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Stephanie Domet sits at a table in the crowded atrium of the Halifax Brewery farmers’ market on a Saturday morning, handing out programs for this year’s AfterWords Literary Festival.

“Do you know about us?” she asks, reaching out with a program.

AfterWords launched in 2019, the brainchild of Domet and Ryan Turner — writers and longtime friends who created a festival they would have wanted to go to. This year’s edition, which runs Nov. 1 to 9, offers panels, readings, talks, and workshops in Halifax, Millbrook, and Cherry Brook.

While it officially starts Nov. 1, AfterWords is presenting a free event at the Halifax Central Library this coming Sunday, Oct. 26, called “No Place for a Child: Honouring Nora Bernard,” featuring a short documentary and a panel about reconciliation, with Andrea Currie, Ma’lglit Pelletier, and Rebecca Thomas in conversation with Shelagh Rogers.

At the market, Domet says, “People will come up to me and say, ‘How long have you been around?’ I’ll say ‘seven years,’ and they say, ‘I’m so out of the loop.’” But, Domet says, it’s not them: “There is no loop anymore.”

Stephanie Domet, co-founder and co-executive director of the AfterWords Literary Festival Credit: Contributed

I spoke with AfterWords co-founders, co-executive directors, and sole employees Domet and Turner about the festival, this year’s offerings, and the challenge of getting the word out. Our conversation has been lightly edited and condensed.

Philip Moscovitch (PM): Let me start by just asking what AfterWords is. How would you describe it?

**Stephanie Domet (SD): **AfterWords is an annual celebration of writers and readers. We bring about 50 writers from across Canada and beyond, together with readers in Halifax, for about a week in early November and put them in front of audiences, doing all kinds of things: readings, talking about their books, having brunch, parties, film screenings.

**PM: **And what sets it apart, other than being in Halifax?

**SD: **I think being in Halifax is what sets it apart. When we were first planning the festival — which we made because we wanted to go to it, and no one else was doing it — we talked a lot about how small this place is. Back then, we didn’t even have a million people in the whole province. We knew we would never be the biggest, or be able to pay writers the most money, or sell the most books for them, or be the highest profile. But we knew that one thing we could definitely do was be Halifax and give them a kind of beautiful experience of this place that we’re both rooted in and we work in, and love.

**Ryan Turner (RT): ** One of our strengths is the intimacy that we bring. I mean, I go pick up as many people as I can at the airport, and early on we imagined that would be something we’d grow out of, but we hear from the authors how connected they feel…We try and make it as personal as possible.

Ryan Turner, co-founder and co-director of the AfterWords Literary Festival in Halifax. Credit: Contributed

**SD: **When we were starting, I remember we talked a lot about all the humiliating experiences we’d had as writers. And I mean, that’s endless. You could talk about that all day. What are the events that you had to go and do that didn’t feel good to you? And why? And how can we never do that?

**PM: **Are you willing to share some of those humiliating experiences?

**SD: **Hard to choose, honestly.

**RT: **I once was at Chapters, signing books or something. I was put under the Christmas tree, and people kept coming over and asking me if I would wrap their gifts. And I was just like, “I’m not the elf.”

**PM: **You’re both writers, and those skills don’t necessarily align with running an arts organization. How did you manage that transition, and what are your roles?

**RT: **I’m happy with Steph being in front of the camera, or at the front of the stage as much as possible. I’m happy being back behind the scenes. I ran a business [the kid’s science education program Mad Science] for 15, 20 years, so I can do the financial and the organizational stuff. And then Steph does a lot of the media and the marketing, and she doesn’t mind calling people on the phone and asking for money, which I don’t want to do.

**SD: **I never want to add a column of figures in a spreadsheet, or look at everybody’s flight arrival times, or look at volunteer availability and slot them into a place. I just hope to never have to do that. But Ryan is like, oh, today’s the day I get to take all the arrival times and all the volunteer shifts and make a matrix. And I’m like, great, I’m going to call this person and ask them to give us $5,000.

Stephanie Domet at the 2024 AfterWords Literary Festival. Credit: @stoometzphoto

**PM: **What are you most looking forward to at this year’s festival? What are the highlights?

**SD: **It’s very hard to choose, because this year it really is all killer, no filler. We make the festival we want to go to, and then we’re delighted when other people want to go as well.

