GET WRITING OR GET READING WITH WORDSTOCK
Wordstock is here! This year the festival celebrates its 3rd year and what better way to celebrate than to extend the event to three days! This is the little festival that could of the literary community bringing together writers and readers alike to participate in the joy of reading and writing! This edition takes place November 3rd – 5th, 2016 and for only $80 it’s an absolute bargain with all the Canadian literary talent! We can’t wait and neither can Festival Director Heather Campbell, read on for all the details!
Tell us more about Wordstock Sudbury?
Wordstock Sudbury Literary Festival was initiated by a group of local writers and book lovers in 2013. We had Tomson Highway and Patricia Cano as our headliners that year. It turned out that we created a good following and support which paved the way for having another festival. Our 2nd edition in June 2015 featured Terry Fallis and Sandra Shamas as our headliners and a number of other notable authors who offered workshops. This year, we have increased the number of authors, poets and playwrights. Added another evening so that we could offer a great mixture of award-winning Canadian writers, some of who are living in Sudbury.
Is this festival for writers or can anyone participate?
This festival is for readers, writers and lovers of words. We hope that readers will meet face to face and have a conversation with authors, and writers can learn about the writing process and publishing industry, and meet face to face with successful authors. This festival is both entertaining and informative. What is important is that some of Canada’s best writers are going to be here in Sudbury and we can get up close and personal with them.
What kinds of events will there be over the festival?
Starting on Thursday, November 3rd we are celebrating poetry. Poets will read from their work and our moderator, Markus Schwabe from CBC Morning North will be our moderator. George Elliott Clarke is an incredible poet that has a huge personality. There will be lots of laughter and fun with George in the room.
The Friday evening we have the reading of a play by Matt Heiti, followed by Giller nominated author, Samuel Archibald and Griffen Poetry Prize winner Liz Howard. We have added a session on Friday night for the songwriters at the Fromagerie Elgin. Then Saturday we have a children’s story time at the Greater Sudbury Public Library, Main branch and a full day of sessions. Saturday night we have Lara Bradley’s play reading, Blind Nickel Pig, followed by an Open Mic at the Fromagerie Elgin with City of Greater Sudbury’s Poet Laureate starting everyone off.
As you can see everyone is welcome and lots to celebrate about creating with words.
Tell us more about some of the authors Sudburians will have a chance to hear from?
Parliamentary Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke, 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize winner Liz Howard, and Metis poet Gregory Scofield will exchange ideas and poetry as they discuss diversity, Canada and the creative process.
Clarke has been both the fourth Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-15) and is currently serving as the seventh Parliamentary Poet Laureate. He teaches African-Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto, holds eight honorary doctorates, plus appointments to the Order of Nova Scotia and the Order of Canada. Liz Howard’s Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent won the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize. Howard, an Indigenous creator who hails from Chapleau, is the first poet to win this prize on their debut collection. Gregory Scofield, Metis poet, won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize in 1994, for The Gathering: Stones for the Medicine Wheel and his currently teaching creative writing at Laurentian University. He has just released his latest collection of poems, Witness, I am.
Samuel Archibald and Liz Howard, two award-winning writers will explore how myth and the supernatural, drawn from their culture influences their work – Archibald pulling from his French Canadian background and Howard, drawing on her Ojibwe roots. Roxanne Charlebois, co-director of Le Salon du livre du Grand Sudbury will be our moderator since it will be a bilingual event. Samuel Archibald’s debut collection of short fiction, Arvida won Quebec’s Prix Des Libraries 2012 and its English translation was nominated for the 2015 Giller Prize. Howard’s Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent won the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize, the first time the prize has been awarded to a debut collection
Indigenous-Finnish musician, Marc Merilainen, and Sudbury singer-songwriter Sean Barrette, perform and discuss the process of lyric writing. Merilainen has performed at the 2010 Winter Olympics, across Canada at folk festivals, as well as earned nominations for Best Rock Album at the Native American Music Awards and Best Male Artist at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards for his album” Brother.” Barrette mines his northern roots in his albums “Live Through This” and “Signs.” He gained national exposure as co-writer and member of The Puckhogs, with its song, “For the Love of the Game”– a runner-up in the 2013 CBC Hockey Night in Canada Song Quest.
Tim Falconer is a Ryerson University professor and mentor at the University of King’s College MFA in its Creative Non Fiction Program, as well as the author of, Bad Singer: The Surprising Science of Tone Deafness and How We Hear Music. He will share the intricacies of Creative Non-Fiction, putting the misconceptions of this much misunderstood genre to rest. Jael Richardson and Danielle Daniel, both multitalented have published popular children’s books with Groundwood Books, both have recently penned provocative memoirs. Daniel’s The Dependent offers an intimate glimpse into a marriage and life in the military, while Richardson uncovers her relationship with her father in, The Stone Thrower: A Daughter’s Lesson, a Father’s Life.
We have pioneer and trailblazer, Hal Niedzveski to share about storytelling on a digital platform and how that is changing the evolving publishing environment. He is the author of eleven books of fiction and nonfiction, including Trees on Mars: Our Obsession with the Future, and the publisher/founder of Broken Pencil, a magazine of zine culture and the independent arts. He has just published The Archeologist.
Brit Griffin and Melanie Martilla, local writers, will explore what’s needed to fuel Fantasy Fiction. Griffin, who lives in Cobalt, is the author of, The Wintermen, and co-author of, We Lived a Life and Then Some: The Life, Death and Life of a Mining Town, Between the Lines, which was listed as a must-read on the 2011 CBC Cross-Country Check-up Summer Reading list. Sudbury based Martilla is a science fiction and fantasy novelist, a published poet, and award winning short story writer. She has been writing since the age of seven, when she submitted her first short story to the Canadian Broadcast Corporation’s (CBC’s) “Pencil Box.”
We’re excited to have local playwright Lara Bradley’s “Blind Nickel Pig,” a rollicking tale of times past and the people who lived in our town a hundred years ago. Bradley brings to life a heart-warming and hilarious cast of characters.
Where can we find more information about Wordstock Sudbury?
Those interested in taking in the festival can find information on our website (www.wordstocksudbury.ca) and can purchase tickets online as well. If they don’t like to purchase tickets online, not a problem, they can buy tickets at the door.
Jessica Lovelace
Jessica Lovelace is a Public Relations and Communications grad, musical theatre enthusiast, lover of live music and part-time unicorn tamer. Some have said that the Big Dripper from Sub City is a regional delicacy and the perfect end to a Sudbury Saturday Night – Jessica is definitely one of those people. No, the hair is not a perm.
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