Run Time: July 21-25, 2025. 10:00am–4:30pm

Location: Central Branch Library, 2311 12 Ave, 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: To Be Announced

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

Run Time: July 21-25, 2025. 10:30am–4:30pm

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

Cooper Skjeie (/shay/) is a writer, editor, and teacher of German-Norwegian and Métis ancestry. He earned a Bachelor of Education with Distinction from the Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program and is completing his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. His poetry has won or been shortlisted for numerous literary magazine contests and has received national acclaim—winning the 2023 Writers’ Trust Bronwen Wallace Award, a 2023 Indigenous Voices Award, and a 2024 National Magazine Award. Skjeie lives rurally north of Saskatoon and is a registered citizen of the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan. His work is represented by Cody Caetano at CookeMcdermid.

Guest Author: To Be Announced

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

Run Time: July 14-18, 2025. 10:00am–4:00pm

Location: Online delivery via Zoom

Shane Arbuthnott is the author of Guardians of Porthaven, as well as the Molly Stout series. His debut novel, Dominion, was nominated for multiple awards, including the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. His short fiction has appeared in On Spec and Open Spaces. Shane grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and now lives in Regina with his family. For more information on Shane and his books, visit www.shanearbuthnott.com.

Guest Author: To Be Announced

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

Run Time: July 28 – August 1, 2025. 10:00am–4:00pm

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

Shauna Eveleigh Harris is a poet and Somatic Therapist whose work has been published in Spring magazine, untethered magazine, The Prairie Journal and online at The Fieldstone Review. Her poems have won the second place prize (twice!) in the Tisdale Writers’ Group Contests and her poem “Girl at the Bar with High Heels” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2019. She is currently working on two simultaneous debut manuscripts: a collection of haiku about her trip to the high desert, and a collection of lyric poems. She lives in Prince Albert with her family and books.

Guest Author: To Be Announced

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

Run Time: July 28 – August 1, 2025. 10:00am–4:00pm

Location: Online delivery via Zoom

Madonna Hamel is a writer – performer who works in a variety of genres including radio documentary, one-woman monologues, and nonfiction essays. Her documentary “She Moves Between Worlds” won A World’s Best Radio Award at The New York Radio festival. Her doc “Portrait of Lincoln with the Wart” is cited in various sources as a primer on Americana music. She is touring with her one-woman show “Mother’s Apron”, which was showcased at The Lyric and is being adapted into a novel. She writes a weekly column called Pop89 in Your West Central Voice, for which she was awarded 2020 weekly columnist of the year. She was awarded the 2020 Wallace Stegner House residency where she wrote “Hearth Day”, which was awarded Prairie Fire‘s first prize for Creative Non-Fiction in 2021.

Madonna helps students find the format that works for them, and to understand their inclination by paying attention to every little thing. Students enjoy her workshops; many return every year, have formed strong bonds, and are always welcoming to new students. Rather than focus on “originality”, which ends up being a wild goose chase after “novelty”, she stresses authenticity and honesty. In that vein, she encourages young writers to “dare to be clear”. One way of achieving clarity is by focusing on word choice, so students start every class with new words they’ve found – or just recently realized they love.

Guest Author: To Be Announced

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