We are thrilled to present the instructors for Wordsworth 2019.
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WordsWorth 2019 Instructors
[tabs style=”default”] [tab title=”Marcello Di Cintio”]
Weeks 1 & 3– Writing Wrongs
[/tab][tab title=”Louise Casemore”]
Weeks 1 & 3– Fact and Fiction
Louise Casemore is a creator, director, and Sterling Award winning writer/performer originally from Edmonton. She is the Artistic Associate for Calgary’s Ghost River Theatre, Artistic Director of Defiance Theatre, and recipient of the 2017 Enbridge/ATP Playwright’s Award. Through Defiance and as a freelance artist, Louise has been involved in almost 20 world premieres and counting, including her one woman shows OCD, Functional (Found Fest, Ignite Festival), GEMINI (touring 2018/19) and the upcoming cabaret exorcism that is Undressed. Additional credits include The Bereft Project with Charles Netto and Theatre Junction’s TJLabs, teaching playwriting and performance creation with the Writer’s Guild of Alberta, Alberta Playwright’s Network, and ATP Raucous Caucus, and serving as a proud member of Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre Board of Directors. Defiance Theatre is committed to developing new Canadian theatre and exploring alternatives to conventional storytelling. Louise is a devoted to finding honesty and intimacy wherever she can, and all things strange and unusual.
(Photo by Marc J Chalifoux) [/tab] [tab title=”Colin Martin”]Weeks 1 & 3 –We are Legion(d), Mythic Verses
Colin Martin- “We are Legion(d)” Week 1, “Mythic Verses” Week 3 – lives, writes, and teaches in Calgary. He has published five chapbooks of poetry, and fiction and academic pieces in a number of journals and anthologies. He is thrilled to be back at Wordsworth; this year should be…legendary.
[/tab] [tab title=”Jani Krulc”]
Week 2- Translation
Jani Krulc writes fiction and practices and teaches yoga. Her first collection of short stories, The Jesus Year, was published in 2013. This is Jani’s third summer at WordsWorth, and she is thrilled to return. She lives in Calgary with a pomeranian, a cat, and her partner, and is at work on her second book.
[/tab][tab title=”Kim Firmston”]
Weeks 1 & 2- Radio Plays, Your Virtual Workshop
Kim Firmston is a YA author with six published novels under her belt. Her novel, Stupid, was the winner of the Canadian Children’s Book Centre Best Books for Kids & Teens in 2014, Shortlisted for the Stellar Award – Red Cedar Young Reader’s Choice Awards, and translated into French (Oliver). Kim loves writing widely and including humour in her work, flipping topics on their head to see what the underside has to offer. She dabbles in playwriting, short stories, video games, websites, and articles. Her current projects include a beginner chapter book about super villains, a picture book about a Hipster Ninja Zebra Squirrel, and a YA sci-fi action-adventure novel set in space. Kim is the Alexandra Writers’ Centre Society’s youth program director and has been a writing instructor for over a decade. Kim has devoted her life to empowering writers and assisting them in elevating their projects into publishable works of art, each with their own unique twist and voice.
[/tab] [tab title=”Richard Kelly Kemick”]
Weeks 2 & 3- Russian Realism, Dialogue and Story for The Musical
Richard Kelly Kemick is an award-winning Canadian poet, journalist, and fiction writer. He is the author of Caribou Run, a collection of poetry. Having published widely in all three genres, his work has been included in anthologies in Canada and the United Kingdom. Richard is the recipient of multiple awards including two National Magazine Awards and first place in the 2017 Norma Epstein National Creative Writing Competition.
[/tab] [tab title=”Ainsley Hillyard”]Weeks 1 & 2- The intersection of Words and Movement in a Creative Process
Ainsley Hillyard is an Edmonton-based performer, choreographer and educator working in
dance and theatre. She earned her Diploma in dance from Grant MacEwan College and a
Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from The School of Contemporary Dancers in affiliation with The
University of Winnipeg
Ainsley is a core artistic member of the Good Women Dance Collective, creating and performing
works for the Brian Webb Dance Company, Dancers Studio West, the Dance Made in Canada
Festival, TedX Edmonton, The Expanse Festival, The Art Gallery of Alberta and The Feats
Festival of dance, among others.