We have David Bergen and Shani Mootoo, who are such incredible writers. We thought, we want to hear these two veterans of the Canadian writing scene in conversation with each other, talking to each other about what interests them, following their curiosity. So I’m feeling very excited about that. David A. Robertson, who’s a writer we’ve been longing to bring maybe since our first year, has three or four books out this fall, and so we’re bringing him and celebrating each of those books in different events. He’s got a memoir about living with anxiety and depression, and he’s got a really handy little guidebook called 52 Ways to Reconcile. Billy-Ray Belcourt and katherena vermette are also writers we’ve been chasing since the get-go, and they both have new books of poetry this year. They’re coming, and Sue Goyette is going to lead that conversation.

**RT: **André Alexis has a new collection of short stories and I really liked it a lot. He’s talking to Elamin Abdelmahmoud. And then of course there’s Brandon Taylor, the Sunday before, talking to Stewart Legere, who is going interview him. So I am excited about that.

**PM: **How do you balance the local versus not local? Do you have a particular number in mind? Does it just depend on what’s happening each year?

**SD: **We don’t ever work from a quota, but we keep a really close eye, I would say, on what we think of as dynamics: Some poets, some fiction writers, some nonfiction, some really established writers, some emerging writers, some locals, some from away. We’re always trying to come up with a lineup that broadly reflects the community that we’re programming in.

Kids’ Day/Journée jeunesse at the 2024 AfterWords Literary Festival. Writers Rebecca Thomas (r) and Danica Roache (l) are seen. Credit: @stoometzphoto/

**PM: **At one point you told me that the two of you talk maybe 100 times a week, and most of those conversations in some way involve the festival and how to improve it. How has it changed over the years, and what kinds of changes to the programming could be coming in the future?

**SD: **The biggest change in our programming block, the change that kind of opened things up, is our Kids’ day/Journée jeunesse. The first year we did it, we had three writers for different age groups. We had them each booked at a particular time to read and sign books — and we did not understand that it’s just not going to work that way. That was so stressful, because one of the writers was Lawrence Hill and something like 100 people had signed up for a free ticket and said they were coming, and literally zero of them came.

So, instead, we came up with this hours-long free-for-all fun fair, where the writers are all there at the same time, and it’s for a range of ages, and kids get a little passport, and they go around and there are activities, and it is such a high point of the festival. The writers have a good experience. The kids have an amazing experience.

We do it on the first day of the festival, and we think it brings a lot of people in who might not otherwise ever interact with AfterWords. It is just the most joyful, fun, celebratory moment that was dragged out of probably the most stressed I’ve ever felt at the festival.

**RT: **We’re moving more into kids and children’s stuff, and we’re working on a strategic plan where we want to do more genre fiction as well. Doing stuff with crime writers and with romance writers. Every time we meet we’re thinking about what direction we should go in, and what we should change and ways we shouldn’t change. Just growing and growing and growing, for example, is a good example of what we don’t want to do. We want to keep it intimate.

Elizabeth Renzetti reading at the Bus Stop Theatre as part of the AfterWords Literary Festival. Credit: @stoometzphoto

**PM: **What would you say to people who are coming to the festival for the first time, or thinking about coming? What are the do’s and dont’s?

**SD: **Don’t get in your head about it. You do not have to have read the books. People think they have to have read the book. You don’t. The authors are going to do that for you. They’re going to read to you. So, you know, come as you are and try something new. We keep our ticket prices low to make it accessible to people, and we hope that means you could take a risk. And if you can’t afford it, use our coupon code that’s right on our website that gives you a 100% discount on just about everything. Come with an open mind, and know that it’s going to be fun. Bring a friend if you can, or make a friend while you’re there. It’s pretty delightfully casual.

We’re livestreaming all of our nights at the Bus Stop [Theatre] — Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday — those are all being livestreamed for free. So you can stay home, put the kids to bed, and then put your feet up and enjoy some literary festival from the comfort of your own home if that’s what’s best for you.

**PM: **Tell me about the challenge of getting the word out about events like AfterWords.

**SD: **It is a challenge. And as a person who wants to go to stuff, I never know what’s going on. At the farmers’ market, the vast majority of people we meet have no idea we exist. And they should! If you had to imagine who might come to a literary festival, the Venn diagram for “Goes to the Brewery farmers’ market” and “Goes to AfterWords” is all overlapped.

You have subscribe to everything, you have to follow everything on social, and then you have to remember that you followed them and go to their page and see what’s happening, because it’s not going to get fed to you in the passive algorithm. Or it’s going to be fed to you a month after it happens.

We used to have kind of shared, centralized sources of information. If the pandemic hadn’t happened in our second year of existence, we probably eventually would have been on the cover of The Coast. And that would have been a kind of exposure that is no longer possible now. I was on CTV last week. I was on Global on Monday. I did Mainstreet a couple of weeks ago. I’m doing News 95.7 tomorrow. I am talking to you today. All of these things move the needle a little. But it’s so disparate now.

