Writing North 6: Road Kill, art from carnage

By dee Hobsbawn-Smith

The author of this article is also a presenter at the 2016 Writing North workshop. For more details on the workshop dates and a schedule of events, please click here.

Think of road kill, and highway accidents comes to mind: fluttering blue-black feathers of dead magpies, skunk carcasses rotting in a ditch, remnants of coyote-ravaged deer or porcupines littering a gravel road. But to writers, “road kill” can serve as a metaphor for the sideways thinking that creates literary art from what appears to be carnage; like everything in a writer’s world, disaster may be grist for the writing mill. “Road Kill” is the theme for the sixth iteration of Writing North, which takes place at Louis’ Loft on the U of S campus in January 2016, welcoming writers Dave Bidini, Lee Henderson, Donna Kane, Brad Fraser and myself as presenters.

Writing North is a no charge annual weekend writers’ festival that targets Saskatoon and the wider provincial audience of writers and readers. Over the three days of the festival, attendees will experience a public reading, panel discussion and individual craft talks on writing in poetry, drama and prose. The event is co-presented by the U of S’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Culture and Creativity (ICCC) and departments of English and drama in conjunction with the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild.

“We were looking for a spread in genre,” said Professor Jeanette Lynes, who coordinates the MFA in Writing program and also sits on the organizing committee that selected Writing North presenters. “We wanted generosity and a willingness to share their craft knowledge in what’s really a teaching role.”

Bidini, who is also a musician, writes widely about sports and music, and may be the only Canadian whose work has been nominated for a Gemini, Genie and Juno, as well as for CBC's Canada Reads. Kane, a Dawson Creek poet, is currently completing a manuscript of poems about the Pioneer 10 space probe launched by NASA in 1972. Henderson, an associate professor of writing at the University of Victoria, writes short fiction and novels, is a serious musicologist and also a cartoonist with an enduring fondness for Calvin and Hobbes. Playwright Brad Fraser just finished his master’s degree in theatre and performance studies at the University of Toronto. This writer, poet, essayist and writer of fiction and nonfiction, is currently the writer in residence at the Saskatoon Public Library.

Previous presenters at Writing North include a cross-section of Canadian literary luminaries, many of them award-winning: poet and novelist Patrick Lane, novelist David Bergen, playwright and dramaturge Yvette Nolan, poet Ken Babstock and nonfiction author Candace Savage, among others.

“The festival offers a cultural exchange among students—in drama, English and writing—and literary scholars and the community,” Lynes said. “It fills a vital spot in the city’s winter calendar.”

Tracy Hamon, program manager at the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild, said that the writers who will be presenting this year all, in some way, are well-positioned to help build relationships between the university and wider community.

“All four are well positioned to speak not only to our community, but also to our chosen theme for the weekend: Road Kill. These high-profile writers understand our culture and the characters that make it interesting, ” said Hamon via email.

A Sage Hill Writing fundraising event kicks off the festival on Thursday, Jan . 21, at The Woods Alehouse. On Friday, Bidini takes centre stage at Louis’ Loft on campus, followed by a panel discussion and reception. Saturday’s workshop-style craft talks, readings and reception will also take place at Louis’ Loft.

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