WGA: News

 

THE WRITERS GUILD OF ALBERTA CELEBRATES ALBERTA ARTS DAYS!

September 30 – October 2, 2011

To celebrate this year’s Alberta Arts Days, the Writers Guild of Alberta is showcasing Alberta books and authors through a series of events spread across the province.

What can do you to help celebrate Alberta Arts Days? Read or promote a book by an Alberta author.  We will be distributing posters celebrating Alberta authors to libraries and independent bookstores across the province.  Please feel free to down load the poster below and post them in your area, or check out the full list of our 2011 Alberta Literary Award winners here.

Read Alberta Books Poster

We will be posting our events to our website as they are confirmed.  Keep checking back to see what events are happening in your area.

Scroll down and take a look at our ever-growing list of WGA events for Alberta Arts Days. For a list of all AAD activities planned for you community, visit www.albertaartsdays.ca.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Calgary

WGA PRESENTS: WHAT MAKES GREAT POETRY?

Sunday, October 2, 2011

3:00-5:00 pm

Memorial Park Library 3rd Floor

1221 2nd Street SW

Metrovino to facilitate a cash wine bar.  

Free. RSVP to swarwick@writersguild.ab.ca

Join us for a lively panel discussion on the often fraught and debated topic of what makes great poetry. What elements make for a vivid and resonant reading experience? What are the main differences between experimental and narrative poetry? How does an appreciation and understanding of poetry help prose writers become stronger linguists? Featured panelists include Christian Bok, Rosemary Griebel, Steven Ross Smith and incoming CDWP writer-in-residence, Jeramy Dodds as moderator. Access to wine. Interesting afternoon guaranteed. Book sales provided by Pages on Kensington.

This event is in partnership with WORDFEST and the CALGARY DISTINGUISHED WRITERS PROGRAM in celebration of ALBERTA ARTS DAYS. Thank you to the CALGARY PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION for providing the third floor of the MPL.

Christian Bök is the author of Crystallography (Coach House Press, 1994) and Eunoia (Coach HouseBooks, 2001). Eunoia was a bestselling work of experimental literature, which won the Griffin Prize for Poetic Excellence. Bök has created artificial languages for television shows: Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict and Peter Benchley’s Amazon. Bök has also earned many accolades for his virtuoso performances of sound poetry. The Utne Reader recently included Bök in its list of “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World.” Bök teaches English at the University of Calgary.

Jeramy Dodds is a poet and sometimes archaeologist whose work has taken him around the world from Iceland to Ontario. His poems have been translated into Finnish, French, Latvian, Hungarian, Swedish, German and Icelandic. He is the winner of the 2006 Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award and the 2007 CBC Literary Award for Poetry. His first collection of poems, Crabwise to the Hounds, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Gerald Lampert Award and won the Trillium Book Award for Poetry. The Calgary Distinguished Writers Program has named Jeramy Dodds the 2011 Canadian Writer-in-Residence for the University of Calgary.

Rosemary Griebel’s award winning poetry has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2010, literary magazines, anthologies, chapbooks, CBC Radio and on public buses. Her first collection of poetry, Yes, was published by Frontenac in 2011. Rosemary is on the Board of the Writer’s Guild of Alberta and works at Calgary Public Library, an emporium for the inspiration and enjoyment of great poetry.

Steven Ross Smith, writer and sound poet, has twelve books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and has appeared on more than ten recordings in group and solo contexts. He has been creating and performing sound poetry for three decades in collaborative and solo contexts. His works have received several awards including the 2005 Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award and the 2006 bpNichol Chapbook Award (the latter was a collaboration). His new work – Fluttertongue 5: everything appears to shine with mossy splendour – was published in 2011 by Turnstone Press. Smith has performed his work and/or been published in England, Holland, Russia, Portugal, USA, and Canada. He is currently the Director of Literary Arts at The Banff Centre

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Edmonton

WHERE ART MEETS LITERATURE: GALLERY STROLL AND TALK

Saturday, Oct. 1, 2011

12:30 - 3:30 pm

The Daffodil Gallery

10412 124th Street

Please RSVP to mail@writersguild.ab.ca, 780-422-8174

Join The Daffodil Gallery and The Writers Guild of Alberta for a jam-packed art-filled afternoon! The day will begin with a guided tour of some galleries on 124th street. Ooh and Aah at artwork before going back to The Daffodil Gallery where Laurie MacFayden— painter, photographer and poet—will give a talk about the intersection of art and writing.

