WT Amplified Voices is a project that promotes published work of BIPOC or LGBTQ2S+ Canadian authors. The project was originally created to provide visibility to authors during the COVID-19 pandemic, when health restrictions prevented publicity opportunities like in-person book launches, literary festivals, and bookstore foot traffic.
In 2025, the project is promoting works published in the last year by Writers' Trust of Canada honourees, jurors, and mentors who identify as BIPOC or LGBTQ2S+. WT has partnered with bookstores across the country and in North America to facilitate in-store displays, customer engagement, and book giveaways.
The 2024 focus was Canadian authors from the LGBTQ2S+ community. Writers' Trust sent copies of Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers finalist books to Canadian bookstores in each province and territory to help increase visibility and engagement for shortlisted authors.
The 2023 project promoted winners of the 2023 Writers’ Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, given to emerging writers for a short story or excerpt from a fiction work-in-progress. The 2023 anthology, Journey Prize Stories, featured work from the best emerging Black Canadian writers.
The WT Amplified Voices program is sponsored by the Government of Canada. The Journey Prize is supported by James A. Michener’s donation of his Canadian royalty earnings from his novel Journey. We thank all booksellers for partnering with us to promote these important works.
