Each year at Sparks, the Landfall Trust awards a local writer a two-week residency at its stunning and historic property: Kent Cottage in Brigus.
The Landfall Trust/Sparks two-week residency recognizes and celebrates the creative work of a promising student in our Creative Writing program. This offers them a unique opportunity to concentrate on a current writing project in the relative isolation of Kent Cottage on the shores of Brigus Harbour. At the close of their Residency, the award recipient is invited to engage with the Brigus community through a public reading or discussion of the project on which they have been at work.
The Residency provides an excellent opportunity for concentrated creative work, and for community engagement and outreach in a storied setting which, through the work of the Landfall Trust, has hosted many writers, artists, and musicians residencies over the years.
The winner will be presented near the end of this year’s festival.
The Landfall Trust was kind enough to continue this tradition, even when Sparks went online in 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Here is a video of a recent winner, William Ping, receiving the good news.
The SPARKS Literary Festival was founded in 2009 by poet and professor Mary Dalton, who served as the festival's director for the first 6 years. Now organized by Memorial's Department of English with ongoing support from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, SPARKS continues to celebrate the literary creations of Newfoundland and Labrador and showcase writers at various stages of their creative lives. It is what Dalton has called a "word spree." The festival also makes available displays of books and journals published in Newfoundland and Labrador and a mini-bookstore featuring works by the authors reading at the festival.