**PM: **Do you have any favourite moments from past festivals that you want to share?

**RT: **That tree parade last year…

**SD: **Oh my God, the tree parade. We got pitched Marie-Louise Gay, who is a beloved children’s author, and the publicist said, “I don’t know if she’ll come, but if you can think of a way to animate the book, she’ll be more likely to come.” Absolutely! We’ll do a tree parade, because that’s what happens in the book.

We saw that she accepted our invitation, then we’re like, what the hell is a tree parade? How are we going to do that? We eventually connected with Peter Duinker, a preeminent urban forester, and he really helped us pull it off. We had seven or eight families who each signed up and got to pull a sapling in a wagon to the Public Gardens. And then we planted these trees together, for generations to enjoy. Marie-Louise Gay was like, this is bonkers! I can’t believe you guys did this!

**RT: **And then later we got emails with pictures of the kids visiting the tree that they planted a year later. They go and visit it. It’s lovely.

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RECENTLY IN THE HALIFAX EXAMINER:

**1. **Nova Scotia to learn from Ontario’s nuclear program, premier says

Premier Tim Houston and Stephen Lecce, Ontario’s Minister of Energy and Mines, signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Small Modular Reactors in Halifax on Oct. 23, 2025. Credit: Province of Nova Scotia

Jennifer Henderson reports:

In Halifax on Thursday, Premier Tim Houston and Ontario Energy Minister Stephen Lecce signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) pledging cooperation on the development of small modular reactors (SMRs).

“We have an opportunity to learn from Ontario’s experience deploying nuclear technology and I see great value in this partnership to inform system planning and best practices for Nova Scotia,” Houston said in a news release accompanying a photo opportunity.

The reactors are still experimental, and Houston says there are no plans to build nuclear reactors in Nova Scotia.

Henderson also reports on the Liberals call for an independent inquiry into Nova Scotia Power, which would be in addition to at least three reviews currently underway.

Click or tap here to read “Nova Scotia to learn from Ontario’s nuclear program, premier says.”

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2. Road safety advocates call for more action as collision fatalities increase in Halifax

A driver speeds through a crosswalk on Barrington Street in Halifax in 2018. Credit: Zane Woodford

Suzanne Rent reports on surging road deaths in Halifax, and on calls for change:

In July 2024, Halifax regional council approved the Road Safety Strategy that will adopt the Vision Zero principle with the goal of having zero fatalities and serious injuries for all road users in HRM by 2038.

But the trend to achieving Vision Zero is going in the wrong direction. According to [transportation and road safety engineer Sam] Trask, there have been 20 fatalities in collisions on municipal and provincial roads in HRM between January and August 2025.

That’s an increase when compared to data from last year. According to the 2025 Road Safety Annual Report, Halifax Regional Police (HRP) and the Halifax Regional Detachment of the RCMP reported 6,250 collisions within the right-of-way on municipal and provincial roads in HRM. Of those collisions, 11 were fatal and 142 resulted in serious injuries…

Trask said of the fatalities so far in 2025, about half involved aggressive driving.

Click or tap here to read “Road safety advocates call for more action as collision fatalities increase in Halifax.”

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**3. **Still waiting for clean air in N.S. schools

Credit: Sigmund-Jonathan Richard/Unsplash

In a commentary, Susan Joudrey writes:

By the summer of 2020, it was correctly suspected that COVID-19 transmitted through the air, much like other infectious illnesses that often disrupt school and home life such as influenza, RSV, and streptococcus. Subsequent research has confirmed that clean indoor air is required to reduce the spread of illness, increase academic achievement, and decrease student and teacher absences…

If you look at the ventilation reporting summaries provided by the Regional Centres for Education (available here for the Halifax Regional Centre for Education), you’ll find a list of schools and their ventilation systems described as “active” (HVAC systems) or “natural” (requires the opening of windows). The summaries also inform the public if inspection and maintenance were completed (with no specifics provided), and if the “system is operating as intended” (yes or no).

You don’t have to be an engineer to recognize that this is inadequate reporting. So the windows open, but what is the air quality like? Other education systems make standards and measurements publicly available.

Joudrey notes that the province received nearly $50 million in funding to ensure a safe return to school after the COVID lockdown period, but instead of upgrading ventilation, some of the money has gone to unrelated (if worthy) initiatives like literacy programs and school lunches.

Click or tap here to read “Still waiting for clean air in N.S. schools.”

