Kevin MacDonell (he/him)

In the first hour, I process dreams in silence as I grope toward wakefulness. My mother, though - dressed, breakfasted, ready to talk - starts her mornings as if shot from a cannon. My visits home tend to be short.

Organizations using Submittable: Please update the status of all submissions once your opportunity is closed. Thank you.

SPEAK UP! Rally for Arts, Heritage, & Culture Starting at 9:30am on March 4, members and supporters of all Cultural Federations of Nova Scotia (CFNS) are invited to our offices (1113 Marginal Rd, Halifax) to gather, help create signs for the rall...

Get ready.

They will not take the arts from us, and they will not take the arts from you.

𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑜𝑛 is a remote satellite in the Canadian and Nova Scotian creative systems—receiving no public funding—and even we will be impacted by these proposed 20% to 100% cuts to arts, heritage, and culture in Nova Scotia.

Spread across all 800-thousand-plus personal income tax filers in Nova Scotia, the savings from these cuts amount to about $153 per year.

A little more than $12/month.

@machzy.bsky.social did thspreadsheet before I got around to it. Thanks!

Canadian Publishers Condemn Nova Scotia’s Decision to Cut Funding to Book Publishers - Association of Canadian Publishers

Canadian publishers are deeply disappointed by Nova Scotia's cancellation of the Publishers Assistance program. Support for local publishers has been reduced from $700,000 to $0, making NS the only province that does not invest in its own publishers. @nsgov.bsky.social publishers.ca/nova-scotia-...

I just got confirmation that Tim Houston’s PCs cut the entire Writers in the Schools program.

This man is cutting a program that lets children meet and learn from local authors (among many many other things) so he can spend $5 million teaching civil servants to use AI.

red text inside a red border. The text reads: "Arts, culture, and heritage are the lifeblood of a place. Through them, we know who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be in the future. They are the stories of us."

A poster with a blue border. Along the bottom there are orange and red abstract images of placards. The text reads: "Did you Know? Arts and Culture addes $989 million to Nova Scotia's GDP and accounts for more than 14,000 jobs, employing more people than farming, fishing and forestry combined. Culture cuts = Bad economics. Source: Culture Satellite Account (2020). RALLY FOR ARTS & CULTURE. WED MARCH 4, NOON, PROVINCE HOUSE, (1726 HOLLIS STREET, HALIFAX)

Today was supposed to be an intensive research/ writing day.
Instead, I spent the first part of it writing a letter to my premier and MLA to protest the govt's short-sighted and poorly-informed cuts to arts, culture, and heritage.

Rally next Wed, March 4 at noon at Province House. See you there.

Rally for the Arts: Wed March 4th, 12:00 / Noon @ NS Legislature!

Annoucement that our Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest is now open for submissions. Deadline is March 28, 2026.

Our contest season continues with our 16th annual Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest!

Share your passion with us and submit your personal essay by March 28th: tnq.ca/contests/

#writingcontest #personalessay #writingsubmissions #nonfiction #writersofbluesky

Here's the full list of the Houston government's grant cuts to organizations. Tell us what you think. - Halifax Examiner The Houston government has cut $309 million from grants it gives to community organizations and universities. You can read the entire 13-page list of cuts here. The Halifax Examiner would like to hear...

Here’s the full list of the Houston government’s grant cuts to organizations. Tell us what you think.

Turning Nova Scotia into a cultural backwater is not the way to meet the current moment.

As arts groups celebrate milestone anniversaries, misguided austerity policies gut them - Halifax Examiner It takes only moments to undo the work of decades.

As arts groups celebrate milestone anniversaries, misguided austerity policies gut them
Morning File by @philmoscovitch.bsky.social

On the left: a close up photo of a man with grey hair and a beard wearing sunglasses. On the right: text that reads “He was a legendary newsroom colleague. Turned out he had a secret past. How an unexpected email led me to crack the mystery of Charles Saunders”

The Halifax Daily News was scrappy and fearless. Politicians feared it, readers loved it, and Charles Saunders was at the heart of it. Former colleague Jon Tattrie remembers him as a formidable editor, mentor, and champion of Black speculative literature: https://ow.ly/TZyv50YkzFp

Ready aye ready

YouTube video by jaimelive The Frantics Last Will and Temperment [Better Audio]

m.youtube.com/watch?v=tfMc...

You’d have a hard time getting elected in Nova Scotia. You’re making too much sense.

If I had to choose between sitting through the State of the Union address and taking a boot to the head, I would choose a size ten.

Happy pub day to Mark Anthony Jarman's short story collection SMASH & GRAB! A copy of the book has been touring Italy with its author. 🐱

On the left: a close up photo of a man with grey hair and a beard wearing sunglasses. On the right: text that reads “He was a legendary newsroom colleague. Turned out he had a secret past. How an unexpected email led me to crack the mystery of Charles Saunders”

2020: an email from a stranger. The subject line: “Charles Saunders.”

What began as a quiet check-in for Jon Tattrie became something else entirely—a search for a legendary editor, a vanished friend, and a writer whose worlds reached far beyond Halifax: https://ow.ly/v6sl50Yj7mm

Fragment of handwritten scrawl dated Wednesday, February 26, 1986, time 3 p.m., which reads “C.U.P.E. strike ended today …"

Forty years ago this month, something happened which made me stop throwing out the diaries I had been keeping for years. What was it? Surely it wasn’t the end of the workers’ strike that had disrupted my Grade 11 year. Anyway, I’ve got all the notebooks since. Boxes and boxes and boxes.

The Malahat Review | Submission Guidelines The Malahat Review, established in 1967, is among Canada’s leading literary journals. Published quarterly, it features contemporary Canadian and international and contemporary works of poetry and…

From February 14th-28th—or until our submission cap is reached for the month—we'll be accepting international (including US) submissions in poetry, fiction, & creative nonfiction!

Canadian citizens & PRs are welcome to send us regular submissions from January 1st-June 30th.

Guidelines:

The answer to that question is technically “no,” but more generally, “yes."

There’s something appealing about an anniversary that never comes round.

OK — this is fun! Bookmarked that one.

Announcing our 2025 Non-Fiction Contest short list! The winning entries and judge Vinh Nguyen's essay will be published in the Spring/Summer 2026 issue of EVENT.

That would be great if TAR could publish again! That’s funny, I noticed the website update when I called it up a couple of weeks ago, but that alone didn’t give me any confidence they’re making a return. Perhaps you have inside info! I will certainly keep an eye out.

Digby Pines, Nova Scotia
🇨🇦 February 20 to 22

Ireland’s basic income for the arts scheme becomes permanent When piloted, initiative that provided €325 a week to eligible artists recouped more than its net cost, study shows

Ireland offers an example to emulate.

Post-literate society literary conversation