Eden Mills Writers Festival

Over the weekend the Beynon family attended the 20th Annual Eden Mills Writers Festival. We donned our rain gear and made the 25 minute drive to picturesque Eden Mills.

This was our first visit to the festival, although my wife and I have talked for years about attending. What really attracted us this year was the impressive lineup of children's authors. The one that cinched it and made it a must attend event, despite the rain, was Dennis Lee. If you don't know who Dennis Lee is you will at the least know his most famous poem, Alligator Pie.

For a complete listing of all of the authors that attended, please follow this link. Most of my time was spent with the kids listening to the children's authors and illustrators, but I did manage to slip away to listen to a reading by Robert J. Sawyer, Canada's self-proclaimed Dean of Science Fiction. Having seen him interviewed on television, and listen to him on the radio, his performance was everything I expected. Loud, energetic and enthusiastic. He read from his recent novel, Rollback. I recently read the novel and listening to Sawyer read his own words, it was interesting to note the parts he chose to emphasize that I, as I read the novel, would not. This experience really underscores how important it is for a writer to have a second set of eyes - and ears - going over his work for a feel and understanding of how others will approach it.

While enjoying the day in Eden Mills I noted that our local Conservative MP, Michael Chong, was also in attendance with his young son. This doesn't surprise me as it has been my experience that Michael is very much concerned with local issues and very supportive of all events of note in his constituency. What interests me is that on the morning that our conservative Prime Minister - who has recently announced $40 million worth of cuts to the arts - called an election, our local conservative MP was attending the Eden Mills Writers Festival.

It was an enjoyable day with the entire family in a picturesque community and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in reading or writing...or spending some time in a lovely little village.

On a different, but related note, I received an e-mail last Thursday from PRISM International, the University of British Columbia's literary magazine. It was a call for submissions for their literary nonfiction contest. I've chosen to blow the dust off the Long Ride Home. After some cleanup and increased perspective, the manuscript is ready to be sent out.

I've also become aware of a Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing offered through the University of Guelph. I find myself interested. This bears further investigation.

I'll keep you posted

PRISM International and the Fiction Workshop

It has been a busy week. Not only has it been blowing and snowing to such extremes that the highways in my neck of the woods were closed on Wednesday and all schools were closed today, but my writing has been more structured and dedicated.

It has been a long haul but, with the deadline of Jan 31st acting as a fire under my ass, I was able to finish Small Town Secrets at long last. At only seventeen pages it's one of my shorter fiction pieces but the subject matter was difficult. The middle and beginning were subject to countless revisions but the last six pages are almost exactly as they flowed from the pen late Wednesday night. I typed out the last of it Thursday morning, printed the manuscript and mailed it off to PRISM International, the University of British Columbia's literary magazine for their annual short fiction contest. I just noticed that the deadline has extended so if you hurry, you can enter to. Entering is a no-lose proposition as the entry fee just so happens to be the cost of an annual subscription to their excellent magazine.

I've mentioned a few times the Fiction Writer's Workshop presented by the Elora Centre for the Arts hosted by Michael Hale. The first get together was last night. In my last post I voiced my fears regarding writer's workshops and such and I'm glad to report there was nary a whiff of black nor angst in the room. There are four of us plus the host which makes for a cozy, intimate group.

The workshop consisted of discussions about the craft of writing, the business of writing and what each of us wanted to get out of the workshop. We also did some spontaneous exercises and I've included one of them over at my Fiction Notebook. You can go straight to the Alphabet Exercise by following this link. After each workshop I pick something to add on the Elora Centre for the Arts Fiction Workshop page.

I'm finding the workshop very helpful. Writing is such a solitary thing and egos are so easily bruised that it's refreshing to find a handful of folks who are willing to take the risk and connect and share. I came away feeling refreshed and certain that this workshop will help me build the schedule I need for sustained daily writing.


With ambitious plans for 2008, a sustained daily writing schedule is just what I need.