About

The Program

Back to topSister Writes is a creative writing and literacy program dedicated to honouring the wisdom and experiences of women in downtown Toronto. Founded by writer Lauren Kirshner in 2010, with the support of Sistering, a drop-in center empowering ordinary women in extraordinary situations, Sister Writes provides women with the opportunity to work with professional women writers, develop creative potential, hone literary and leadership skills, receive mentorship, and build self-esteem. Hailed by The Toronto Star as a groundbreaking program, and the winner of a 2018 ArtsBridges Award for community arts education excellence, Sister Writes is one-of-a-kind in Canada.

Now in its twelfth year, Sister Writes provides an artistically empowering and collaborative creative writing program for women affected by poverty, underhousing, precarity, trauma, mental health issues and addictions, and women who face extraordinary circumstances or life transitions. Through the support of our sponsors and the assistance of our guest writers, Sister Writes offers a range of hands-on programming that is free and inclusive: The Writing Workshop; The Mentorship Program; and our newly launched Sister Writes in the Community Program, which brings one-off creative writing workshops to women’s agencies across Toronto.

Since 2010, our longest running program, The Writing Workshop, has provided over 300 free creative writing workshops in the community for budding women writers, and published nine literary magazines. Our guest workshop leaders have included acclaimed authors, poets, and journalists. We run our Writing Workshop at the Bloor-Gladstone branch of the Toronto Public Library, our community home for over a decade.

Empowering, inclusive, and hands on, Sister Writes is dedicated to the principle of breaking down barriers to arts, one story at a time.