Even if you can’t make the whole event, swing by the Daffodil Gallery and mingle with writers and artists!

Laurie MacFayden: is a painter, photographer and award-winning poet. Her first book, White Shirt, won a 2011 Golden Crown Literary Society award in the Poetry category and was shortlisted for the 2011 Lambda Literary Awards. Her art has been featured in various public spaces in Edmonton, including the Kaasa Gallery at Jubilee Auditorium, the Gallery at Milner, Visual Arts Alberta, Harcourt House, and the Blue Plate Diner. Her work can be viewed online at www.lauriemacfayden.com.

Download the Poster

 

READ-IN WEEK OPENING "FESTIMONY"

Presented by the WGA, Edmonton Community Adult Learning Association,

Centre for Family Literacy, and the Book Publisher Associations of Alberta

Saturday, October 1

McIntryre Park (Gazebo Park),

Corner of 104 Street and 83 Avenue next to the Strathcona Library

11:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.

Cost: Free

 

Kick-off the 22nd annual Read-In Week by joining the WGA and partners at MacIntrye Park for some readin’ good fun! Join authors, book publishers, entertainers and fellow readers in celebration of lifelong literacy. Check out the Writers Guild tent where Edmonton’s own Poet Laureate, Anna Marie Sewell, will be on-hand to answer questions on the writing life and to read from her own work.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Drumheller

WRITING THE RURAL, WRITING HOME: A WORKSHOP WEEKEND WITH PAM CHAMBERLAIN

Saturday, October 1, 1:30 – 4:30 pm

Sunday, October 2, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm

Drumheller Public Library, AV Room

224, Centre Street, Free

Presented by the WGA & the Drumheller Public Library

RSVP to lindeturner@magtech.ca

Let the unique and haunting landscape of Drumheller—rich with hoodoos, fossils, excavations, ghost towns, history, and stories—inspire you to write about your rural place, your home. Come to this weekend workshop ready to write about the people, places, and stories of your rural home. 

Note: Participants may send up to twelve double-spaced pages for feedback from the instructor. The deadline to submit your work is September 21, 2011. Please ask for details when you register.

Pam Chamberlain grew up on a farm in east-central Alberta and has spent the last fifteen years teaching literature and writing across the province. Her writing and scholarly interests lie mainly in rural themes. An essay about her childhood home won the 2006 Jon Whyte Memorial Essay Prize, and her recent anthology, Country Roads: Memoirs from Rural Canada, was on bestseller lists across the country.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Morinville

WRITERS WRITING HOME: A WORKSHOP BY MARTY CHAN AND JESSICA KLUTHE

Friday, September. 30, 2011

7:00 – 9:00 pm

Morinville Cultural Centre

9502 - 100 Avenue

Please RSVP to mail@writersguild.ab.ca, 780-422-8174

Authors Marty Chan and Jessica Kluthe break down the creative writing process into simple steps that anyone can follow. They offer practical tips and easy-to-apply ideas that can help you kick-start your novel, memoir or script. Marty and Jessica will discuss the role of place in creative writing, a theme that has influenced each of their work. Join these writers in an interactive workshop as they visit their hometown of Morinville, Alberta.

Marty Chan is a young adult author, playwright and humorist. His plays and television shows have been produced around the world. His weekly radio series ran on CBC Radio for six years. He is currently the writer in residence at the Edmonton Public Library. For more information, please visit www.martychan.com.

Jessica Kluthe is a non-fiction writer and writing instructor. With her sight set on a literary career, she pursued a BA degree in English and Creative Writing and then an MFA degree in Writing. Her stories have been published in Canadian literary magazines, and she is putting the final touches on her book about a midwife at the turn-of-the-century in Calabria, Italy. You can contact her at: jessica.kluthe@gmail.com.

Download the Poster

Marty Chan's website: www.martychan.com

Jessica Kluthe's blog: www.jessicakluthe.tumblr.com

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Nanton

THE PLACES WE KNOW (AND LOVE)

Saturday, October 1, 2011

1:00 – 3:00 pm

Thelma Fanning Memorial Library

1907 – 21 Avenue, Free

RSVP to mail@writersguild.ab.ca

The places we know, the places we call home, oh, the places we write from. Come learn/talk/discuss about writing from the home fires, juxtaposing story and time and place all within your life perimeters. This fun overview covers the gamut from memoir writing to fiction to creative non-fiction and historical writing. Come join us in your home town.

