On the Festival of Words

If you are a Saskatchewan writer or reader and have never attended Moose Jaw’s Festival of Words (as I had not until this year), you are missing an amazing showcase of Canada’s finest writers — including Gail Bowen, Fred Stenson, Jerry Haigh, Jack Whyte, Thomas Wharton, Andrew Nikiforuk, Anna Porter, Tom Wayman, David Carpenter, and numerous others.  This year’s event was dedicated to the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild, which celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2009. I was drawn to the event because of a writing workshop — given by Sharon Pollock — an accomplished actress and playwright from Alberta. I studied Walsh in a Canadian theatre class several years ago, and fell in love with Sharon’s style. Her playwriting workshop was immensely helpful to me, and having just finished a second draft of Crossroads Cafe, I am ready to employ her very practical suggestions in my third. It’s so nice to know what questions to ask myself when I am trying to judge whether or not a scene or character “works.” You can bet I’ll be attending the full festival next year. It’s well worth the time and money, since Moose Jaw is truly a beautiful and vibrant city.

This entry was posted on July 20, 2009 at 1:13 am and is filed under On Travel, On Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.