Saturday, August 23, 2008

Shelburne Writers' Festival

Last weekend was the first annual Shelburne Writers' Festival, organized by the Osprey Arts Centre and held in a variety of venues around Shelburne.

I had never attended a writers' festival before, although I had heard about some excellent ones in England from my friend Susie who is always open to new and interesting experiences and never reluctant to travel somewhere to try something new. So I decided I would participate at least a little and volunteered to do whatever might be needed done.

The programme covered 4 days and included book signings, an original play, readings by authors, a dramatic reading of a 100 year old book about canoeing and fishing in Shelburne County and an Open Mic session with criticism available from writers involved in the Festival.

My involvement was on Sunday - the last day of the Festival. I was to shepherd one of the writers, Stephanie Domet, who was acting as host of the various sessions all weekend. The Sunday sessions were to be held at 5 different venues - alas extremely windy conditions resulted in the outdoor sessions being moved to the Muir-Cox Warehouse Museum so I had little to do in seeing Stephanie got from place to place. I did a small amount of prep work for the snacks offered in the afternoon but that was really all that needed doing. However I could concentrate on enjoying myself which I did - thoroughly.

The first author was E. Alex Pierce (Cindy's sister) who read from her poem which is a work commissioned by the Shelburne County Arts Coucil. It is a work, almost a memoir, depicting growing up on the South Shore. The language and description were very evocative of childhood memories. It was a moving reading - Alex having both a theatre background and a current university teaching position really knows how to project her emotions with her voice.

Following Alex, Don Hannah read from 2 of his works - first a scene from a play depicting a conversation in the trenches of France during WWI and then a passage from his book "Ragged Islands". The writings were vastly different but both excellent entertainment. The book tells the story of a woman at the end of her life taking an imagined journey (walking with her dog) back to Ragged Islands (Lockeport) where she had lived most of her life.

For a change of pace, the readings switched to non-fiction. The author was Marq de Villiers who has produced 13 books to-date. He had read a passage from his book which is a history of the Blue-Nose schooner on Saturday and reprised a small section of that reading about navigational skills of sailors. This was as a contrast and comparison to a reading he then did from his book "Timbuktu" about the Tuareg navigating across the Sahara Desert. He also read from a book - A Dangerous World - about the many natural disasters our world experiences continually.

We proceeded to the Osprey to hear Peter Healey's dramatization of sections of the Tent Dwellers - educational and hilarious. Lee Keating then spoke about more modern experiences in canoeing in the Tobeatic Wilderness and read a few passages from his own book about canoeing.

Last on the agenda was an Open Mic session at the Yacht Club (with free pizza) for aspiring (and some published) authors.

A wonderful, enriching event - thank you to Darcy Rhyno and Susan Hoover for organizing it all! The impact of hearing an author read his own work is stunning - all the correct nuances and emphases and background explanations made even non-fiction entertaining. I hope this event is repeated annually.

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