Professional Development Pilot (2024)
Bridge to Publishing’s inaugural storytelling initiative was a free professional/storytelling development program for Indigenous youth. Running from January to June 2024, the six-month pilot online learning program connected young storytellers to careers in book publishing through cultural relevant skill development activities and teachings. Building on the pilot’s successes, Bridge to Publishing aims to expand this program to include new offerings while continuing to support new cohorts of youth through the online program.
Program overview:
Foundational Unit
Grounded in Elder-guided teachings, this unit delves into the importance of storytelling to Indigenous identity and culture. It covers past, present, and future Indigenous storytelling forms and functions; addresses the harms of eurocentrism in Canadian publishing; and provides tools to support collaboration on a path to narrative reclamation and sovereignty.
Paid Internships & Professional Pathways:
Training Unit
This unit was created in collaboration with Indigenous and allied artists and storytelling professionals and includes learning materials and activities focused on publishing basics, nonfiction writing, creative writing, editing and digital storytelling.
Practical Unit
In this unit youth program participants will apply their newly developed skills to ongoing publishing manuscripts and receive professional feedback on their contributions.
To help participants build industry connections and deepen their skills, all youth who completed the 2024 pilot were eligible for a paid summer internship with one of our partner publishers or a storytelling organization in the Atlantic region. Each intern received continued support from program mentors throughout their internship, leading to positive working relationships and several interns securing ongoing work as editorial and storytelling consultants. Bridge to Publishing will continue to explore additional professional pathway options for future youth cohorts.
Pilot highlights
-
Our 2024 pilot received even more youth interest than we had anticipated. We opened applications mid-fall, 2023, with a goal of enrolling twelve learners. Demand was so high that by November we had to close applications. We ended up enrolling 23 youth from across all four Atlantic provinces in the program. We have a growing waitlist for our next round and are working hard to find ways to bring this program to more young storytellers.
-
Empowering youth through written and other creative activities is an important element of the program. One of our favourite pilot milestones was when we began to receive storytelling submissions from the enrolled youth. There is immense heart, healing, depth, and creativity in their storytelling works, and we have been inspired over and over by both their true and imagined stories. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for these accomplished young storytellers.
-
Throughout the pilot, and in youth exit surveys, we received overwhelmingly positive youth feedback. Enrolled youth have repeatedly shared how important and necessary they feel the program is and how it’s teachings and activities— especially those that are Elder-guided— have made a lasting impact on their creativity, confidence, and overall storytelling skills.
