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yegarts · 2 years

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Yorath House Studio Residency Wrap-Up: Thea Bowering and Jody Shenkarek

Long-time friends Jody Shenkarek and Thea Bowering were the third artist pair to take up residence at the Yorath House Artist Studio Placement this year. Over the summer, they began their long-talked about collaboration that blended Jody’s music with Thea’s storytelling.

Now that their residency has concluded, the artists are sharing a final update on their time at Yorath House with reflections, prose excerpts, and images. Read more about their residency on the YEGArts blog (introductory post, reflections #1, reflections #2) and check out Jody and Thea's Instagram @sistersofyorath .

Thea Bowering: Final Blog Post

I've lived in Edmonton for two decades now, and if I think of my life as a story, sometimes I find that ironic: I never imagined spending the last of my youth in the geography I had dismissed in my Can Lit 100 courses. I always hated those "foundational," multi-generational stories about people arriving and staying in a place on The Prairies, hated slugging through pages that described life in dusty landscapes I thought no one in their right mind would want to live in. Over the last two decades, I've written short stories about the urban landscape of Edmonton. I would often forget I live in a river town, that there is a river down there, flowing through the basin of the city. When I did picture the North Saskatchewan, it was frozen, not necessarily with ice, but as it would be on a postcard printed who-knows-when sitting in a motel/gas station card rack. Greetings from Edmonton! In red cursive. Greetings from anywhere!

I'm terrible, I agree. A good part of the reason I wanted this residency had to do with an intense need to be better, get down into the valley and close to the river to find a lightness, an expanse, to be away from trucks and cement, my cramped and failing house, unfurl my sedentary body and tired mind and simply push them into green--become less ironic. Every day I was working at Yorath House, I would walk the short path to the dock that reaches quiet out into the river. And with water below me, the green and brown banks all around, the crazy swirling white and blue sky far above, I would stretch out waiting for the currents of "the Universal Being [to] circulate through me." But this didn't happen. I looked glumly at the lucky ones floating down the river on paddleboards, holding their beers, wondering if the Universal Being was flowing through them. One day walking up the ramp from the dock, back to the main path, I saw off to the side a fully intact dandelion puff, the largest and most perfect I'd ever seen. I bent down and stared into its perfect roundness. It looked back at me, a giant eyeball on a stalk, its spore-design an iris. It was a perfect eyeball looking at me. My whole imperfect body staring back, recoiled. I realized, as much as it relaxes me and makes me happy, Nature also makes me feel like a terrible human, with some impenetrable construction column inside that keeps out the blowing spirit. I am more at one with the crumbling city.

But it was my aim to write something about things I hadn't tried to write about before: nature and local history. I did end up reading and being influenced by writers I hadn't read before, who write on nature: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Emily Dickinson. And I ended up learning a lot of things I didn't know much about: the Métis lot system, the history of scrip, the Indigenous and Métis community that lived between 1935-37 along the edge of the city, 142nd street, the street I drove down every day to get to Yorath House. I learned that the practice here of taking apart material history and abandoning it is as old as the city itself. When the last original Fort Edmonton was dismantled in 1915, the Alberta Government promised the people it would reuse the timber in a heritage or museum-like way. Instead, the pieces of fort lay about below the parliament building and eventually vanished. There are many great rumours about what happened to that timber. Similarly, Dennis Yorath tried to donate to the city the eight-foot fieldstone chimney that sat on his property, all that was left of a cabin built by English Charlie, a famous early settler and gold panner. A letter from a city secretary to Dennis reads: "As you know, the fireplace was the oldest relic of early Edmonton still in existence. Without your permission for removal, it would have been lost forever." Well, the chimney was lost forever, deemed too fragile to move and re-erect near John Walter House or the reconstructed Fort Edmonton. For years it had sat, houseless, in Laurier Park, without signage, a curiosity for passersby. And after it was dismantled, where did its stones go? I became obsessed with this and trolled the field next to Yorath for old looking stones, ha!

