Writing North 2017: Mutations

Writing North 7: Mutations 
When: January 27–28
Where: Louis' Loft, 93 Campus Drive, Saskatoon

Presenters: Falen Johnson, Sylvia Legris, Madeleine Thien, Phil Hall, Zoey Pricelys Roy, Arthur Slade (BA'89)

Writing North is a two-day writers’ festival that targets Saskatoon and a wider Saskatchewan community of aspiring writers and anyone interested in writers and books. Now in its seventh year, Writing North features six established writers. The event is a collaboration between the U of S College of Arts & Science MFA in Writing Program, Department of English and Department of Drama, and the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild.

Writing North begins on Friday evening with a panel discussion involving Slade, Pricelys Roy, Hall, Johnson, and Legris, focusing on the various aspects of writing and change. The evening features a keynote address by Madeleine Thien, winner of both the 2016 Giller and Governor General's awards. A Q&A with the author will follow.

On Saturday our writers will conduct seminars related to their particular forms: fiction and YA (Art Slade), spoken word and performance (Zoey Pricelys Roy), poetry (Phil Hall), playwriting (Falen Johnson) and poetry (Sylvia Legris). These sessions will be practical and intended for developing writers of all levels. The day ends with readings from the authors.

Admission to this event is FREE.

Funding is also provided by Canada Council for the Arts, SaskCulture, and Saskatchewan Lotteries.

Jack Pine Press is our featured publisher and will be on hand with a special book table.

Friday, January 27, 2017

Saturday, January 28, 2017

Cash bar. Feel free to stay for cocktails after the reading to chat with authors!

Presenter Bios:

Falen Johnson is Mohawk and Tuscarora from Six Nations (Bear Clan). She is a writer, dramaturge and actor. Her first play Salt Baby has been staged with Native Earth Performing Arts, Planet IndigenUS, The Next Stage Festival, Live Five, The Globe Theatre and has toured across the country. She is a former associate artist for Turtle Gals Performance Ensemble, and Native Earth. She is also the former playwright-in-residence at Native Earth and Blyth Festival Theatre. She was the 2015 recipient of the OAC Emerging Aboriginal Artist Award. Her second play Two Indians was recently debuted at The SummerWorks Performance Festival.

Sylvia Legris’ latest book, The Hideous Hidden (New Directions 2016), is a richly lyrical collection that, in the words of Rosmarie Waldrop, “makes anatomy sing.” Legris’ other collections include Pneumatic Antiphonal (2013), published as part of New Directions’ acclaimed Poetry Pamphlet Series, and Nerve Squall, winner of both the 2006 Griffin Poetry Prize and the 2006 Pat Lowther Award. Among her other awards are the 2014 Lieutenant Governor’s Saskatchewan Artist Award and, in 2012, the Canada Council’s Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award for outstanding achievement by a mid-career writer. Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, and Poetry.

Madeleine Thien was born in Vancouver. She is the author of the story collection Simple Recipes (2001), and three novels, Certainty (2006); Dogs at the Perimeter (2011), shortlisted for Berlin’s International Literature Prize and winner of the Frankfurt Book Fair’s 2015 Liberaturpreis. Her latest book Do Not Say We Have Nothing (2016) was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker and the 2016 winner of the Giller Prize and Governor General’s prizes. Her books and stories are published in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Australia, and have been translated into 25 languages.

Phil Hall grew up between Bobcaygeon and Fenelon Falls in the Kawartha Lakes region of Ontario. He went to the last of the rural public schools, and then to Fenelon Falls High School. Hall was the 2011 winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry in English, for Killdeer, published by BookThug. He was also the 2012 winner of Ontario's Trillium Book Award for Killdeer. This book of essay-poems also won an Alcuin Design Award, and was nominated for the Griffin Poetry Prize.

Zoey Pricelys Roy is an award winning spoken word poet, performing artist, filmmaker, arts-based educator and social entrepreneur based out of Saskatoon, SK. She is the author of homecoming, a poetic memoir published by Jackpine Press, which is about finding home within yourself while confronting your identity’s baggage. She is a student at the University of Saskatchewan in SUNTEP and will receive her B.Ed in May 2017.

Arthur Slade was raised on a ranch in the Cypress Hills of Saskatchewan. He is the author of eighteen novels for young readers including The Hunchback Assignments, which won the prestigious TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award and Dust, winner of the Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature. He also co-created the graphic novel Modo: Ember's End. He lives in Saskatoon, Canada.

Information: contact Daniella Rozin at swgpr@skwriter.com