After a brief hiatus following Brian Hotson’s last post as editor March 26, we’re thrilled to announce that the CWCR/RCCR is BACK!
If you attended the CWCA/ACCR’s 2025 conference June 16-18, this announcement may not come as a surprise; others, however, may have questions: who is this “we”? And, what does “BACK!” entail?
Brian’s departure—after years of excellent editorship—left a noticeable silence in the Canadian writing centres community. Since 2019, when Stevie Bell, Liv Marken, and Brian Hotson founded the Canadian Writing Centre Review / revue Canadienne des centres de rédaction as “an outlet for scholarly writing on writing centre theory, pedagogy, administration, histories, and stories specific to Canadian context of writing mentorship outside of for-credit courses across educational contexts”, the blog has connected writing centre professionals across the country, sharing announcements, opportunities, and creating a community account “that captures the places, people, and contexts shaping writing centre developments” (Hotson, 2019). For many, the blog functioned as an antidote to the isolation that so many of us experience in our roles and work.
The empty boots of the editor role seemed to echo the themes of precarity and capacity at the CWCA/ACCR 2025 conference. Out of conversations with the CWCA/ACCR board members and writing centre colleagues, a few things became clear:
- There is a lot of enthusiasm for continuing the work of Brian, Stevie, and Liv et al.
- Brian’s editor boots are really big.
- With our current precarious environment, there doesn’t seem to be capacity to take on significant amounts of additional work.
Who is this “We”? Meet the members of the CWCR/RCCR Editorial Collective (Team? Co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co-co Editors?)
As our terms with the CWCA/ACCR board drew to a close, my dear friend and colleague, Julia Lane (two years as Membership Chair) and I (two years as Member-at-large and four as Secretary) spoke about our shared desire to both stay connected to the national community and support the blog: we nervously decided to put our names forward as co-editors—re-envisioning the editor, associate editor, and contributing editor roles as an “editorial collective” or team—encouraging any interested folks to join so that we may pool our experience and perspectives…and share the labour! Joining Julia and I are Gillian Saunders, Joan Garbutt, Nadine Fladd, Maria C. O’Connor, Vanessa Nino, Cara Violini, and Özlem Atar.
Julia Lane
Julia Lane is a queer, vegan, feminist clown. She is also a Writing Services Coordinator in the Student Learning Commons at Simon Fraser University where she is always trying to connect with and learn from more students about what writing means in their lives today.
She previously served as the CWCA/ACCR Membership Chair. She also served for a short time as an Associate Blog Editor under the guidance of Brian Hotson and Stevie Bell. She was responsible for publishing the SLC blog (“In Common“) while it was active.
Julia is very excited to be working with the blog editorial team and is also grateful to all those who have created, contributed to, and cared for the CWCR/RCCR blog to date!
Gillian Saunders
Gillian Saunders (she/her) is an Academic Skills Advisor at UVic and a sessional instructor in academic writing and English language learning and teaching. Her in-progress PhD research examines undergraduate students’ experiences with discourse socialization and writing support in required academic writing courses. Gillian holds an MA in English language and literature from Queen’s University, a TESOL certification, and a certificate in editing from SFU. She has many years of copyediting experience, including the Arbutus Review and The BCTEAL Journal. Gillian has been a member of CWCA for as long as she can remember, and a member of the CWCA board as grad student representative since fall of 2024. She is super excited to be inspired by her wonderful colleagues and the good work of the CWCR/RCCR blog!
Nadine Fladd
Nadine Fladd (she/her) is the manager of Grad and Postdoc Programs at the Writing and Communication Centre at University of Waterloo, where has supported graduate students, postdocs and faculty throughout all stages of the writing process since 2015. She completed her PhD in English—with a focus on collaborative editing practices in Canadian fiction—at Western University in 2014. Since then, her research interests have broadened to include academic writing pedagogy and the writing practices of graduate students, including dissertation writing retreats and the use of generative artificial intelligence in theses and dissertations. She has been an active member of CWCA/ACCR since 2018 and has served as both Secretary and Membership Chair. She is looking forward to learning more about the excellent things her colleagues doing through the CWCR/RCCR blog!
Joan Garbutt
Joan Garbutt has been practicing as a Writing Skills Specialist at Brandon University for 13 years in beautiful Treaty 2 territory, shared homeland of the Dakota, Anishinaabek, and Metis Nations. Now, this prairie landscape is home to many people from across Turtle Island and beyond. Joan is a settler descendant of English, Irish, and Scottish heritage who researches and writes about allies of Indigenous Peoples in post-secondary spaces. Her life is greatly enhanced by grandchildren, travel, knitting, and being active.
Maria C. O’Connor
My name is Maria C. O’Connor. I am a journalist, researcher, and instructor specializing in communication, technology, and digital media. Currently, I am pursuing a Master of Arts in Communication and Technology at the University of Alberta, where I also work as a Graduate Teaching and Research Assistant. My academic interests focus on the impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence on writing practices, both in academic and professional contexts.