As an independent artist, Ainsley has choreographed for several theatre companies. Select
choreography credits include; The Other and Bears (Sterling Award for Outstanding
Choreography) with Pyretic Productions; Ursa Major and Snout with Catch The Keys
Productions, 9 Parts of Desire with The Maggie Tree, Jack and the Beanstalk with Alberta
Opera and assistant choreographer for Hadestown at the Citadel. Recently, she
created Jezebel, at the Still Point, a performance staring her French bulldog Jezebel.
http://www.ainsleyhillyard.ca/?page_id=12
[/tab] [tab title=”David Wilson”]
Week 3- Body, Breath and Voice
David Wilson (BMus, Mmus) is a Singer, award-winning Conductor, Voice Teacher, Senior Yoga Instructor/Teacher Trainer and Breath Therapist, ad the founder and principal of The Wilson Method for Voice. He is recognized across Canada as the leading authority on the use of Yoga, Functional Vocal Work and Breath Therapy to aid healthy singing and speaking techniques. He offers workshops to singers, actors, teachers and professionals on vocal power, emotional and creative freedom, anxiety and asthma relief, respiratory health, core stability, somatic movement and public speaking. David currently holds positions with Edmonton Musical Theatre, the University of Alberta, Cowtown Opera Summer Academy and the Theatre Arts program at MacEwan University. His DVD/Book, The Wilson Method for Voice will be released in 2020. [email protected] www.the-wilson-method.com @thewilsonmethod #the_wilson_method
[/tab] [tab title=”Cathy Ostlere”]
Week 3 -Inner Green
Cathy Ostlere is an award-winning writer of creative nonfiction and young adult
fiction. Her first book, the memoir, Lost, was shortlisted for the 2009 Edna Staebler
Creative Non-fiction Award. She is a 2012 Governor General Award finalist for her play, Lost: A Memoir. Her second book, Karma, a YA novel-in-verse, has won or been shortlisted for many awards. Cathy’s an avid traveller, hiker, and has uncovered a new passion of genealogical sleuthing for her father’s biological family. She’s recently returned to the typewriter as a tool for exploring new writing. Cathy lives in Calgary and enjoys teaching myth, fairytales, horror, poetry, and the hero’s journey. This is her seventh summer teaching at Wordsworth and is delighted to be back!
http://cathy-ostlere.com/author/
[/tab] [tab title=”Lindsey Walker”]
Week 3- Music for The Musical
Lindsey Walker searches for beauty in the darkness in her Edmonton Music Award Album of the year nominated ‘this desolate bliss.’ Apocalyptic, cinematic and achingly sincere, the magnetic intensity of this album explores the wages of regret with palpable hope. An undulating tapestry of dark brooding anthems, infectious rock and sensual hymns, Walker defies lost loves legacy, cobbling a glorious new vision from the ashes. This bold new direction from her acclaimed debut album Our Glory marks an artistic evolution of haunting symphonic power. Lindsey Walker was voted Best of Edmonton Solo Artist by Vue Weekly (2017) and nominated for Female Artist of the Year EMA (2018). On releasing ‘this desolate bliss’ she earned distinction as a Canadian Songwriting competition semi finalist with eerie track St.Petersburg, the simmering Window also drew notice with an Indie Rock Recording of the Year EMA nom. Edmonton based, Winnipeg bred Lindsey roams extensively winning hearts with her raw honesty and soaring vocal dynamism. Since her 2013 EMA nomination as an “Artist to Watch” Walker has played venues from Vancouver to Halifax and gained a national audience of devoted fans. Find her wandering in the night pursuing all that dares to glimmer.
https://lindseywalkermusic.com/home
[/tab] [tab title=”Johnny MacRae”]Week 2- Team Piece! Collaborative Writing & Performance
Johnny MacRae is a mouthy poet living on the unceded ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) nations. Both a regional and national slam champion, MacRae has toured widely since 2010, giving over 200 performances at slams and readings, as well as festivals of poetry, music, and theatre across Canada, solo and as a member of collaborative acts 2 Dope Boys in a Cadillac, The Dambassadors and Travelin’ Word Circus. In that same time, he has given over 300 workshops for youth and adults across British Columbia and Canada. When not writing, performing, or teaching, he can be found engaged in community organization. He founded UBC Poetry Slam and Victoria’s Raising Voices outreach program, Raising Voices; co-directed CFSW 2014 in Victoria, and has co-directed Vancouver’s Hullabaloo Festival since 2015; directed Raising Voices and Vancouver’s WordPlay Poets from 2013 to 2018; created Spoken Word Canada’s series list for touring artists; and acted as Canadian Individual Poetry Slam Tournament Director in 2016 and 2018. In 2013, he was named Poet of Honour for the Victoria Spoken Word Festival, and in 2017, received the Zaccheus Jackson Nyce Memorial Award.
