Literary Festival

Description: Erasure poetry (sometimes known as “blackout poetry”) is made by either masking or literally subtracting words from a preexisting text; what’s left is the poem, a kind of palimpsest. Poets create erasures for all kinds of reasons: to challenge a text, to honour it, to uncover its hidden voices, or for the sheer joy of messing around with language. In this workshop, participants will explore some ingenious works of erasure and will try their own hands at unearthing poetry from within already written pages.

Materials will be provided, but if participants have a text they’re interested in erasing or particular tools they want to use, they’re encouraged to bring these with them!

To learn more about erasure poetry beforehand—though this isn’t necessary—feel free to explore works like Place of Scraps by Jordan Abel, Zong! by M NorbeSe Philip, Notebook M by Gillian Savigny, Voyager by Srikanth Reddy, or The Mansion or Marie, both by Mary Ruefle and uploaded to her website: http://www.maryruefle.com/menu.html.

Bio: Sue Sinclair grew up on the ancestral homelands of the Beothuk in Newfoundland and is currently living on Wəlastəkwiyik Territory, where she teaches creative writing at the University of New Brunswick. She is the author of five previous collections of poetry, all nominated for or winners of national or regional awards. Sinclair edits poetry for Brick Books and is also editor of the Fiddlehead.

Registration required

Description: Beginnings and Endings in Fiction: In this talk on craft Mark Anthony Jarman will discuss the challenges of writing successful beginnings and endings in fiction.

Bio: Mark Anthony Jarman is the author of 19 Knives, My White Planet, New Orleans is Sinking, Dancing Nightly in the Tavern, Knife Party at the Hotel Europa and the travel book Ireland’s Eye. His novel, Salvage King Ya!, is on Amazon.ca’s list of 50 Essential Canadian Books and is the number one book on Amazon’s list of best hockey fiction. He has been short-listed for the O. Henry Prize and Best American Essays, he won a Gold National Magazine Award in nonfiction, has twice won the Maclean-Hunter Endowment Award, won the Jack Hodgins Fiction Prize, and has been included in The Journey Prize Anthology and Best Canadian Stories.

Description: In this workshop, Michelle Butler Hallett will offer participants some concrete guidelines for writing successful works of historical fiction. Masks required for this workshop please.

Bio: Michelle Butler Hallett writes fiction about violence, evil, love and grace. A lifelong student, Butler Hallett is drawn to the histories and literature of Russia and Britain, areas of study first discovered at Carleton. She is the author of the novels Constant Nobody (winner, Thomas Raddall Award for Atlantic Fiction), This Marlowe, listed for the ReLit Award and the Dublin International Literary Award, deluded your sailor, Sky Waves, and Double-blind, shortlisted for the Sunburst Award, and the story collection The shadow side of grace. Her short stories are widely anthologized in Hard Ol’ Spot, The Vagrant Revue of New Fiction, Everything Is So Political, Running the Whale’s Back, and Best American Mystery Stories 2014. Butler Hallett also works in radio. She lives in St John’s.

Registration required

Description: In this workshop Elaine McCluskey will introduce participants to some principles of writing effective short stories.

Bio: Elaine McCluskey writes about the people you might find in the corners of life. She has published four short-story collections — Rafael Has Pretty Eyes; Hello, Sweetheart; Valery the Great; and The Watermelon Social — and two novels, Going Fast and The Most Heartless Town in Canada. Her latest collection, Rafael Has Pretty Eyes, was released in March 2022 by Goose Lane Editions. Her stories have appeared in anthologies and most Canadian literary journals, including Room, The Dalhousie Review, subTerrain, The Antigonish Review, The Fiddlehead, and Other Voices. One story was a Journey Prize finalist, another placed second in the Fish international contest in Ireland. She won the Other Voices short story contest and the Pottersfield Portfolio contest. She lives in Dartmouth, N.S. For many years, she spent countless days at paddling regattas and watched both of her children race for Canada. She has worked as a journalist, a book editor, and a university lecturer. She has a BA from Dalhousie and an MA from Western.

Registration required

Ian Iqbal Rashid

The Uncertain Self: Forging Identity in Poetry, Film and Television

When Ian Iqbal Rashid came of age, there were few if any visible South Asian LGBTQ2S+ writers. Using himself as subject, Ian has been creating a body of work that is part autobiography and part forging of a new public identity. This talk, featuring poetry and film & TV clips, offers a glimpse into his practice.

Ian Iqbal Rashid is a poet, and film & tv maker who works between the UK and Canada, very recently settled in Newfoundland. Awards include the Writers Guild of Britain Award for TV Writing and The Aga Khan Award for Excellence in the Arts. Ian is a writer and executive producer on Sort Of, the Peabody Award winning series currently on CBC and HBO Max.

Tessa McWatt

Tessa McWatt Featured Talk: Belonging and Longing: The Journey to Home

“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room. A conversation between novelist Tessa McWatt and poet and filmmaker Ian Iqbal Rashid, two artists who have always been ‘outsiders’ in the worlds they inhabit.

Tessa McWatt at Grenfell Art Gallery: “Life Writing: Writing Home” — an exploration into writing the self through understanding our environment.