have won and been shortlisted for dozens of national and international awards. In 2018, Exile Editions published her Railtracks, co-written with John Berger, and Infinite Gradation, which won the Vine Award for Best Nonfiction in 2019.
Jessica Hiemstra is the author of three books of poetry. She is also an accomplished visual artist and designer of everything from whimsical dinner plates to giant showroom sculptures of jellyfish.
A.F. Moritz and Michael Fraser
A.F. Moritz has published 20 books of poetry, and his work has received the Griffin Poetry Prize and Guggenheim Fellowship, among others; three of his books have been finalists for the Governor General’s Award. Moritz is the Blake C. Goldring Professor of the Arts and Society at Victoria College at the University of Toronto, and presently serves as Poet Laureate of Toronto.
Michael Fraser has been published in national and international anthologies and journals, and has won numerous awards, including the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize, and the 2019 Gwendolyn MacEwen Poetry Award.
Bruce Meyer and Linda McGregor
Bruce Meyer is the author or editor of 64 books of poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, literary journalism, memoirs, and portrait photography. He was the inaugural Poet Laureate of the city of Barrie. He teaches at Georgian College and at Victoria College at the University of Toronto.
Linda McGregor has a Masters Degree in Indigenous Studies, a B.Ed, is the Indigenous consultant for the Simcoe-Muskoka Catholic School Board, and is a Mohawk from the Elizabeth Bay Nation on Manitoulin Island.
Barry Callaghan and Gail Prussky
Barry Callaghan is the well-known novelist, poet, and person of letters who has been included in every major Canadian anthology, and his fiction and poetry have been translated into seven major languages. In 2018, he released, to great critical acclaim, the short story collection, All the Lonely People, and the nonfiction collection, Raise You on the River.
Gail Prussky spent the final years of her professional career as an addiction therapist working with crack addicts in Toronto. Since then, she has embraced becoming a full-time illustrator, painter, wood sculptor, and writer. Her first book of drawings, paintings, stories, and poetry, Broken Balloons, was published by Exile Editions in 2016.
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The EXCELSIS Workshop Program: Assisting Writers for Publication in EXILE
This initiative will allow 10 writers in a year to receive one-on-one professional and insightful editorial instruction – with authors, and recently retired professors, Daniel David Moses and Richard Teleky – so their work-in-progress can be fine-tuned for publication.
To be accepted by Exile does not simply mean a free pass to publication… often we accept a writer because we see the merit in the work, but we then must follow up to get that work into shape for our discerning readers.
Throughout the year, this is an ongoing process. And as part of our new Excelsis programs, we are now undertaking this initiative in a formal way, to work with those emerging and mid-career writers who show great potential, but who also require knowledgeable guidance and instruction on how to achieve a fully realized work of fiction, poetry, or drama.
Upon completion of each individual project, that writer will proudly see their work in our pages.
Daniel David Moses is a Delaware from the Six Nations lands on the Grand River. In 2019, he retired from teaching playwrighting as full professor at the Dan School of Drama and Music. He is a Queen’s National Scholar at Queen’s University, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada. Along with 15 books, he has also appeared in many journals and collections.
Richard Teleky is the author and editor of many books, and he is a critically acclaimed fiction writer, poet, editor, and critic. The collection of poetry, The Hermit Says Goodbye, was released with Exile Editions in 2019. He has also appeared in numerous journals in Canada and the United States, and he is a frequent contributor to Queen’s Quarterly.