[/tab] [tab title=”Marin Perlette”]Week 3- Illustrating Your Narrative
Marin Perlette is an illustrator, cartoonist, and creator based in Calgary, AB. As a freelancer, she has had the opportunity to work on an assortment of projects, from designing and producing enamel pins for local businesses to storyboarding for independent film. She works to create comics and illustrations that explore themes of magical realism and escapism, and often finds the most satisfaction when her work makes people laugh. When she isn’t illustrating, Marin spends her time watching and studying cartoons, writing stories, and riding her bike beside the Elbow River while listening to Carly Rae Jepsen.
[/tab] [tab title=”Simon Gorsak”]Week 2- Introduction to Stand-Up Comedy
Simon Gorsak is a nationally-touring comic and storyteller whose material can be heard all across Canada on SiriusXM satellite radio. A pillar of the Edmonton comedy community, Simon produces multiple weekly shows and has taught stand-up comedy with Grindstone Theatre for 3 years. This is his first year with Wordsworth, and he can’t wait to share his love of comedy with all of the campers!
[/tab] [tab title=”Brandon Wint”]Week 1- Poetry Writing through Poetry Reading
Brandon Wint is a nationally acclaimed poet, spoken word artist and arts educator based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Brandon’s work as a writer exemplifies deep attention to the craft of poetry, the nuances of language, and the social power of words. As a performer, Brandon Wint displays the poise, passion and spiritual generosity of one who has graced stages across the country at music festivals, conferences, universities and grassroots events alike. Brandon is a poet whose work has garnered praise and attention in a variety of mediums. He is a two-time Canadian national poetry slam champion. In print, he is the author of one chapbook, Love, Our Master (In/Words Magazine and Press, 2014) and was a contributor to the only comprehensive anthology of Black Canadian poetry, The Great
Black North (Frontenac House, 2012). As an essayist, his work has most recently appeared in Black Writers Matter (University of Regina Press, 2019), an anthology of personal essays about the lives of Black people in Canada. He has also been a Writer In Residence with Word Travels in Sydney, Australia. Brandon has also released three recording projects, including Devotion EP (2015), The Long Walk Home (2016), and his most recent album, Infinite Mercies, which he showcased at the second annual Black Arts Matter festival in February of 2018. His first book of poetry, Divine Animal, is forthcoming from Write Bloody North in autumn 2019.
[/tab] [tab title=”Tim Mikula”]Week 3- Improv
Tim Mikula is an artist living in Edmonton, Alberta. He has written shows, read poetry, and painted paintings in bars, theatres (movie), theatres (real), forests, art galleries, and plywood robot heads in public parks. His work draws on over a decade of experience as an improviser of theatre and comedy and is a harrowing experiment of endless failure and success.
https://rapidfiretheatre.com/cast-member/tim-mikula/
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WordsWorth 2019 Courses
[tabs style=”default”] [tab title=”Week One”]
Check out these courses, being offered during week one of WordsWorth!
Ainsley Hillyard – Movement/Dance: In these classes we will be exploring how to use words and movement in a creative process to generate movement material. We will be looking at different ways of creating movement based on our writing and voices. We will also be learning some choreographic tools like theme and variation and how to structure a dance. The classes will focus on collective learning, with lots of improvisational and movement theatre games. No dance experience is necessary, everyone who is willing is welcome. Let’s explore how our words and our movements can interact with each other!
Kim Firmston- Radio Plays: Create your own old-timey radio plays and learn scriptwriting, sound effects, storytelling, and character building when dialogue is the only thing you have. You will also have the opportunity to take part in the editing if you wish to. Finish with a full-length production on a disk for you to take home.
