Steven Heighton Fellowship
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| July 2 - September 18, 2026 | All Day |
- TypeVirtual
- Event Linkwww.alpurdy.ca
About Steven Heighton Fellowship
The Steven Heighton Fellowship was created by the Al Purdy A-frame Association (APAFA), in collaboration with the Department of English and Creative Writing at Queen’s University and Kingston WritersFest, to provide recipients with a blend of benefits and experiences so unique that it stands apart from any other initiative of its kind in Canada.
Every two years, one deserving writer, artist or musician will receive a financial award of $7,500, a five-week residency at the Purdy A-Frame, a further week-long residency at Queen’s University in association with its Creative Writing program and, finally, a profiled position at the Kingston WritersFest to be platformed as the Steven Heighton Happening. No other literary Fellowship in Canada can boast such a richly varied and rewarding suite of benefits.
Steven Heighton was an award-winning writer and artist with a national following who made a particularly profound impact in the Kingston and Prince Edward/Hastings arts scene. He was a frequent guest at the A-frame and a close friend of both Al and Eurithe Purdy. An artistic polymath, Steven published in half a dozen genres and was as talented a musician as he was a poet and writer. Before his untimely passing at age 60 in 2022, Steven produced numerous novels, collections of essays, poetry, memoir, reviews, and short fiction. His debut album, The Devil’s Share was released in 2021. Two posthumous collections, Instructions for Drowning and Songbook: The Lyrics and Music of Steven Heighton were released in 2023 and 2024. Works of his last decade include the Governor-General’s Literary Award-winning poetry collection, The Waking Comes Late, and the memoir Reaching Mithymna, which was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
The next Steven Heighton Fellowship will take place in 2027.
Application closes September 18th.
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