Lee Kvern is the award-winning author of short stories and novels. The Matter of Sylvie was nominated for the 2011 Alberta Book Awards and the Relit Award. Afterall was nominated for the 2006 Alberta Book Awards. Her short stories are also well celebrated: White was the winner of the 2007 CBC Literary Awards, and I May Have Known You was nominated for the 2010 Alberta Literary Awards. Detachment was a finalist in the Malahat Open Season Award 2010. Her work has been produced for CBC Radio, published in Event, Descant, enRoute and on Joyland.ca, New York, forthcoming on Foundpress.com.  Her third book, a short story collection will be out in 2012.  www.leekvern.com

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Red Deer

WRITERS WRITING HOME: A WORKSHOP BY LORNE DANIEL AND JUDITH WILLIAMS

Saturday, Oct. 1, 2011

2:00 - 4:00pm

Red Deer Public Library

4818-49 Street

Please RSVP to mail@writersguild.ab.ca, 780-422-8174

Join poet and non-fiction writer Lorne Daniel and children's writer Judith Williams for a discussion about the role of place in contemporary creative writing. As writers, we imprint ourselves on the places we inhabit and write about. Those places, in turn, speak back to us and tell about ourselves. Lorne Daniel will lead discussions on home and place in our writing, and read from his own work and that of other writers who have explored our sense of place.

Lorne Daniel has published poetry and non-fiction in about 200 literary magazines, newspapers and magazines. His blog Writing: Place explores our connections to place and he also blogs regularly for Life As A Human (lifeasahuman.com) and The Urban Times (theurbn.com). His new book of Selected Poems, Drawing Back to Take a Running Jump, will be published in 2011. He is also completing a book of essays about west central Alberta's oil country.

Author Judith Williams was born in Quebec, but has lived more than half of her life in Alberta. With several international awards in children’s non-fiction, she has ten books in print, three of which are translated into Spanish. Besides writing, Judith mentors and teaches creative writing to youth and adults in Southern Alberta.

Download the Poster

Lorn Daniel's Website: www.lornedaniel.com

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Rocky Mountain House

CHILDREN’S AUTHOR JOAN MARIE GALAT

Friday, September 30, 2011

9:30 am and 10:45 am

Pioneer Middle School, School Library,

5516 – 54 Street, Free

Presented by the WGA, Rocky Mountain House Library & Pioneer Middle School

Join Rocky Mountain House Public Library & Pinoeer Middle School are hosting award-winning children’s author, Joan Marie Galat for a children’s book reading and science-based workshop—Dot to Dot in the Sky—to discover astronomy and mythology while reinforcing story-writing and self-editing techniques.

Joan Marie Galat: is the Alberta-based author of the best selling and award winning Dot to Dot in the Sky series. These books encompass sky science and storytelling, revealing astronomy facts as well as the myths and legends ancient cultures used to explain celestial mysteries. Published by Whitecap Books, Scholastic, Capstone Press, and numerous magazines, Joan is a frequent presenter and public speaker. Her first writing job sprung from an honorable mention received after entering a writing contest at age 13. This led to a weekly newspaper bird column. Joan also operates MoonDot Media, a communications business offering writing and editing solutions in broadcast, print, and multi-media. She edits the quarterly Advocate magazine and volunteers on the board of the Young Alberta Book Society to promote her passions—books, literacy, and Canadian creators. Please visit www.joangalat.com for additional information.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

St. Albert

BREWING BOOKS: SELF-PUBLISHING WITH THE U OF A’S ESPRESSO BOOK MACHINE

Saturday, October 1, 2011

10:00  – 10:45 am

St. Albert Public Library

5 St. Anne Street, Free.

Presented by the WGA, St. Albert Public Library & the University of Alberta Bookstore

RSVP to mail@writersguild.ab.ca

Are you interested in self-publishing? Do you have a family story, recipe book, out-of-print publication or your own novel that you’d like to see in print? Join Jacqui Wong from the University of Alberta Bookstore for a presentation on the U of A’s Espresso Book Machine. She’ll take you through the process of publication step-by-step, provide examples of Espresso Machine books and answer any questions you may have. Espresso also puts books into the hands of consumers in minutes, almost as quick as a cup of coffee.