OLD QUEBEC CITY, AUGUST 27TH – SEPTEMBER 2ND, 2026
In the City of Literature
Old Québec is a place where history isn’t just taught—it’s etched into the limestone. Founded in
1608 by Samuel de Champlain, this “Cradle of French Civilization in North America” is the only fortified city north of Mexico, offering a European atmosphere that has inspired writers for over four centuries.
Our conference takes place in the Lower Town (Base-Ville), in Old Port Quebec. This is the city’s oldest quarter, where narrow cobblestone streets like Petit-Champlain wind past stone houses built by early merchants. It feels less like a modern city and more like a living set for a historical novel.
Old Québec has long been a sanctuary for the written word. It is home to the Morrin Centre, a former Victorian prison that now houses one of the world’s most beautiful English-language libraries. Just a few blocks away is the Maison de la littérature, a stunning contemporary library housed inside a converted neo-Gothic church.
From the 17th-century journals of Jesuit explorers to the atmospheric mysteries of Louise Penny, the city’s mist-covered St. Lawrence River and shadowed alleyways provide a natural backdrop for storytelling. As a UNESCO City of Literature, Old Québec doesn’t just host writers; it celebrates them as the keepers of its 400-year-old narrative.
Event Room
Abroad Writers’ Conference will be hosted our event at the Hotel Port Royal. This royal suite includes a 2000 foot terrace square offering a spectacular view of the streets of Old Québec. This “ancient hotel setting” is situated on Rue Saint-Pierre, the building features exposed brick and stone masonry that reflect the 19th-century merchant era of the Old Port.
Event Room Terrace
Authors Joining Us in Old Québec City
AMY BLOOM
Amy Bloom is the author of four novels: White Houses, Lucky Us, Away, and Love Invents Us; and three collections of short stories: Where the God Of Love Hangs Out, Come to Me (finalist for the National Book Award), and A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award). Her most recent book is the widely acclaimed New York Times bestselling memoir, In Love. She has written for magazines such as The New Yorker, New York Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Elle, The Atlantic, Slate, and Salon. Her first book of nonfiction, Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops and Hermaphrodites with Attitudes, is a staple of university sociology and biology courses.
Amy Bloom’s short stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and numerous anthologies here and abroad. She has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, O Magazine and Vogue, among many other publications, and has won a National Magazine Award for Fiction. Her work has been translated into seventeen languages.
She has written many pilot scripts, for cable and network, and she created, wrote and ran the excellent, short-lived series State of Mind, starring Lili Taylor.
JACQUELYN MITCHARD
Jacquelyn Mitchard is the New York Times bestselling author of 23 novels for adults and teenagers, and the recipient of Great Britain’s Talkabout prize, The Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson awards, and named to the short list for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, was the inaugural selection of the Oprah Winfrey Book Club, with more than 3 million copies in print in 34 languages. It was later adapted into a major feature film starring Michelle Pfeiffer. Her novel Still Summer has also been adapted for a film still in production and her teen trilogy The Midnight Twins, is in development for a limited series by Kaleidoscope Entertainment. Her essay collection, The Rest of Us: Dispatches from the Mother Ship, was drawn from her newspaper column syndicated by Tribune Media. Mitchard’s essays also have been published in magazines worldwide, widely anthologized, and incorporated into school curricula. She served on the Fiction jury for the 2003 National Book Awards and was editor-in-chief of Merit Press, a Young Adult imprint under the aegis of Simon and Schuster.
A Chicago native, Mitchard grew up the daughter of a plumber and a hardware store clerk who met as rodeo riders. She is a Distinguished Fellow at the Ragdale Foundation and a DeWitt Clinton Readers Digest Fellow at the MacDowell Colony. She has taught in MFA program for Creative Writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts, Miami University of Ohio and Western New England University and was a speechwriter for former U.S. Rep. and Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna E. Shalala. An avid Italian cook, she lives on Cape Cod with her husband and their nine children. Her newest novel, A Very Inconvenient Scandal, the story of Frankie Attleboro, an acclaimed young underwater photographer reeling from her mother’s shocking death, whose famous marine biologist father shatters the family by marrying Frankie’s best friend, is out from Mira/HarperCollins.
JOSIP NOVAKOVICH
Josip Novakovich is a Croatian-American writer who now lives in Canada
Novakovich emigrated from Croatia to the United States at the age of 20, attending Vassar, Yale and the University of Texas. He has published a dozen books, including a novel, April Fool’s Day (in ten languages), four story collections (Infidelities, Yolk, Salvation and Other Disasters, Heritage of Smoke) and three collections of narrative essays, as well as two books of practical criticism.
His work was anthologized in Best American Poetry, the Pushcart Prize and O.Henry Prize Stories. He has received the Whiting Writer’s Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, the Ingram Merrill Award and an American Book Award. He is currently a professor of creative writing at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.
He was shortlisted, for his entire body of work, for The Man Booker International Prize 2013.
Workshop Descriptions
Participants have the option of taking all three workshops
AMY BLOOM
This is open to anyone interested in the better sentence, the stronger story, the process of making characters come alive and writing prose that illuminates, without being showy, self-conscious or self-promoting.
Samuel Beckett (everyone’s favorite cheerleader) said: Try. Fail. Try again. Fail better.
We’ll tackle trying and failing and failing better, with time to look at work you’re in the middle of and some generative exercises.
I take your work seriously.
JACQUELYN MITCHARD
BRICK BY BRICK: Writing a great book is like building a cathedral. You start with a firm foundation and make your way to the stars. This is a workshop on topic even veteran writers struggle with, and that is STRUCTURE.
Whose story is this Who’s telling it Where does a story begin? Where does it end? Is it an intimate, powerful narrative in the first person, or told in rotating third person, to allow the reader access to many characters’ emotional landscapes Do you start writing on page one and end with page 300? Or do you write narrative sections and cobble them together? How do you make all those decisions, and do you make them as you write or before you start? What is the genre–mystery, literary fiction, popular fiction? Is the voice that of a character looking back at her childhood self? Or a medical detective in the throes of a minute-by-minute pursuit?
This is a workshop for anyone with a story at any stage of development, from a nearly completed manuscript to a binder filled with notes and sketches. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been cooking it, you’ll benefit from expert author guidance and the sense of a supportive group to see what your story can really be.
JOSIPH NOVAKOVICH
MEAL PLAN
Chef-Curated Lunches and Dinners
August 27th
9:00 am Fresh Morning Croissants on the Workshop Table.
11:30 Lunch: Charcuterie Platter with Freshly Baked Bread. Dessert: Chouquettes nature.
6:30 Dinner: Endive and Pear Salad, Coquilles St. Jacques: Classic French dish with Sea Scallops poached in white wine, cream and mushrooms. topped with Gruyere cheese, mash potatoes and breadcrumbs. Dessert: Lemon Tart
August 28th
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