There is, however, also a beauty that comes from the way the material past is neglected in Edmonton--rather than cleaned away, it is often left in piles for whomever wants it, left to fall down on its own in beautiful weathered ruin. In my stories about cities, I focus on the flâneur: a modern social and literary figure--solitary, urban, wandering, rebellious--who goes far off the set paths of the city to witness and recount the visions of urban life that are neglected, strange, or in ruin. As Jody and I poked about in the bush along the paths of Yorath, in our mode of flânerie, we found evidence of old river homes--possibly going back as far as the Métis and early European settlers. (We image, anyway!) We find a line of stone foundation, an old hearth, a large pile of completely rusted tin cans, a very old gear a tree has grown into.

In one of my favourite essays of flânerie, Virginia Woolf's "Street Haunting," the speaker says she must cross London alone at dusk to buy a pencil. This is just an excuse--as a woman at her time had to have a purpose, usually related to shopping, to leave the house alone for a walk. Her real purpose is to write about all the strange and chance spectacles she sees along the way. This wandering on foot and with words is something I was trying to do with the long piece I was writing at Yorath. (I've submitted excerpts from it in previous blog posts.) In one way, in my mind, our version of Woolf's pencil is the Ghost Pipe--the flower we sought and thought about throughout our residency. It spurred on our walks and meditations about many things: growing older, grief, thoughts about beauty, nature, and the fragility of ourselves and our world. Now that the residency is over, I am going through withdrawal, not being in the valley and on the water and walking paths every day. But I also know that I have found the spot in Edmonton I can return to, for solace and the inspiration to continue this long poetic-prose piece about this place. I'm going to include the last two entries I wrote while at Yorath. I don't think they really gives a sense of closure; they're just the latest in a string of them that continues.

30.

Ten weeks here and I haven't yet written about grief. Even though it's what we started with. Even though it's all around and in everything. Your loved one's ashes catching wind over water. My loved one's ashes buried in an old settler orchard. air, water, fire, and earth. God's eye woven by someone and hung, a star, on a saskatoon berry bush over our little cluster of ghost pipe. The narrative did not go as we hoped it would. Does it ever? We did, in the end, get to see it--but not here. By a different piece of the river. That day under the Mill Creek Bridge, the police were evicting a community who had been living in the ravine for a while. The police were cheery and relaxed as a mattress with a bloom of brown in the middle fell into a storage container. This was all we could observe through the greenery. We heard rustling close by, along the bike path, but we did not go see. Did we learn how to sit beside grief? The moment of finding the flower was not an epiphany, did not bring about a sudden change, but brought empathy, real and useless. We returned almost daily to the tender stalks, to sit in vigil. All around us things died quickly or slowly, unnoticed by walkers and joggers and cyclists. A caterpillar writhed silently as wasps dived onto it, taking out chunks of real estate and planting eggs. We feel for it. We remove it with a bit of bark and place it somewhere covered. It will die in pain unobserved. Grief is useless but persists. Love persists. Grief walks up and down the river, up and down. A hundred and fifty years ago children walked up and down the banks of this river, calling for their parents. You are useless and crude and should learn how to be useful. That is all that matters now. The present is over. You should learn to measure grief and think about the future. Instead, you sit beside white flowers, taking elegiac photos. Mourning that which is a symbol of mourning.

31.

The other day I thought of Emily's long dash as a straightened-out blackening ghost pipe, a line somewhere between life and death. To suspend the Breath / Is the most we can / Ignorant is it Life or Death / Nicely balancing. The white petticoats rimmed black and gathered professionally in a flower frenzy, one black stockinged leg thrust straight up and then out, tick-tocking back and forth with a da-da-dahdahdahdah. Your time is up, Victorianism! She can-caned with a young ruined face that people loved. I shouldn't. But I still think of this plant as a tragic heroine.

Jane Avril, skinny, "fed on flowers" holding the pose

and then dying, poor, in obscurity, of course. Jane the strange one, Jane the crazy. All the innocent whores of modern history jerk from lover to lover down narrow stone streets, turning childhood illness, a nervous tic, into dance. They take up with a woman, then a lecherous doctor, drag a boy-child along from one daddy to another. Hysterical elegance and soft melancholy all around, movement immortalized in Toulouse-Lautrec posters. Life and death, luck and misfortune, a hair-width between them. She once headlined at the Jardin de Paris, but ended in a poor house, sick with angina, dying in 1943. Last written words "I hate Hitler."Too loose. To Lose. The Trek.

