Events & Workshops

 

Join us at the Bushwakker Writer’s Corner 6^th Edition Author Reading where we celebrate the talents of local authors Annabel Townsend, Bev Lundahl, Michael Trussler, Solomon Ratt, and Timothy Blackett in readings of their work. This event is hosted by local author Shane Arbuthnott. Bushwakker will have local food, drinks, and a special dessert for sale while we make ourselves cozy in the year-round Writer’s Corner found near the back of the brewpub. 

 

This event is free and open to the public.

 

About the Bushwakker’s Writers Corner:

 

Bushwakker’s is seeking donations of recent publications (2021-23 publication dates) from Saskatchewan authors in all genres to help expand their library within the Writer’s Corner. The books will be available for patrons to read and are to remain in the brewpub at all times.

 

To be considered for the library, books must be a minimum of 40 pages and professionally bound.

Please drop off a copy of your recently published book (along with purchasing information which can be shared with brewpub patrons) to Grant Frew at bar@bushwakker.com.

 

Meet our event artists:

 

Annabel Townsend wrote her PhD thesis about ideas of quality in the coffee industry at the University of Sheffield, UK, and then emigrated to Saskatchewan with her young family. When she’s not making coffee, she writes, rides a tricycle and enjoys life on the flat Canadian Prairies. Annabel’s first book, It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time, came out in 2018 with Pottersfield Press. The follow-up, ‘A Thousand Lives’ is out now with Wood Dragon Books. In 2020, (during the pandemic) Annabel opened the Penny University Bookstore in Regina, Saskatchewan.

 

 

Genealogy has led Bev Lundahl down obscure trails that have lured her into hidden places and exposed forgotten slivers of Canadian history.  Her recent book Saskatchewan Dirt, A Pandemic Quest for Connection’s focal point is legalities surrounding land ownership in the early days of European settlement on the prairies.  Entangled Roots, the Mystery of Peterborough’s Headless Corpse illustrates Canada’s struggle with class and race relations in 19^th c. Ontario.  The Thunderbird the Quesnel & the Sea is a dubious World War 2 sailor story.  All three books reveal remote connections between settler families and Indigenous people in Canada.

 

 

Solomon Ratt was born on the banks of the Churchill River just north of the community of Stanley Mission. His parents were hunters and fishers who lived off the land, spending their winters on the trapline and summers fishing in La Ronge. Solomon spent the first six winters of his life with his parents who didn’t speak English. They knew the ways of the land They also knew the traditional stories passed down through generations, which they told to Solomon and his siblings.

At the age of six Solomon was abducted from his home and taken to the residential school in Prince Albert where he began his schooling. He had the first three grades in the residential school then, starting at grade four, he attended Queen Mary School, a school in the community of Prince Albert while living at the residential school. After the residential school he was part of INAC’s boarding out program, living in a family’s home, and a group home, while attending Riverside Collegiate. After high school he attended the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus, which became the University of Regina in 1976. He has two BAs (one in English literature and another in linguistics), and an MA in English Literature. He is a recipient of the Saskatchewan Order of Merit (2021) and The Queens’s Platinum Medallion (2022).

He has been teaching the Cree language and Cree Literature at the First Nations University since 1984 (as a sessional) and full time since 1986. Solomon retired in 2022.

Solomon has done numerous translations from English to Cree and in addition has several publications in Cree including nīhithaw ācimowina - Woods Cree Stories (2014) and māci-nēhiyawēwin – Beginning Cree (2016), both published through the University of Regina Press. Another book through the UR Press was just published in January 2023, kâ-pê-isi-kiskisiyân, ᑳᐯᐃᓯᑭᐢᑭᓯᔮᐣ, The Way I Remember.

He loves stories and storytelling.

 

 

Tim Blackett is a Canadian writer whose work has appeared in Briarpatch, [spaces], and Grain Magazine. He holds a Bachelor of Theology and a BA in English from the University of Regina, as well as a certificate in creative writing from Humber College. Grandview Drive, placed second in the John V. Hicks Long Manuscript Award (2019), and the titular story was longlisted for the Carter v. Cooper Short Fiction Award (2012). He was a runner-up for the City of Regina Writing Award in 2023. He lives in Regina, SK with his partner and their three kids (combined family).

 

 

 

Michael Trussler writes primarily poetry and creative non-fiction. His work has been anthologized both domestically and internationally. He has received Saskatchewan Book Awards for poetry, non-fiction and short stories. His memoir concerning mental illness, The Sunday Book, was published by Palimpsest Press in 2022. Two poetry collections have recently appeared: Rare Sighting of a Guillotine on the Savannah (Mansfield Press, 2021) and The History Forest (University of Regina Press, 2022). Icehouse Press will be releasing another poetry collection, 10:10 in 2024. All of his work engages with the beauty and violence of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, though his most recent writing specifically explores what it means to be alive at the beginning of the Anthropocene.

 

 

Host

 

Shane Arbuthnott is the author of Guardians of Porthaven, as well as the Molly Stout series. His novels have been nominated for multiple awards, including the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for his debut novel, Dominion. His short fiction has appeared in On Spec and Open Spaces. Shane grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and now lives in Regina with his family. For more information on Shane and his books, visit www.shanearbuthnott.com.

 

 

 

 

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Funding by:

               

 

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