Your hero’s journey approach to getting into writing. Dragon-slaying optional but encouraged.
Building a writing life can feel like venturing into an uncharted fantasy realm: exhilarating, lonely, and vaguely terrifying. It is easy to construct a solitary castle in your head, but at some point, every scribe’s call to adventure arrives.
Consider this your quest log: a curated, physical map of Ottawa’s literary ecosystem designed to take you from a soft, fledgling writer to a battle-tested author.
Establishing a Base Camp
To begin, let’s choose your literary homebase. I’m partial to my local branch of the Ottawa Public Library — after all, writers are first and foremost readers. Apart from the library’s glorious catalogue of books-for-borrow, they also host tons of free events and series that prove useful to an uninitiated mage. Coming up at the Main branch — a mere ten minute walk from campus — is the ongoing, bi-weekly In the Company of Writers series: a powerful assemblage of local writers coming together to discuss the craft, share their work, and receive insightful feedback. Looking ahead to December, Behind the Mystery offers insight into writing and publishing short stories, with a presentation and panel led by established editors and authors working in mystery and crime genres. For horror fans, a final highlight is the Author Discussion and Movie Screening with Laura Hall on Dec. 9 which includes a conversation on diversity and representation within the genre followed by a free showing of Curry Barker’s Obsession. The public library is also a great place to do research and scour archives if you’re writing anything historical. Sometimes Omni just doesn’t cut it.
If your second-act space opera demands free coffee and a warm corner, the Ottawa Trans Library (OTL) serves up equal parts cozy sanctuary and creative community hub — their calendar hosts everything from craft nights to monthly soup gatherings.
Otherwise, you could always bop around coffee shops downtown until you find one that’s to your taste. My point is that Ottawa is a literary city bursting with spaces just waiting for you and your laptop. Don’t believe me? That’s probably because you haven’t yet heard of the opening of a new literary arts studio in Byward. Upstart & Crow hasn’t announced any programming for their Ottawa location yet, but it’ll be exciting to see the impact it has on the local writing community over the coming years.
Getting the Lay of the Land
Now that you have your perfect little writing nook picked out, it’s time to get to know the community. The best way to do this is by going to lots of events around the city (have I mentioned this is my favourite step?). As discussed, the public library and the OTL are fantastic places to start. Thursday open mic nights at Nostalgica (sign-ups open at 8 p.m.) offer an on-campus alternative to similar series at Art House Café and Live! On Elgin. These are the perfect opportunity for you to talk openly with other creatives and get inspired, and with Nostalgica located quite literally at your feet, there’s no excuse.
Once you get used to showing up and existing in these spaces, use that writerly curiosity and start getting to know the people around you! Communities are sustained by the energy people put into them, so interact as much as you can. Trust me — you’ll be so thankful for your writing buddies when rejection and writer’s block get you down.
Assembling your Ragtag Band of Warriors
Speaking of buddies, it’s time to look into joining a writing group. The specific details vary by group (such as programming and whether there’s a yearly membership fee or not), but in essence these are all collectives of people passionate about writing, just like you. Ottawa Independent Writers hosts virtual and in-person workshops with guest speakers about a range of topics, interestingly enough even one by recent mayoral candidate Neil Saravanmuttoo two years ago about starting a Substack.
If you’re looking for something more friendly and informal, Writers of Ottawa could be your perfect pick: their café write-ins offer a cozy, low-stakes environment for recruiting allies to your quest.
In the case that both options interest you but neither sounds quite right, Capital Region Writers offers a great middle ground. This group’s programming has both structure and whimsy, workshops and writing parties, and they’re kicking off their November event marathon on Saturday Oct. 24 at the main branch of the Ottawa Public Library.
All three groups are welcoming of writers of all ages and writing in any genre, but if you’re looking to connect with people in your specific niche, consider Ottawa Romance Writers and The Ottawa Screenwriters Network. Or simply peruse Facebook until you find a group with your preferred ratio of mercenaries to gnomes. Writing doesn’t have to be a solitary journey, and the connections you make with other creatives will only fuel your work.
The Final Battle(s)
The last step to shedding your writerly down feathers is to start submitting your work to small publications. This is another great way to get involved in the community (especially if crowded events make you nervous), and to even earn a bit of money on the side. There are a bunch of journals on campus accepting submissions that are worth checking out, perhaps most notably Common House, the university’s online literary magazine. I’d highly recommend bookmarking the small press almanac collective immediately as it keeps track of submission openings for small local presses.
An underappreciated local publication is bywords.ca which publishes a handful of poems each month from local poets and currently offers a $90 honorarium. Be sure to check out their events calendar too, it’s the most extensive and up to date from anything I’ve found.
Off Season is another favourite that publishes quarterly and aims to support artists in their ‘off season’: that is, artists persevering in the face of rejection and other creative challenges. Defeated by ogres in your last battle? Write about it.
Major 7th Mag is another small online lit mag that’s served with a refreshing twist: each quarter they release a ‘mixtape’ wherein each piece is associated with a song. Make the Hans Zimmerman questing score work for you.
Submissions to the Ottawa Little Theatre’s annual One-Act Playwriting Competition are also open until Dec. 31st if your writing has a tendency toward dramatic flair.
Submit as much as you can, these publications were literally (pun intended) created for writers like you and submissions like yours.
The CBC has also published their own comprehensive guide to literary magazines and journals across Canada that I’d recommend checking out if all this publishing talk has whet your appetite.
The Journey Ahead
November is an iconic month for writers all around the world, popularized by National Novel Writing Month whose organization shut down last Spring amidst a firestorm of artificial intelligence usage and child safety controversy. Nevertheless, the perfect time to start writing is immediately, so grab your laptop, do your stretches, and get to typing!