But all that is behind me now. We sit at the side of the jogging path in folding chairs, just two weird old ladies, it looks like. J. says: Ghost Pipe's stems reminds me of an empty artery. Yuk, I say...

I just Can't. Can't

Look. The Summer is almost gone.

Jody Shenkarek: Final Blog Post

My time at Yorath House this summer has been such an incredible opportunity. Thea and I came to this place to work together and learn from each others experiences. We spent many hours walking the trails, sitting on the beaches, talking, listening trying new ideas and enjoying the grounds and the surrounding community. Time was a gift for us. Time to explore words, music, ideas and each others hearts and minds. We learned a lot about the area and the history of the people that have lived herein this place. I am thankful for my time and the interest it has sparked in me regarding place and people and history. We saw many native plants and learned the bends of the river. Met people from the area and found our favourite paths and places. The house welcomed us, and provided a place of comfort and creativity. We learned slowly how to intertwine our talents and come out with a project that highlights our individual and shared ideas.

Mornings with coffee and sunlight were my favourite time for writing lyrics and poetry. Thea taught me about form in writing and I taught her about making songs.

I have many hours of recordings made on the grounds of birds and sounds and our long talks and experimental songwriting projects. My photography and paintings done during that time have brought me great joy and I'm hoping to show them in the future.

Our beloved flower friend ghost pipe showed up (sadly not in the grounds of Yorath) but nonetheless we had the opportunity to sit with it for a week. I am forever grateful for this time as it shifted my world.

We will never truly leave Yorath now. We will come and walk and remember and keep building on the projects that we have started here. Ideas grow and reflection on our time will bring other new ideas as well. The chance to have an entire summer to be with a fellow artist and work together was heart opening. Connection and creativity take time. Thank you for this perfect summer.

#yegarts #edmonton #edmontonarts #yorathhouse #yegwrites #yegmusic #artist residency

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grasdal · 1 year

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Let’s go!!! Studio is looking pretty tight, ready for all-comers! Storytelling and fast thinking is the focus. Lots of writing and cartooning games that leads to collaborative comics fun. This weekend, I’m super-hyped because some of the students are ready to start in on their own creations in a big way! Woot woot!! Let’s go! Know any kids keen on writing and comics? Saturdays and Sundays, second floor at the Downtown Farmers Market! @dtmarketyeg @yegarts @yegconnector @edmonton_city @yeg #yegkids #yegfamily #yegcomics #yegactivities #yegfun #yegweekend #yegarts #yegclasses #yegworkshops #yegcartoonist #yegliteracy #yegkidsactivities #yegreads #yegwrites #yegcartoons #yegfarmersmarket #kidscomics @andrewsmcmeelkids #kidscomicsunite (at Edmonton Downtown Farmers Market) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpmVeuROkiB/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#yegkids #yegfamily #yegcomics #yegactivities #yegfun #yegweekend #yegarts #yegclasses #yegworkshops #yegcartoonist #yegliteracy #yegkidsactivities #yegreads #yegwrites #yegcartoons #yegfarmersmarket #kidscomics #kidscomicsunite

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konnl · 2 years

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FIRST DRAFT DONE. Crystal Motha: Ash Book 1 (working title) It was a long haul but this 15 year old idea is now real and sits at 141,000 words, the longest book to date. Current one sentence pitch: --- Lola, a fugitive after exposing the law's connection to the notorious Crystal Moths, has her life and family destroyed, igniting a need for revenge and plunging her into a forgotten world of greed, conspiracies, and mythology. --- The urban dark fantasy series ties into YEGman, Mental Damnation, and Cultivate with familiar characters and fresh new ones all connecting into gritty universe known as the Macrocosm. Next are edits and revisions. More to come aboot this new series that starts in Canada. #amWriting #yegWrites #canadianAuthor #canadianHorror #canadianFantasy #authorsofinstagram #writersofinstagram #bookstagram #darkFantasy #mentalDamnation #yegman #seedMe #theMacrocosm https://www.instagram.com/p/CgCSumQu6J9/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#amwriting #yegwrites #canadianauthor #canadianhorror #canadianfantasy #authorsofinstagram #writersofinstagram #bookstagram #darkfantasy #mentaldamnation #yegman #seedme #themacrocosm

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sacredsocialjustice · 7 months

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I wrote the poem "The Side of Peace" in 2009. It pains me to re-read it and realize that Israel/Palestine is experiencing the exact same situation now.

