Jane Simpson

In 2011, Jane won the Short Fiction Prize for the annual Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick (WFNB) contest. Her story, The Bedclothes Baby, translated by Sonya Malaborza, has been selected for publication in 2019 by “Édition Prise de parole” in an anthology of award-winning Canadian short story translations. She will also publish three poems in an upcoming edition of Galleon literary journal.

Jane’s poem, Tread, was shortlisted for Arc Poetry Magazine’s Poem of the Year and the Readers’ Choice Award contest and she won the WFNB Poetry Prize with The Old Balloon Seller. She has been the featured reader at Odd Sundays at Molly’s in Fredericton and the Attic Owl in Moncton, and read at the Frye Festival’s Prélude evening as one of New Brunswick’s Emerging Authors. In fall 2016, Jane read during UNB’s Poetry Weekend, which features a number of poets from across the country and into the US, and at the Sussex Library for NB Libraries Month. In 2015, she became the inaugural recipient of the first mentorship program awarded by the WFNB with poet Allan Cooper.

Jane is the is the WFNB representative for the Sussex region and is also Executive Director at AX, the Arts and Culture Centre of Sussex, where she helped launch the charitable organization’s Choice Cuts Open Mic Readings. Jane is finalizing her poetry manuscript and is also writing a novel set on the islands of White Head and Grand Manan, New Brunswick, where she spent much of her childhood.

Awards: Winner, Short Fiction, 2011 WFNB Literary Competition; Winner Poetry, 2013 WFNB Literary Competition; shortlist Arc Poetry Magazine Poem of the Year and Reader’s Choice Award; recipient of the inaugural WFNB full mentorship with Allan Cooper.