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IN OTHER NEWS

Smelly water

Halifax Water reservoir on Cowie Hill Road in Spryfield on Sept. 16, 2025. Credit: Suzanne Rent

The r/Halifax sub-reddit seems to feature a post every day or two asking why the water smells bad.

Short answer: It’s a seasonal thing, caused by geosmin, which Halifax Water explains on its website, and which the Chronicle Herald summarizes.

From Halifax Water:

Geosmin is a harmless, naturally occurring compound produced by bacteria in soil and algae found in surface water (lakes, rivers, streams, dams). Geosmin produces an earthy, musty-type odour/taste, like that of overturned rich soils, and is present in foods such as beets, spinach, and mushrooms. Geosmin is NOT the result of pollution or contamination of our source waters and is not a result of a failure of treatment processes. It occurs through a natural process.

It may be unpleasant, but it’s harmless, and it will eventually go away. Unfortunately, some of us are extremely sensitive to smelling it:

Geosmin compounds have been shown to remain in lakes and reservoirs for days to months. It is expected the concentration of geosmin will fluctuate during the coming weeks/months, however, we are not able to predict the duration based on historical trends…

Some people can detect geosmin in drinking water at concentrations as low as 5 nanograms per liter. This explains why some residents notice the taste and odour, while others do not.

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Government

No meetings

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On campus

Dalhousie

Noonish Hour Live Music: Saxophone (Friday, 11:45am, Strug Concert Hall) — details

King’s

The Ill-tempered Man (Friday, 5pm, The Quad) — King’s Theatrical Society outdoor presentation

NSCAD

**Workshop: Reconnecting Craft through Crochet **(Friday, 3pm, Treaty Space Gallery) — details and RSVP

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Literary Events

Friday

An Evening with Zilla Jones: Exploring the World So Wide (Friday, 7pm, Rowe Building) — the author reads from and discusses her new novel

Weekend

Book signing (Saturday, 1pm, Coles, Truro Mall) — Sarah Emsley’s The Austens

Open Book Club Chats The Spirit of Scatarie (Saturday, 1pm, Open Book Coffee) — Lesley Crewe’s newest novel

Book reading (Saturday, 1:30pm, Lunenburg Library) — Corinne Hoebers’ Tethered Spirits

Author talk (Saturday, 1:30pm, Woodlawn Public Library) — Tiffany Morris, L’nu’skw (Mi’kmaw) writer of the novella Green Fuse Burning and poetry collection Elegies of Rotting Stars

Book launch (Saturday, 2pm, Halifax Central Library) — Bretton Loney’s* Unsettling Time*

No Place for a Child: Honouring Nora Bernard (Sunday, 3pm, Halifax Central Library) — screening of a new mini-documentary about the life and work of 2025 Heritage Day honouree Nora Bernard; Shelagh Rogers will lead a panel discussion about reconciliation with Andrea Currie, Ma’lglit Pelletier, and Rebecca Thomas

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In the harbour

Halifax 07:00: Torm Dagmar, oil tanker, sails from Imperial Oil for New York 07:00: Majestic Princess, cruise ship with up to 4,272 passengers, arrives at Pier 22 from Sydney, on a 14-day cruise from Québec City to Fort Lauderdale 07:30: AlgoScotia, oil tanker, moves from anchorage to Imperial Oil 09:30: Insignia, cruise ship with up to 800 passengers, arrives at Pier 20 from Sydney, on an 11-day cruise from Montréal to Boston 10:30: CMA CGM T. Roosevelt, container ship (140,000 tonnes), arrives at Pier 42 from Singapore 11:00: MSC Kilimanjaro IV, container ship, arrives at Pier 42 from Sines, Portugal 16:30: MSC Kilimanjaro IV sails for sea 17:00: Oceanex Sanderling, ro-ro container, moves from Autoport to Fairview Cove 17:45: Majestic Princess sails for Boston 18:00: Nolhan Ava, ro-ro cargo, moves from Pier 26 to Pier 42 18:30: Insignia sails for Saint John Cruise ship this weekend: Saturday: Seabourn Sojourn (540 passengers)

Cape Breton 06:45: Allura, cruise ship with up to 1,469 passengers, arrives at Sydney Marine Terminal from Halifax, on an 11-day cruise from New York to Montréal 08:30: Hanseatic Inspiration, cruise ship with up to 230 passengers, transits through the causeway, en route from Charlottetown to Halifax 10:00: Algoma Integrity, bulker, sails from Aulds Cove quarry for sea 14:15: Allura sails for Saguenay 16:00: Fugro Supporter, research vessel, sails from Mulgrave for sea No cruise ships this weekend

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Footnotes

Leftover pizza for breakfast.

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