I’ve marched in Gaza rallies And sung for Arab crowds Though some of my relations Think I should not be allowed. I’m asked why do I do it? Or if I’m scared at the very least; The only answer that I have, Is I’m on the side of Peace.

I always say I’m Jewish, It’s part of who I am. So is speaking out For human rights as best I can. This conflict is immoral I want it all to cease And that is why I take a stand On the side of Peace.

When innocent civilians Are killed day after day By military massacres I have the right to say Collective punishment is wrong As the death tolls increase. The only way to save lives Is on the side of Peace.

Unlike so many others I can’t support a nation When it’s so horrific towards Part of the population Yes, the leaders are not innocent But the children are, indeed So are all the others who Are on the side of Peace.

It’s easy to be silent Or toe the party line Complicity is for cowards Who are part of the crime. I will never be accused Of groveling on my knees I stand with my conscience On the side of Peace.

#poetry #gaza #palestine #yeg #edmonton #poem #yegactivist #writing #israel #jewish #judaism #writer #yegwrite #yegwriter

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floetryverse · 5 years

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they called me fat they called me ugly they called me stupid they called me a bitch

then one day

i changed my number they stopped calling

- Paula E. Kirman

#yeg #yegwriter #yegwrites #poet #poetry #poetsoftumblr #writersoftumblr #writingcommunity #poetrycommunity #empoweringwomen #spokenword #creativewriting #prose

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howaboutnono · 7 years

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I now have a poetry Instagram! Follow @deerfoot_prose for more pretty words. ❤

My contribution to the inaugural issue of Canthius. #poetry #yegwrites #yegpoetry #canthius

#yegpoetry #canthius #yegwrites #poetry

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salt-rat-repeat · 4 years

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Johnstown, Ontario

Peter sat uncomfortably on the pastel-flower sofa, waiting for his sister to return with the mail. Midday sun filtered through the hand-sewn curtains, painting warm shadows of vines pink and yellow across the living room carpet. Plastic plants stood in each corner of the room, having long since replaced the ferns Elenda had failed to water with regularity. The soft tick of a wooden clock carried over steadily from the kitchen.

The air was dry in his throat. His mother, milk-eyed and mute, sat across from him, bouncing her leg restlessly in short intervals. Her face turned towards him and twisted into an apologetic smile. It softened as the seconds passed by, slowly becoming a puzzled expression before shifting back once again to a patient nothing. Past the ticking clock, silence continued to wander his old home.

She pointed suddenly to the wall beside them, upon which hung three photos. Peter as a child, dressed in baby blue atrocities and a smile ear to ear. To the left, a photo of his brother Franklin, holding a textbook on eighth grade science. Slightly above was Peter’s wedding photo, faded from hundreds of sunrises through Elena’s parted curtains. The frame was plastered with dust all over, but clean in two small spaces. Peter imagined these twin spots—opposite of each other along the sides of the once-gold frame—as where her hands would grasp the picture, pulling it closer to her fading eyes. Of course, he didn’t and could never know for sure. Her words were as sparse as her memory.

The effort of the gesture caused a short few coughs, after which, she regained her voice enough to speak.

“That boy,” she began, voice struggling and climbing over each of the once familiar words, “was such a nice boy.”

Peter could see she was pointing at a photo of him. Did she mean the boy as a husband and shortly a father? Or the boy as he once was, before illness took her memory, her mind, and all they once shared. She smiled to herself, and melted were the decades apart, the prairie fields between, and the mismatched patchwork of family spread from Ukraine to Vancouver. Motherly even here, simultaneously a handful of inches and unfathomable infinity between them.

“How old is he now?” she asked. Her eyes were filled for the moment with seaglass and opal, yet seemed to look cleanly through him. They seemed to look through life itself, to something benign and ambivalent.

Peter looked at the cake on the living room table. A knife rested beside the barely-touched plate, having cut through half of Peter’s name and the birthday sentiments they shared only an hour before.

“About fifty, I’d imagine.” He struggled as he spoke. The room was warm, and dryness made war with his mouth.

Elena leaned back, inhaled as if to speak, and instead merely sighed. Her lips tensed before resting. She blinked, satisfied.

“I miss him,” she said. Neither longingly nor dismissive.

Peter excused himself, walked out into the garden of overgrown roses, and promptly vomited over the chipped stones and his shoes.

#yeg #flash fiction #yegwriter #canadian fiction

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hyperlexical · 4 years

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Floricane / November 2018

#writing #poem #poetry #alberta writers #yegwriter #yegpoetry #writers on tumblr #poets of tumblr #words #free verse #poetry community #death #glacier water #ravens #west coast #blackberries

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tracybradleybirthdoula · 5 years

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#Repost @yegmeetup with @get_repost ・・・ @Yegmeetup is a group of creative Entrepreneurs in Edmonton meeting once a Month to exchange ideas and share tips or tricks about our industries. We offer referrals for your business. Let's connect this Wednesday January 16th at 6pm. We will be meeting at @growcentrecowork on Whyte Ave. Tickets are $5 and include a drink. Link in bio. Thanks for helping us build a community of #yegcreatives ◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇ #yegmeetup #yegmarketing #yegsocialmedia #yegvideographer #yegphotographer #yegwriter #yegblogger #yegnetworking #coworking #yegcoworking #yegfreelancer #yegcreative Link in profile #openconcept #privateoffices #podcastroom #soundproofroom #clinicroom #workshopspace #meetingtable #hotdesk #freewifi #goodcoffee #downtobusiness #inclusive #growcentrecowork #growcentrecoworking #yeg #yeggers #coworking #coworkinglife #coworkingspace #coworkingspaces #yegcoworking #coworkingwhyteave #coworkinggoals #digitalnomad (at Grow Centre Coworking and Teaching Space) https://www.instagram.com/growcentrecowork/p/BsPIdjKg1YF/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1svwef6nktkdn

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anthropentajenic · 5 years

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Writer Time: Kicking Off My Term as the Capital City Press Featured Writer

My morning TV news swag

Every time I have a book published, I find it’s harder than the last time for the book (or me) to get noticed. This is contemporary publishing. There are so many compelling new books each season, so many talented and interesting writers, that it can take some special magic to stand out. So of course, I was thrilled something was sparking when an email arrived last fall…

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#Capital City Press #edmonton #Edmonton Public Library #EPL #fan fiction #jennifer quist #mom writers #teen writing #writing #writing with kids #Writing Workshop #yegwrites

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offthebooks-brad · 7 years

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Contact police with any information regarding this fugitive from the law. The Real World Monitor! A novel by Brad Glenn! On sale on Amazon here!

#yegarts #yeg #edmonton #edmontonarts #edmontonauthor #edmontonwrites #edmontonwriting #yegwriting #yegwrites

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yegarts · 1 year

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Reflections on the Horizons Writers Circle by Naomi McIlwraith

Fourteen Alberta writers recently concluded their participation in the Writers’ Guild of Albera’s Horizons Writers Circle, its mentorship program for writers within the Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) community, ESL, and underrepresented writers living in Edmonton. The program ran from October 2022 to March 2023, under the coordination of publisher and writer Luciana Erregue-Sacchi. Writers from diverse backgrounds in the early stages of their careers received mentorship from experienced writers in a series of workshops, panels and one-on-one activities. The program introduces new writers to the wider Edmonton community, helping them make new contacts in the industry, and thrive in their writing careers. We asked two of the participants, mentor Naomi McIlwraith and mentee K’alii Luuyaltkw to reflect on the experience for the EAC blog. (You can read mentee K’alii Luuyaltkw’s guest blog article here).

