The Canadian Applied Literature Association (CALA) is an academic association committed to exploring the critical, activist, pedagogical, and therapeutic applications of literature and story.

CALA is open to scholars and practitioners from any discipline, including but not limited to literature, Indigenous studies, social work, psychology, and education. Members of CALA meet at an annual conference to share their practical and theoretical work on applied literature.

CALA officially came into being as an association in 2011. Prior to that it existed through the Association of Bibliotherapy and Applied Literature (ABAL), founded in 1990.

CALL FOR PAPERS – University of Calgary, May 29-30, 2016

Conferences 

• 2014 — Borders Without Boundaries?: Mobilizations, Impasses, Traversals
• 2012 — Literature, Social Justice, and Change, Wilfrid Laurier University
• 2011 — Troubling Subjects: Teaching Risky Texts, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario
• 2010 — Connected Understanding: Stories, Lives and Texts, Concordia University, Montreal
• 2009 — Literature and the Ecology of Mind and Nature, Carleton University, Ottawa
• 2008 — Crossing Boundaries, University of British Columbia, Vancouver