Author Cody Caetano, longlisted for the 2023 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal and Canada Reads, is the new writer in residence for the Whistler Writers Festival.

Cody Caetano is the latest writer in residence to provide mentorship and guidance as part of the Whistler Writers Festival’s Writers in Residence Program, an annual intensive workshop program for emerging or established writers looking to level up their skills.

“We are so lucky to have a writer of Cody’s skill and talent come on as a mentor and to provide guidance to the participants in this popular program,” said Rebecca Wood Barrett, festival artistic director. “We featured Cody and his debut memoir Half-Bads in White Regalia at last year’s festival and it was a huge hit with our audience. Cody writes with great humour, sensitivity, insight, and conviction, and he has so much to impart to this year’s cohort. We couldn’t be more excited to have him as our writer in residence.”

Caetano’s memoir was an instant national bestseller, and has gone on to win the 2023 Indigenous Voices Award for Best Published Prose, was longlisted for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour and Canada reads, and was named one of the best books of the year by the Globe and Mail, and CBC Books.

Caetano also works as a literary agent at CookMcDermid, and has an MA in English in the field of Creative Writing, and an HBA in Professional Writing and Communication & English from the University of Toronto, where he also co-edited Echolocation Magazine, and served as editor-in-chief of UTM Mindwaves. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Ex-Puritan, Grain, Esse, the Globe and Mail, The Walrus, PRISM International, and elsewhere. 

Caetano is an off-reserve member of Pinaymootang First Nation. 

The Whistler Writer in Residence program is open to applications from Sea to Sky residents. Participants will get feedback on their manuscript from Caetano during three one-on-one sessions, and there will be three group lectures on various aspects of the writing craft. The program runs at the Alta Lake Artists Cabin and takes place September 17 to November 17.  Applicants are enrolled on a first-come, first-serve basis.

The festival also offers a scholarship for writers who are Indigenous, Black, or a person of colour. Details are available online. The scholarship application deadline is Tuesday, August 1. 

For more information about the Whistler Writer in Residence program and application process, visit us online. 

This year, the Whistler Writers Festival is Oct. 12-15, 2023.