Youth Connect Sessions are designed to bridge our youth camps and programs with our mainstream programming. There are two Youth Connect sessions available during the main WGA 2021 Conference. They are “Creative Writing 101” on Saturday May 29th, at 1:30 PM (MT); and “Publishing 101” on Sunday May 30th, at 2:30 PM (MT).
They are provided in partnership with the WGA Youth Committee, and they are free of charge. Registration for these sessions is now closed.
Youth Connect: Creative Writing 101
Saturday, May 29
1:30 pm – 2:45 pm
Instructor: Caterina Edwards
It’s often difficult for young writers to find out about the professional writing market. This Youth Connect session is here to fill the gap by providing information to those interested in honing their creative writing skills.
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CATERINA EDWARDS: My last novel, The Sicilian Wife was named a Best Book of 2015 by The National Post, who described it as “a masterful tale of family, murder, and the inescapable pull of the past.” The literary noir received rave reviews in Canada, the U.S. and Sicily; a French edition, L’Epouse Sicilienne, was published in 2019. I began writing my previous book, Finding Rosa: A Mother with Alzheimer’s, a Daughter in Search of the Past, as a record of my experience caring for my mother during the last years of her life; it became a work of creative nonfiction that included history, memoir, biography, and travel writing. It won the Writers’ Guild of Alberta Nonfiction Award, the Bressani prize, and was shortlisted for the City of Edmonton Book Prize. The hard cover and paperback editions are currently sold out, but I hope an ebook version will soon be available. Also, the Italian edition, Alla Ricerca di Rosa, will be published in the fall of 2020.
I have also published a novel, The Lion’s Mouth, a book of novellas, Whiter Shade of Pale/Becoming Emma and a collection of short stories, The Island of the Nightingales, which won the Writers’ Guild of Alberta Short Fiction Award. I wrote a play, which was produced professionally in Edmonton as Terra Straniera and published as Homeground. My radio drama, The Great Antonio, was twice broadcast on CBC Sunday Showcase and chosen to represent Canada in an international competition. I have also won several prizes for my essays, including the Edna Staebler Personal Essay Competition for Light and Space in the Piazza, which is about the Moldovan women who work in Venezia as badanti.
I grew up in Alberta but my many summers in Venezia as a child and frequent visits to Italy over the years, have shaped my concerns as a writer. I am fascinated by the themes of immigration and identity, the collision of multiple selves and cultures, private memory and public history, here and there.
Caterina Edwards: Essays on Her Work (edited by Joseph Pivato) was the first book in Guernica Editions’ Series on Canadian Writers. In 2016, I was inducted into the City of Edmonton’s Cultural Hall of Fame.
Youth Connect: Publishing 101
Sunday, May 30
2:30 pm – 3:45 pm
Instructor: Jennifer Bowering Delisle
It’s often difficult for young writers to find out about the professional writing market. This Youth Connect session is here to fill the gap by providing information to those preparing to submit their work for publication.
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JENNIFER BOWERING DELISLE is the author of Deriving, a collection of poetry, and The Bosun Chair, a lyric family memoir. She regularly teaches creative writing at the U of A Faculty of Extension, and is a board member of Edmonton’s NeWest Press. She is a settler in Amiskwaciwâskahikan/Edmonton/Treaty 6.
Website: jenniferdelisle.ca | FB: @JenniferBDelisle |TW: @JenBDelisle