Prior to my graduate studies, I worked as an instructor and Head of the Hypermedia Communication, Technology, and Society Discipline at the University of Havana, where I integrated AI tools into journalism education. I am passionate about exploring how emerging technologies shape media, communication, and education, and I actively contribute to research and public discussions on these topics.
Vanessa Nino
Vanessa Nino is the Writing Skills Coordinator at Sheridan College, overseeing English & Writing Tutors and Applied Computing Tutors within Library and Learning Services. She provides training, mentorship, and pedagogical support to enhance tutoring effectiveness, focusing on Universal Design for Learning (UDL), AI-assisted tutoring, and academic integrity.
Vanessa collaborates with faculty to integrate writing support into courses and mentor’s co-op students from the University of Waterloo and Sheridan. Previously, Vanessa was an Instructional Designer at Mohawk College, developing faculty training and digital learning resources. She has also taught communication and writing courses at Sheridan and Humber College. Passionate about student success, digital literacy, and innovative learning strategies, Vanessa explores AI tutoring tools to enhance academic writing support.
Cara Violini
Cara Violini (she/her) is a Writing Specialist for Athabasca University’s Write Site. Her doctoral research focuses on inclusive writing centre pedagogies for students with disabilities. Cara holds undergraduate degrees in English and Education, an MA (Literary Studies), and an MFA (Creative Writing). She is currently the reviews editor for Discourse and Writing/Redactologié (DW/R), co-editor of DW/R’s special issue on writing and AI, and editor of the Journal of Integrated Studies. Cara is currently the chair of the Alberta Writing Centres Association, recently joined the CWCA board as secretary and is very excited to collaborate with the CWCA/RCCR blog editorial board.
Özlem Atar
Özlem Atar is a writing coach at Queen’s University Student Academic Success Services and assists students at all levels with a variety of academic writing projects in fall and winter terms. She also contributes to Gradifying Blog, a platform under the auspices of Queen’s School of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs.
Özlem holds an MA in English Language Teaching (ESL/EAL) and PhDs in Communication Sciences and Cultural Studies. Her most recently completed project engaged contemporary narratives of irregular migration across the Americas. Her other primary research project focused on Latin American and Muslim women’s post-9/11 writing. Özlem explores the junction between migrant justice advocacy and literature, so the ethics, aesthetics, and politics of migration narratives comprise much of her reading, writing, and teaching.
Jenna Goddard
Jenna (she/her) is a neurodivergent, feminist settler who lives and writes on the traditional lands of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc within Secwépemc’ulucw, the traditional and unceded territory of the Secwépemc. She is the Senior Writing Centre Coordinator and an Associate Teaching Professor at Thompson Rivers University, training and supporting undergraduate and graduate tutors in the Writing Centre, and teaching writing and research-related courses. Her work-related passions include learning sciences, writing assessment, academic integrity, and social justice education; her writing passions include poetry and creative non-fiction.
Jenna has been privileged to be part of the CWCA/ACCR board for the past six years as Secretary and Member-at-large, and is thrilled to put her experience as a copy editor to use as part of the CWCR/RCCR editorial collective! She is also intensely uncomfortable writing about herself in the third person.
Where to from Here?
The editorial collective will be meeting in August for a retreat, guided by the expertise of Brian Hotson, so please stay tuned for updates! Until then, we’re keen to use the momentum generated by the conference. We are calling out for blog posts (approx. 500-1000 words) related to your conference experiences. In particular, we welcome:
- Your conference reflections: What did you learn? What is still rattling around in your brain/heart/body? Are there actions you want to commit to taking as a result of the conference? (If you are a tutor who attended the conference, we especially want to hear from you! Co-authored submissions are warmly encouraged as well!)
- Extension of a conference presentation, roundtable, or workshop: If you were a conference presenter, consider sharing further about your work on the blog. You can write up your presentation and also share any insights you may have gained through presenting your work to the CWCA/ACCR community.
- Writing inspired by the conference writing prompt book, “Pause & Presence in Precarious Times“: If you are doing any writing inspired by the prompts in the workbook and would like to share it, we’d love to see it!
You can submit your ideas for a blog post in a short “pitch” (aim for fewer than 250 words) to cwcr.rccr@gmail.com. If you have a full blog post already written and ready to go, please feel free to also send that to our editorial team.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Jenna, on behalf of TEAM BLOG (“official” name TBD, obviously)
References
Hotson, B. (2019). About the blog: Chronicling narratives of writing mentorship in Canada and facilitating scholarly exchange. Canadian Writing Centre Review/ revue Canadienne des centres de rédaction. https://cwcaaccr.com/cwcr-rccr-blog/