Schedule of Events

Saturday, November 6

10:00  AM - 11:00 AM:

• Registration table open
• Meet and Greet (Coffee, tea, muffins)

11:00 AM - 12:30:

• Workshop A: Getting Published, with Tamara Reynish
• Workshop B: Eyewitness: A Memoir Workshop, with Roberta Buchanan

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM:

• Lunch hour (Mount Peyton Restaurant open for lunch)
• Registration table open

1:30 PM - 3:00 PM:

• Workshop C: Tapping the Inner Voice in Poetry, with Agnes Walsh
• Workshop D: Developing 'Perfect Pitch': How to query newspapers and magazines, with Denise Flint begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting

3:00 PM - 7:00 PM:

• Afternoon/supper break

 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM:

• Free public reading with poet Agnes Walsh

Sunday, November 7

9:30 AM - 12:30 PM:

• Annual General Meeting

1:00 PM - 2:30 PM

• Youth Workshop (ages 13-17): Happy Accidents, with Lynette Adams

Workshop Descriptions

Workshop A: Getting Published, with Tamara Reynish

Do you have a great idea for a story? Are you working on a novel? Do you want to get published? Do you want to know how to get published? If you've answered yes to any of these questions, then this workshop is for you. During this 1.5 hour workshop, you will learn how to prepare your manuscript for submission and how to make your story more appealing to publishers and readers. You will also learn tips on how to improve your writing technique, develop a manuscript, and write a book proposal. Local and national publishing houses will also be touched on.

Tamara Reynish runs a communications company that provides editing, writing and curriculum development services. She is a public grant consultant and also teaches technical and proposal writing, editing and grammar at the Division of Lifelong Learning at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Tamara has over 20 years of experience in fiction, technical and academic documentation and is on the board of directors of the Literary Arts Foundation.

Workshop B: Eyewitness: A Memoir Workshop, with Roberta Buchanan

Have you always wanted to write your life but never got round to doing it? Would you like to leave a history of your life and family for your grandchildren? This is a hands-on workshop to set the creative juices flowing. A series of  writing exercises are designed to first view your whole life in perspective, and then look at your experiences in more depth and from different viewpoints. Learn how to provide the detail which makes for vivid writing. Guaranteed to set you thinking, and to start you writing.

Bring plenty of paper and pens; you'll need them. Optional: Bring a photograph of a place of special significance to you.

Roberta Buchanan was involved in starting the MUN Pensioners' Memoir Group, on-going since 2003. her memoir of arriving in St. John's in 1964, "Come from Away," won the Arts & Letters Prize for Non-Fiction Prose in 2007. "The Killing-Jar," a memory of childhood in Africa, is in the anthology, A Charm Against the Pain.

Workshop C: Tapping the Inner Voice in Poetry, with Agnes Walsh

This workshop will explore the ways that writers come to poetry. It will begin with a small reading of my own work and why I write the way I do. Also I will discuss with you some of my favourite poems and why I like them. The workshop will explore the kinds of poets we are and how to write from the deepest parts of ourselves. We will explore our own personal oral history, our landscape (where we grew up), and how poetry defines our world. We will also explore how to move a poem beyond the ordinary and way, way beyond the sentimental while holding on to its emotionality. I will ask you to write one poem in class, or to come to class with one poem that  you have written based on the things I have mentioned above. See you there!

Agnes Walsh is an actor, playwright, storyteller, and poet. She has won several awards for her poetry, which has appeared in various literary magazines , and has read widely in North America and Europe. Her work has been translated into French, Portuguese, and Icelandic. She has published two collections of poetry: In the Old Country of my Heart (1996), and Going Around with Bachelors (2007). She was the inaugural Poet Laureate of St. John's, appointed in 2006.

Workshop D: Developing 'Perfect Pitch': How to query newspapers and magazines, with Denise Flint

Have you ever thought something or someone would make a great subject for a newspaper or magazine article? Perhaps you'd even like to write it yourself but didn't know where to start. This workshop teaches participants how to identify the appropriate place to send at article query and how to figure out who to send it to within the organisation. You'll learn the dos and don'ts of writing a query letter, what to include in your pitch and what to leave out. Come prepared with a story idea to work on. (Please note: this workshop is for non-fiction queries only.)

Denise Flint has been a freelance writer for the last ten years. Her work has appeared in newspapers across the country from the Globe & Mail and National Post to the Winnipeg Free Press and St. John's Telegram. She has an extensive list of magazine credits to her name and is a regular contributor to Atlantic Business Magazine and the Atlantic Co-Operator. Last year she won gold in the magazine profile category at the Atlantic Journalism Awards.

Important Notes

The professional development workshops will be offered pending funding. WANL reserves the right to cancel sessions at any time without prior notice.

Spaces in all sessions will be provided on a first-come, first-serve basis.

No catered lunch is offered during Saturday’s lunch hour. Registrants have the option of eating at the hotel’s restaurant or going offsite for lunch.

Book Table

A book table will be available during the Saturday lunch hour, following the Saturday workshops (from 3:00-5:00 PM), and following the AGM Sunday morning for any WANL member interested in bringing copies of their books to be sold. Please round your prices to whole dollars and bring your books on Saturday morning.

 Cancellations

Full Refunds will be given to registrants who cancel on or before October 29, 2010.

Partial (50%) Refunds will be given to registrants who cancel after October 29, 2010 and on or before November 3, 2010.

No Refunds will be issued for cancellations occurring after November 3, 2010. No exceptions.