Marcello Di Cintio – Writing Wrongs: How do we craft stories that are both beautiful and “important”? How can we be both artists and activists? How can our personal stories serve the public good? In this nonfiction workshop, we will explore the human rights and social justice issues that stir our passions and respond to them on the page.
Colin Martin- “We are Legion(d)”: Heroes are all fine and well, but *sighs* kind of pointless and lame without the real stars of the tale: VILLIANS. The baddies keep coming and, let’s face it, they’re more honest, transparent, and hardworking than any lame heroes. It’s time to hear the stories of the true legends: the job creating, community supporting, and truly imaginative villains so often maligned by writers, assaulted by spandex-wearing thugs, and besieged by a biased legal system and its misguided enforcement officers.
Louise Casemore-Fact and Fiction: Disastrous deceits, true stories, and everything in between! From pen names to plagiarism, our relationship to the truth is never as it seems. This course will explore literary liars and what we can learn from them, develop tools for helpful research and constructive critique, and the importance of bringing honesty to your work. Using a mix of class exercises, solo writing time, and small group work, we will look at how to use your personal experiences to your advantage and unlock ways that writers can be brave within their words!
Brandon Wint-Poetry Writing through Poetry Reading: In this communal, rigorous and expansive course, celebrated Canadian poet and spoken word artist Brandon Wint will share the fundamental ideas that guide his practice and exploration as a writer. Beyond this, participants will be asked to consider the expansive human and spiritual potential of poetry by reading and discussing poems by established, celebrated contemporary poets. The workshop will offer its participants new strategies for how to write honest, evocative and emotionally-satisfying poetry, while also broadening the collective sense of what poetry can be, and what it can do. Our readings will be complemented by writing prompts that will help us write poetry that examines who we are, and the complex world we find ourselves in.
[/tab] [tab title=”Week Two”]
Here are the courses being offered during week 2!
Ainsley Hillyard – Movement/Dance: In these classes we will be exploring how to use words and movement in a creative process to generate movement material. We will be looking at different ways of creating movement based on our writing and voices. We will also be learning some choreographic tools like theme and variation and how to structure a dance. The classes will focus on collective learning, with lots of improvisational and movement theatre games. No dance experience is necessary, everyone who is willing is welcome. Let’s explore how our words and our movements can interact with each other!
Kim Firmston- Your Virtual Workshop: Character building and plot arc are great BUT the best part of writing a novel is sometimes in the stuff that exists within the world you are writing about. So come into the workshop and roll up your sleeves because it’s build time. Create character costumes and fashion for the environment and activity your character will be working in. Make gadgets and magic items as well as their rules and lore. Build buildings, lairs, underground structures, space stations, or castles – whatever you need as far as large environments. Make maps, create political systems, and distribute resources. Even go on a shopping trip to get props like sneakers, plates, room decor, and cash money – who knows what you’ll need? Get deep and dirty with all the background stuff your novel requires.
Richard Kemick-Russian Realism: Comrades: this course will explore the genre of Russian realism, a literary style characterized by its unflinching insistence on staring into the dark, churning, potato-fed heart of humanity without anything frivolous or fun to distract. Working in such an austere genre, students will become better acquainted with the fundamentals of storytelling: dialogue, setting, character development, borscht. WRITERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!
Jani Krulc- Translation: Translation is more than the transference of definitions from one language to the other. Translators, much like Charon of Greek mythology, must transfer the soul. This is not a typical translation class. This class is about the transference of meaning beyond languages. We will be playing with different alphabets, different communication systems, and different genres. You are invited to invent your own language.
Simon Gorsak- Introduction to Stand-Up Comedy: Do you love to make people crack a smile? Have you ever wanted to make a whole room full of people laugh at your jokes or stories? Calling all class clowns and funny writers! Introduction to Stand-up Comedy will teach you the basics of short-form jokes, comedic story telling, and how to be confident on stage (even when you’re scared)!
Johnny MacRae-Team Piece! Collaborative Writing & Performance: Although writing is normally considered a lonely art form, in Team Piece! we’ll explore the possibilities of creating and performing pieces of writing together, through the lens of group poems, or “team pieces” as they’re known in the poetry slam world. Over the week, we’ll explore various ways an individual poem can be transformed into a multi-voiced performance, as well as how two or more writers can create a single poem from scratch – together! Whether you dabble in poetry or live, breathe and eat it, this may well be the most fun you’ll ever have writing anything.
