Jake MacDonald Writer-in-Residence
WELCOME CATHERINE HERNANDEZ
We are so pleased to announce that our Fall 2025 virtual Jake MacDonald online Writer-in-Residence will be Catherine Hernandez.
Catherine Hernandez (she/her) is an award-winning author and screenwriter. She is a proud queer woman who is of Filipino, Spanish, Chinese and Indian descent and married into the Navajo Nation. Her first novel, Scarborough, won the Jim Wong-Chu Award for the unpublished manuscript and was a finalist for several awards including Canada Reads 2022. She wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Scarborough, which was nominated for 11 Canadian Screen Awards and won 8 including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Her second novel, Crosshairs, was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award and made several Best-Of lists of 2020. Her third novel, The Story of Us, was an instant national bestseller and was selected for the One Book Peterborough, Kitchener and Simon Fraser University. Her fourth novel, Behind You, about a young girl growing up in Scarborough when a serial killer was at large, was published this year and was an instant national bestseller. Before it hit the shelves, it was optioned by Conquering Lion Pictures to become a feature film, with Catherine writing the screenplay. Behind You was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. She is working on several TV and film projects, including showrunning CBC Gem/Apartment 11/Avenida Productions’ The Unstoppable Jenny Garcia.
Catherine will be available to meet with the UW community to discuss their manuscripts and/or answer questions about being a professional writer. You can request a virtual appointment here
Pre-Interview with 2025 Jake MacDonald Writer-in-Residence Catherine Hernandez
We had the pleasure of asking Catherine some pre-WIR questions about craft, experience, and inspiration. We hope you enjoy this insightful conversation and that you join us in welcoming Catherine as the 2025 Jake MacDonald Writer-in-Residence at the University of Winnipeg. Links to virtual events below. Please register and submit your questions in advance.
Catherine is also available for 50 minute manuscript consultations and/or to answer your questions about being a professional writer and screenwriter from Sept 8-Dec 8 2025. Please request an appointment here: https://forms.gle/Uuus5Tzb6wWMeGyz5
Welcome Reading and Q&A (hosted by Prof. Lindsay Wong):
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/iIpTOFXCTWCdy0NWKRYsfQ
Masterclass (hosted by Prof. Lindsay Wong):
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/H-U15jmLTLSBk1cKVmPVjg
Public Lecture (hosted by Dr. Andrew Burke):
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/3KGpWUyASceroNZKDLGjEQ
About Jake MacDonald
The Jake MacDonald Writer-in-Residence Program honours the memory of the beloved Manitoba writer Jake MacDonald, who passed away suddenly and too soon on January 30, 2020. Through the creative thinking and great generosity of Jake’s family, friends, and peers, this program makes possible the kind of work Jake believed in: mentoring emerging writers, bringing readings and other literary events to the public, and providing support for working writers to concentrate on their projects in process. Erín Moure will be the first writer to hold the Jake MacDonald residency, in 2021.
Jake MacDonald wrote short stories, tall tales, novels, essays, newspaper and magazine articles, and books of non-fiction, and he was beginning to make his mark as a playwright as well. His best-known work is his memoir Houseboat Chronicles: Notes from a Life in Shield Country, which recounts adventures from his life, especially his years spent living on a houseboat on the Winnipeg River near Minaki. That book won the prestigious national Rogers Non-Fiction Award and the Manitoba Book of the Year Award, and became a best-seller. Another popular Jake MacDonald book, Juliana and the Medicine Fish, is very different in genre, being a novel for young people, but it shares the same respect for nature and love of Canadian Shield country. Juliana and the Medicine Fish is a master work of story-telling, and was made into a very fine film. Jake’s debut play, The Cottage, premiered on the main stage of the Manitoba Theatre Centre in the spring of 2019 and shortly thereafter Jake was honoured with the Winnipeg Arts Council’s Making a Mark award. The new residency at the University of Winnipeg is made possible by the Jake MacDonald Writers Fund, which began with a generous founding gift from Jake’s friend Angus Reid. For more information, see https://news.uwinnipeg.ca/uwinnipeg-announces-the-jake-macdonald-writers-fund/
Jake MacDonald (Photo courtesy of the family)
Past Jake MacDonald Writers-in-Residence:
2024 Hiromi Goto
2023 Omar al Akkad
2022 Liz Howard
2021 Erìn Moure