Events & Workshops

Workshop dates are May 28, June 11, and June 25, 2024, 6:30-9 p.m. via Zoom

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If this workshop is sold out, please email swgevents@skwriter.com to be placed on the waitlist.
 

Please note all times listed are Saskatchewan time. Find your time zone here: https://dateful.com/time-zone-converter

This event will not be live-streamed or recorded.

Dispatches from the World: A Workshop with Ariel Gordon

Wild turkeys roaming the back alleys. Coyotes running down the street. Canada Geese roosting on rooftops. What does it mean to slow down and pay attention to the urban ecosystem? What lives there?

In this three-part workshop, we will be focusing on close observation of urban nature.

Participants will work on a two-week cycle, where the first week sees them go for a walk / ride the bus / look out their windows / sit on a bench and write about what they see/hear/smell/taste. From those notes, participants will create a 1-2 page piece of writing, which they will send to Ariel for feedback. In the second week, participants will do a second draft of their piece, which will be workshopped in class with the group. 

Participants are asked to bring one page of previously written nature-inspired work to the first session to practice the workshopping process.

Participants will finish the workshop with advanced drafts of two pieces.

Who is this for?

This workshop is for writers of all levels but is particularly suited to emerging writers as it models all kinds of writing and editing practices.

Workshop timeline and expectations

All sessions will be online via Zoom meetings. We encourage your attendance at every session.

• May 28, 2024, 6:30-9:00p.m. SK time
  • First class
  • Introductions, in-class writing prompts, discussion about constructive criticism and workshopping, workshopping of previously-written piece, explanation of homework.
     
• June 3, 2024: First draft of Piece #1 sent to Ariel for feedback. (Max 2 pages, single-spaced in a text doc.)
   
• June 6, 2024: Ariel returns first draft of Piece #1 to participants with feedback. Participants incorporate feedback and produce a second draft of Piece #1 to workshop in the next session.
   
• June 11, 2024, 6:30-9:00 p.m. SK time
  • Second class
  • Workshopping of second draft of Piece #1
     
• June 17, 2024: First draft of Piece #2 sent to Ariel for feedback. (Max 2 pages, single-spaced in a text doc.)
   
• June 20, 2024: Ariel returns first draft of Piece #2 to participants with feedback. Participants incorporate feedback and produce a second draft of Piece #2 to workshop in the next session.
   
• June 25, 2024, 6:30-9:00 p.m. SK time
  • Third and final class
  • Workshopping of second draft of Piece #2. Farewells.

Ariel Gordon (she/her) is a Winnipeg/Treaty 1 territory-based writer, editor, and enthusiast. She is the ringleader of Writes of Spring, a National Poetry Month project with the Winnipeg International Writers Festival that appears in the Winnipeg Free Press. In 2022, Ariel was a 2nd place winner of Grain’s inaugural Kloppenberg Hybrid Grain Contest. In 2023, her fourth collection of poetry Siteseeing: Writing nature & climate change across the prairies, written in collaboration with Saskatchewan poet Brenda Schmidt, came out with Winnipeg's At Bay Press. In June 2024, her second collection of creative non-fiction, Fungal: Foraging in the Urban Forest, will be published by Hamilton's Wolsak & Wynn.

Funding by:

               

In partnership with: