Offering professional development opportunities to creative writers since 1989, Sage Hill is the place to work on your next writing project.
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Latest News
Announcing the 2025 Spring Poetry Colloquium
Facilitated by Marilyn Dumont
Program Dates:
May 19-27, 2025
Location:
In Person at St. Peter’s College, Muenster, SK
Application Deadline:
March 15, 2025
For detailed information on the colloquium, including accommodations and funding opportunities, click here.
“Sage Hill […] provided the perfect storm of inspiring craft talks, group free writing sessions, one-on-one sessions with our incredibly generous instructor, nightly post-dinner walks, and free time to write. Over a ten-day period, I made more progress on my novel than I would have in ten weeks at home. The feedback and support I received was invaluable.“
~ Lesley Trites, 2024 Spring Fiction Colloquium Alumna
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“Sage Hill’s pastoral setting and overall calmness (few, if any locked doors) provided a lovely environment to produce poetry. As much as anything, I found the absence of distraction very conducive to writing and to limiting procrastination.”
~ 2023 Anonymous Spring Poetry Colloquium Alum
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“Each poet made progress personally and also contributed to the richness of the program. I felt fortunate to support and witness their work.”
~ Jane Munro, 2023 Spring Poetry Colloquium Instructor
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Marilyn Dumont
Metis poet, writer, and Professor Marilyn Dumont teaches for the faculties of Arts and Native Studies at the University of Alberta and is proud of Metis family lines from her Mother’s – Vaness / Dufresne families and her father’s – Boudreau/Dumont families.
She was awarded the 2018 Lifetime Membership from the League of Canadian Poets for her contributions to poetry in Canada. In 2019, she received the University of Alberta Distinguished Alumni Award and the Alberta Lieutenant Governor’s Distinguished Artist Award, and in 2022 was Awarded the Alberta Queen’s Platinum Jubilee medal for public service.
Her four collections of poetry have won provincial or national awards: A Really Good Brown Girl (1996); green girl dreams Mountains (2001); that tongued belonging (2007); The Pemmican Eaters (2015). Her newest collection is South Side of a Kinless River published by Brick Books 2024.
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Mark your calendars; Sage Hill Writing’s 2025 program dates are set!
Watch your inbox for announcements of instructors, summer course offerings, and course formats (online or in person).
Adults’ summer programs will be announced in February.
Programs for young writers aged 11-15 and teens age 14-18 will be announced in the spring.
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Announcing the New Paddy O’Rourke Scholarship for Emerging Writers
Click here to learn more about Paddy
Paddy was born in 1943 in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland and grew up on the farm that has been in the family for generations. A talented student, he attended the National University of Ireland (Dublin) 1964-68, receiving a B.A. and a Higher Diploma in Education. After moving to Canada, he earned a B.Ed and post-graduate diploma from the University of Saskatchewan.
Paddy emigrated to Canada in 1968 to teach high school English in Rose Valley, Saskatchewan. He then taught at Swift Current Comprehensive High School, and then moved to Saskatoon in 1975 to teach at Evan Hardy Collegiate; prior to his retirement, he taught at Walter Murray Collegiate. He became a Canadian citizen and lived on his acreage south of Saskatoon, indulging his passion for horticulture, until his passing in 2017.
As an educator, he was an advisor and board member with various professional organizations including the Saskatchewan English Teachers’ Association, Canadian Council of Teachers of English, Saskatchewan Teachers Federation, and Saskatoon Board of Education. In the 1980s and ’90s, he presented papers and workshops throughout Saskatchewan on Canadian Literature in the Secondary High School Curriculum. He was a sessional lecturer at the College of Education, University of Saskatchewan, from 1975 to 1997.
A talented actor, Paddy performed in little theatre groups in Swift Current and Saskatoon, and was one of the four members and creative collaborators of Prairie Brew, a stage performance celebrating Prairie writers. In addition, he performed in audio drama productions for CJUS radio, and narrated the film The New Canadians.
Many came to know Paddy through his role as shareholder and editor-in-chief of Thistledown Press, a national literary publisher based in Saskatoon. During this time, he participated in numerous meetings and activities related to the Saskatchewan Writers Guild, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, and other provincial and national arts organizations such as the Literary Press Group and Association of Canadian Publishers. He co-edited a series of anthologies: Dancing Visions (contemporary Canadian poetry); The Last Map is the Heart (contemporary western Canadian fiction); Coming of Age: Fictions for a New Century (international fiction); Something to Declare: An Anthology of International Literature for Secondary Schools, Oxford University Press; and Contents Three.
After retiring from teaching, Paddy was instrumental in establishing professional development programs and relationships with post-secondary institutions in the UK, on behalf of England’s largest privately-held construction company, Laing O’Rourke.
Those who knew Paddy admired him for his brilliant mind, passion for the arts, and commitment – both within the classroom and beyond – to the education of our youth. The Paddy O’Rourke Poetry Scholarship honours his achievements and dedication, in the hope that his life will be an inspiration for generations to come.
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