Writers' Trust of Canada

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The Writers' Trust of Canada (French: La Société d'encouragement aux écrivains du Canada) is a registered charity which provides financial support to Canadian writers.

Founded by Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, Graeme Gibson, Margaret Laurence, and David Young; the Writers' Trust celebrates and rewards the talents and achievements of Canada's novelists, short story writers, poets, biographers, and other fiction and nonfiction writers through funding various awards, events and financial aid. It was registered as a charitable organization on March 3, 1976.^[1]

The organization funds and administers a number of Canadian literary awards; including the Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.

The organization funds programs and events to help emerging Canadian writers such as the annual Margaret Laurence Lecture, given by a noted Canadian writer; writers' residencies at Berton House in Dawson City, Yukon; and the Woodcock Fund, which provides emergency financial assistance to Canadian writers, named in memory of the Canadian poet George Woodcock. Annual fundraisers include the Writers' Trust Gala in Toronto and ‘Politics and the Pen’ in Ottawa. Money raised to finance the charitable activities of the Writers' Trust is drawn almost exclusively from the private sector.^[2]