Making it in Canada as a writer

How does one become a writer in Canada without attending writing workshops? Surely writing workshops, especially ones held in the summer for teachers and others who have the time to spare, are the place to be to rub elbows with the almost-famous. Men and women who have published books that they can point to and over which they can speak knowingly. Without doubt, whatever advice they give the budding writer won't work. I had a writing teacher tell me that we must write our stories in first person because it's the easiest. Although, she was honest enough to admit, when she first started, she couldn't do it. It's this kind of advice that makes the work that comes from writing workshops seem "workshoppy" as Gardner put it; too much the same. Besides, thanks to the authors that Francine Prose has alerted me to, I know this advice is not helpful to a new writer. Bright Lights, Big City is a first novel and is written with great skill in second person. You are drawn into the story without being turned off it. So, in my work shop, everyone wrote dutifully in first person no matter how wrong that was for them or for the novel/ story. It has become something of a cliche in writing books (both Prose and Gardner say it) that there are no rules in art. Unfortunately, there are rules in writing workshops where there are paths to writing terrible books without imagination and with far too much input from the committee of the class.

So how does one become published in Canada? I would recommend, because they have been so kind, The Fiddlehead. They say that they reject 96% of the stories that they receive and no doubt that is true. But the way they reject them. Let's just say they let you down easy. I also sent a story to the CBC Literary Awards where they judge the stories blindly. Such principled behaviour on the part of CBC is laudable. It gives new-comers to writing a chance. Of course, I would not have to be told that a story is by Margaret Atwood to know that it's undoubtedly by her. The same goes for stories by a dozen other writers I know well enough to recognize by their writing alone. I'm sure the judges are at least as well-read as I am.