Events & Workshops

Please ensure you are logged in as a member to access the member rate for the session.

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 livestreamed or recorded.

Workshop registration refund policy:

Please be certain you will be able to attend before you register. Registered participants must promptly email the SWG staff person responsible for the event (Cat Abenstein, Program Manager, swgevents@skwriter.com) to cancel their registration. Otherwise, no refunds will be issued.

• A full refund is available if you cancel your registration one week prior to the start of workshop (by 11:59 p.m. on June 3, 2025)
• A 50% refund is available if you cancel your registration less than one week and more than 48 hours before the workshop. (For cancellations between June 4 and 9 at 11:59 p.m. SK time)
• There is no refund for registrations cancelled within 48 hours of the workshop or no-shows. (Beginning at 12:00 a.m. on June 10)
• If you would like to donate your registration fee to the SWG’s accessibility fund so others can attend events like this in the future, please let us know in your email.

Accessibility Measures in this workshop

• Live auto-captions through Zoom
• Presenter self-descriptions
• Limited Zoom technical support provided by SWG staff to assist participants while they’re in the Zoom meeting.

To help you prepare, here are the expectations for participants in this workshop:

• Camera required (participants are asked to be on camera for the duration.)
• Participant discussion is not required but it is appreciated.
• Participants are not expected to share writing created during the workshop with the group if applicable, but it is appreciated.
• Participants are expected to participate in activities/prompts/exercises throughout the workshop. (In session only, no homework required.)

Personal Essay Workshop: Take Your Worst Moments and Use Them as Life Writing

This workshop is a hands-on exploration of the craft of personal essay writing. It covers subject matter, execution and proper placement of your personal essay.

Students will get the opportunity to lay down the skeleton of a first draft. The emphasis in this workshop will be on voice-centered writing and how to hone your own unique style of writing.

Your worst moments can be successfully transformed into subject matter.  Adversity and challenge often create the ideal tension and conflict needed to forge dynamic writing.

Join Robertson and in a few short hours she’ll take you from worst moment to a first draft.

Workshop Facilitator

It’s been almost three decades since freelance writer and independent journalist Patricia Dawn Robertson held down a straight job. Robertson’s personal essays have appeared in Reader’s Digest, The Walrus, Broadview, Canadian Living, Best Health, The Christian Science Monitor, The Globe and Mail Books and the Women’s Review of Books. Robertson’s memoir, Media Brat: A Gen-X Memoir, was released in April 2025. It’s available for purchase at MeatDrawBooks.com.  She lives in a 1925 Eaton’s house in Wakaw, Saskatchewan, with her writer/editor spouse, D. Grant Black. To fend off the perils of submission rejection, Robertson power-weeds and tends to her two spoiled Siberian Forest Cats.

Funding by:

               

In partnership with: