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Cabot Trail Writers Festival 2023

St. Ann's

902.224.5231



Join fellow book-lovers for an event-packed week of laughter and up-close conversation with your favourite authors.


Every fall, as the Highlands blaze with autumn colour, writers and readers from across the country may be found in the heart of Cape Breton for a three-day celebration of the written word. Here, at the Gaelic College in St. Ann’s Bay, we put aside all pretension for a sincere and wholehearted celebration of the relationship between reader, writer, and literature. Our intimate venues, packed wall to wall with devoted readers, and the lively Cape Breton spirit that suffuses every festival event, bring readers and writers into a uniquely close connection.Year after year, we’ve heard our authors and our audiences say they’ve never had so much fun at a literary event.


Wild, beautiful Cape Breton Island is itself a muse; its limitless vistas of green highlands and grey coast are inspirational. And living on this arresting landscape are a people who know in their bones the value of a story well told, here where music and storytelling are a way of life, the best parties happen in the kitchen, and every stranger is welcomed as a friend.


The Cabot Trail Writers Festival is a distinctly unstuffy literary experience, with music and laughter freely filling the gaps between readings, workshops, and panel discussions, as readers and writers mingle freely, with no curtain between them, enjoy one another’s company, and unwind down home in Cape Breton. 

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