Events & Workshops

Do you need a little time away from the pressures of daily life to focus on your writing while working from home? Join us for the SWG’s first-ever Virtual Facilitated Retreat! This retreat is perfect for all writers—beginner, emerging, or established—who would like to dive deeply into their writing for a few days.

We are hosting our Virtual Facilitated Retreat from June 10-13, 2021. Similar to SWG in-person facilitated retreats, a Virtual Writer-In-Residence (VWiR) will give an introductory talk on an aspect of writing, provide one hour of one-on-one discussion and feedback on your writing and/or answers to your writing-related questions, and provide free writes each morning before focused writing periods. Retreatants will also enjoy focused, goal-oriented writing times, ample screen breaks, and connections between other retreatants during a group workshopping session on the Sunday of the retreat.

The virtual facilitated retreat is designed as a time for you to focus on the writing you would like to do and to gain encouragement and motivation by interacting with the VWiR while fostering a community online, and associating home as a fruitful writing space.  The retreat is structured with flexibility and accessibility in mind: participants are not required to attend every single writing time if they are unable. Retreatants can come and go with check-ins and breaks as opportunities to join in or leave, along with an optional evening-focused writing time. Please refer to the full schedule here. 

The cost is $100 for SWG members and $150 for non-members and includes access to the full retreat, including a one-hour meeting with the VWiR.

To apply, applicants 19 years and older should submit 10 pages of writing they would like to have evaluated by the VWiR, a letter describing their writing experience and why they want to attend the SWG Virtual Facilitated Retreat, and a completed application form. Please see our full application guidelines before submitting.

The application deadline is May 14, 2021 (by midnight).

Preference will be given to beginning and emerging writers. A maximum of ten participants will be accepted from anywhere in the country.

Please contact Program Assistant Tea Gerbeza at programassistant@skwriter.com or Yolanda Hansen at 306-791-7743 with any questions.

About Kelley Jo Burke

KJB is a creative nonfiction writer and documentarian, a playwright, director, actor, editor, radio producer and broadcaster. Her new book, Wreck: A Very Anxious Memoir, comes out with Radiant Press fall 2021.

Her plays include the upcoming musical “The Curst” (with Library Voices) “Us” (co-creator Jeff Straker), “The Lucky Ones,” “Somewhere, Sask. (co-creator Carrie Catherine)”  “Ducks on the Moon” (Hagios), and "The Selkie Wife" (Scirocco).

She is a creative writing professor, specializing in facilitating creative process and the 2009 winner of the Saskatchewan Lieutenant-Governor’s Award for Leadership in the Arts, the 2009 City of Regina Writing Award (my third time receiving that award), and the 2008 Saskatoon and Area Theatre Award for Playwriting.

Why she does what she does: TedX Regina Talk:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNTKKBYHfFk