Run Time: July 17–21, 2023. 10:00am–4:30pm

Location: Sunrise Branch Library, 3130 Woodhams Drive, Regina, SK

Marie Powell’s castle-hopping adventures across North Wales resulted in her award-winning medieval fantasy series Last of the Gifted, set in 13th C Wales. She is also the author of 40+ children’s books with such publishers as Scholastic, Amicus, and Crabtree. Her short stories and poetry appear in literary magazines like Room and subTerrain, and her nonfiction appears in more than 70 magazines and online markets. Among her five university degrees, Marie holds a Creative Writing MFA from UBC. Her hobbies include experiments in gardening, medieval cooking, and cat whispering.

Guest Author: Cat Abenstein

Cat Abenstein (she/her) is a bisexual, neurodivergent, white settler from oskana kâ-asastêki in Treaty 4. (Regina, SK) She’s a spoken word artist and arts administrator at the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild where she is witness to the connection and community found through story. Cat has represented Regina with her spoken word on national stages, founded and coached youth poetry slam teams, organized and hosted dozens of spoken word events and has published poetry and creative nonfiction in a few small places. She lives with her wife and two cats in a house older than all of their ages combined.

Partners and Sponsors: Many thanks to Regina Public Library, the City of Regina, Community Initiatives Fund, Saskatchewan Arts Board, Canada Council for the Arts, SaskCulture, and SaskLotteries.

Instructor Change! Congratulations to past instructor, Cooper Skjeie, for his new role as Coordinator for Decolonial and Indigenous Programming at Poetry In Voice.

Run Time: July 24-28, 2023. 10:00am–4:00pm

Location: Rusty MacDonald Branch Library, 225 Primrose Dr, Saskatoon, SK

Kristine Scarrow is the author of the four young adult novels The Gamer’s Guide to Getting the Girl, The 11th Hour, If This Is Home, and Throwaway Girl, all published by Dundurn Press. Kristine has a special interest in writing as a healing art. She is the writer-in-residence at St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon and conducts online journal and writing workshops as the founder of Creative Soul Writing Academy.

Guest Author: Elaine M. Will

Elaine M. Will is a Joe Shuster Award winning cartoonist and illustrator from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She has contributed work to a wide range of different creative projects, including magazine illustration, animation storyboards, poster design, and a newspaper comic strip for Saskatoon’s Verb magazine. Elaine is most well-known for writing and illustrating Look Straight Ahead, a graphic novel about a teenage boy’s struggle with mental illness. She is currently working on a spiritual sequel, The Last Band On Earth. Her work can be found online at cuckoosnestpress.com.”

Partners and Sponsors: Many thanks to the Saskatoon Public Library, Community Initiatives Fund, City of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Arts Board, Canada Council for the Arts, SaskCulture, and SaskLotteries.

Run Time: July 10th–14th, 2023. 10:00am–4:00pm

Location: Online delivery

Kristine Scarrow is the author of the four young adult novels The Gamer’s Guide to Getting the Girl, The 11th Hour, If This Is Home, and Throwaway Girl, all published by Dundurn Press. Kristine has a special interest in writing as a healing art. She is the writer-in-residence at St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon and conducts online journal and writing workshops as the founder of Creative Soul Writing Academy.

Guest Author: Sheri Benning

Sheri Benning’s most recent collection of poetry, Field Requiem, was published by Carcanet Press in Fall 2021. Poems from Field Requiem appeared in The Forward Book of Poetry 2023, The Paris Review, PN Review, The Times Literary Supplement, Poetry Review, and Brick, among other places. Field Requiem was shortlisted for The Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Sheri grew up on a farm in central Saskatchewan, Treaty 6 Territory. She completed a PhD at the University of Glasgow and currently teaches creative writing at the University of Saskatchewan.

Partners and Sponsors: Many thanks to the Saskatchewan Festival of Words, Community Initiatives Fund, Saskatchewan Arts Board, Canada Council for the Arts, SaskCulture, and SaskLotteries.

Run Time: July 17–21, 2023. 10:00am–4:00pm

Location: John M. Cuelenaere Public Library, Prince Albert, SK

Beth Gobeil lives, works and writes in Prince Albert. She has published her poetry provincially and nationally on CBC radio, and in several journals. Her first book of poems, Breathing Room, (Hagios Press, 2015) was nominated for a Sask Book Award in 2016. In addition to writing, Beth enjoys gardening, fishing, exercising, spending time with her family and her energetic labradoodle, Echo.

Guest Author: John McDonald

John Brady McDonald is a Nehiyawak-Metis writer, artist, historian, musician, playwright, actor and activist born and raised in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. He is from the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation and the Mistawasis Nehiyawak. He is the author of several books, and his written works have been published and presented around the globe. He is also an acclaimed public speaker, who has presented in venues across the globe, such as the Anskohk Aboriginal Literature Festival, the Black Hills Seminars on Reclaiming Youth, the Appalachian Mountain Seminars, the Edmonton and Fort McMurray Literary Festival, the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival and at the Ottawa International Writers Festival. A noted polymath, John lives in Northern Saskatchewan.​

Partners and Sponsors: Many thanks to the John M. Cuelenaere Public Library, Prince Albert & Area Community Foundation, Community Initiatives Fund, Saskatchewan Arts Board, Canada Council for the Arts, SaskCulture, and SaskLotteries.

Run Time: July 24– 28, 2023. 10:00am–4:00pm

Location: Online delivery

Madonna Hamel is a writer – performer who works in a variety of genres including radio documentary, one-woman monologues, poetry, screenwriting, nonfiction essays, and short stories. Her column “Ask Your Life” has been adapted into a memoir-writing course and tailored to teens. Her touring show “Mother’s Apron” was showcased last summer at The Lyric, toured BC and Saskatchewan last year, and is now being adapted into a novel.  For three years, she wrote a weekly column called “The Story Pool” for Maple Creek News. She was awarded the 2020 Wallace Stegner House residency.

Madonna encourages students to find the format that works for them, to understand their inclination and direction. Her workshops are very enjoyable for students; many return every year, have formed strong bonds, and are always welcoming to new students. Madonna encourages clarity and originality in writing through a strong focus on word choice, so students start every class with new words they’ve found – or just recently realized they love.

Guest Author: Judith Wright

Judith Wright is a Canadian writer and retired public health epidemiologist. She first published literary fiction in the 1990’s in Grain magazine, Prairie Fire, and the Fiddlehead, and a novel, The Magpie Summer (Polestar Press). In 1998, after spending 13 years in Sweden, she returned to Saskatoon to the University of Saskatchewan to pursue a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Anthropology, and a Masters of Science in Community Health and Epidemiology.

​My special interest is creative non-fiction and historical fiction. in 2018 I self-published a book called Dogwise: What We Learn From Dogs, an exploration of the dog world, based on interviews with handlers of working dogs. In the past five years I completed a nonfiction manuscript, How We Want to Be Remembered, about my genealogical research for a historical novel (John V. Hicks long manuscript award 2020). My newly completed historical novel, The Petworth Girl, is based on a relative who was a resident of Charles Dickens Urania Cottage for ex-convict women, and is currently seeking a publisher. I’ am working on a second historical novel about the Canadian photographer Geraldine Moodie. Other projects in the works include a book of garden writing.

My creative non-fiction stories have appeared in Prairies North Magazine, The Gardener, the Western Producer, and Harrowsmith. A general theme to my writing is exploration of the past or some little-known occupation of the present that shows how people find meaning through experience, and experience the wider world.

Partners and Sponsors: Many thanks to the Swift Current Chinook Regional Library, Community Initiatives Fund, Saskatchewan Arts Board, Canada Council for the Arts, SaskCulture, and SaskLotteries.