[/tab] [tab title=”Week Three”]
Here are the courses being offered during week 3!
Colin Martin- “Mythic Verses“: Ye gods and goddesses, heroes and knaves, golden apples and swampy swords. Once upon a time, to tell the tale, the bard had to take inspiration from the muses and weave a tapestry of fantastic song and verse. From the styluses and brushes of the ancient poets to the digital dreams of Schreibmaschinen, poetry has always had a romance with myth. It’s time for us to breathe deep of these ancient draughts and learn to sing with the beasts and legends who form our very imaginations.
Cathy Ostlere- Inner Green: Recently, the smoke from fires burning in Northern Alberta turned our province into a spooky dimly-lit place – like some dystopian world we’ve read in a book. If an orange sky changes how we feel can it change our writing too? In this class, we’ll explore our response to environmental change thru poetic forms: structured vs free verse; found poetry; eco-poetry, and haiku. In prose, we’ll examine the relationship between human culture and the natural world. What is this word nature? Can we connect to it through language? By writing deeply and with consciousness we will attempt to understand how our personal responses to the environment could change our inner and outer world.
WordsWorth 2019 Creative Team
[tabs style=”default”] [tab title=”Colin Matty”] 
Colin Matty (Camp Director) is a playwright, poet, performer, and enthusiast of wordplay in all its forms. He first began his journey with WordsWorth and the Writers’ Guild in 2011, and has since come to appreciate the incredible passion and power of the community of young writers it brings together. While not scheming ways to make the experiences at camp even more magical, Colin runs his best ideas through a typewriter and gives them to strangers on the street. This is his fourth year as camp Director, and he hopes this year’s WordsWorth will be the freshest yet! (Photo Credit: Cory Johnn Photography) [/tab] [tab title=”Jesse Tollestrup”] 
Jesse Tollestrup resides in Treaty 7 on traditional Blackfoot territory. They have been told that they are an alien from another planet, a reincarnated musician from the 90’s, and an observer of the fifth dimension. In practice, Jess is an activist and wandering bard studying at the University of Lethbridge. Current projects include working alongside Bradley Parker to construct an Aeolian harp for the 2019 Crossing Boundaries symposium and providing improvised musical stylings for magicians and comedy improvisors. In 2017 Jess released their EP ‘The Pluto Year’ and chapbook ‘Metafesto’.
[/tab] [tab title=”Gabriel Richardson”] 
Gabriel Richardson is an Edmonton born actor, singer, and improvisor. He recently graduated from The National Theatre School of Canada in acting and is very excited to be returning to WordsWorth for his 3rd year! [/tab] [tab title=”Henry Greyson”] 
[/tab] [tab title=”Pieter van Staalduinen”] 
Pieter van Staalduinen
is excited to return to WordsWorth this summer after doing a year’s time in the larger world. He continues to use his time as efficiently as possible – sleep and food remain optional luxuries to him. There’s nothing Pieter enjoys more than a good book accompanied by just the right tea. When he’s not loving his life as a CT member, he can be found rock climbing, hiking, and teaching. He hopes to see some familiar faces this summer, and meet many more amazing creators.
[/tab] [tab title=”Sadie MacGillvernay”]
Sadie MacGillivray was born and raised in Iron River, AB. You know where that is: on the edge of nowhere — 30 minutes past the middle. She spent six summers as a camper at Wordsworth and loved every minute of it. She is currently completing her third year at MacEwan University in the Professional Communications stream, and is a little closer to becoming an editor than she was when she started at MacEwan. This past fall, Sadie finally achieved her dream of traveling to Japan. She climbed part way up Mt. Fuji before a semester of study at the Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies. At the university, she took a variety of classes and learned how fun teaching can be, as well as some local history about Nagasaki, flower arrangement, and, of course, some Japanese. Sadie hopes to be able to go back one day to visit friends and see more of Japan, including the sunset/-rise from the summit of Mt. Fuji. On another note, she will gladly accept any challengers to a game of volleyball. Anytime. Anywhere.
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