Inward Journeys and Saskatoon Pie by Naomi McIlwraith

Writing is a journey from an urge to an idea to a crafted composition. It’s this process that both intrigues and inspires me when I think of how the human brain goes from the tiniest little seed of a thought to a finished piece that has been nurtured with water and sun and love into a polished whole that is now a Saskatoon bush, bows bent with juicy fruit, in the full flush of the last two weeks of July. This to me is what mentoring looks like too, especially mentoring newer Indigenous writers with their own writing. When I went a few years ago to a strange bar somewhere in Edmonton for the 30th reunion of my high school graduation, I was struck by the bizarreness of it all. As I ruminated over the fact that we were all 48 winters old, a really rich guy from my high school days came over to commiserate with me that he’d had to settle for being a plain old doctor when he couldn’t invest all that time into being a specialist. Now it’s been 42 winters since I graduated high school, and I’m still fighting the same old battle of how to make a living as a writer, as my really rich doctor friend contemplates retirement. I am, however, the luckiest woman in the world with all the beautiful opportunities that have come to me because I chose writing, the most recent and most important a Mentorship opportunity with the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s Horizons Writers’ Circle for BIPOC writers. A thinker, a teacher, a writer, a poet, – all these roles I love doing as I mentor new writers. I love how the Mentor/Mentee relationship is just another glorious example that the real world is better and infinitely more interesting than all being the same age at the same time. My need for Saskatoon bushes and rivers and mosquitoes and bright yellow warblers with skinny little red streaks on their feathery breasts means that I don’t fit well into a classroom with four walls. But I get to be a teacher in other creative ways. Writing has helped me find my voice, and I am vibrating with glee that I get to mentor new writers as they find their own voices. A speechless wisp of a girl 42 years ago, I’m not quite so wispy anymore and I’m not quite so speechless, and this is all because I have been blessed with the best of Mentors who have helped me not only find my voice but find myself. Voice is identity too. Part of my voice is Indigenous and part of my voice is Scottish, English, Norwegian, French, ….. And I now take quite seriously my responsibility to share all that I’ve learned and all that I’ve gained from my Mentors as I help my Indigenous Mentees find their voices and discover who they are. As a Métis woman, I am a peacemaker negotiating all of my identities, and to my role as a Mentor I bring my skills in negotiating and talking, listening and laughing and cajoling my Mentees into planting for themselves all the seeds that will ripen as their composition germinates and is refined into a delightfully finer form than the first draft. This is absolutely essential that the Mentor reject expecting perfection either from herself or from her Mentee. Perfection means paralysis: as a Mentor, therefore, I encourage my Mentees to get their words down onto paper in whatever form they land. As a Mentor, I am duty bound to show my Mentees the way to get their ideas down onto the first draft and then to point them in the direction down the trail through the second, third, fourth, and fifth drafts until they have nurtured their thoughts into the exquisite form that is now a Saskatoon bush reaching high into the sky. Writing is by nature an interior journey: thoughtful people we writers are. nêhiyaw philosopher Willie Ermine’s comment about the inner journey makes a great deal of sense to me:

The relentless subjugation of Aboriginal people and the discounting of their ideas have hurt those aboard the Aboriginal voyage of discovery into the inner space. The tribal crews, along with their knowledge and secrets, came precariously close to aborting their inward missions. Meanwhile, the Western world-view and the concomitant exploration of the outer space continued unabated for the next five centuries. Acquired knowledge and information were disseminated as if Western voyages and discoveries were the only valid sources to knowing. The alternative expeditions and discoveries in subjective inner space by Aboriginal people wait to be told (Ermine “Aboriginal Epistemology” 1995).

Subjective inner space indeed. This is what being a Mentor in an Indigenous artist context means to me, and I aim to help my Mentees find their voices and themselves in their own subjective inner spaces. My Indigenous Mentees’ stories are waiting to be told!

Nearly twenty years ago, I served as the Conference Scribe for an Indigenous Feminism Conference at the University of Alberta, and Dolores van der Wey, an Indigenous presenter, said something that became a gift and has stayed with me since. She spoke about “pause time,” which is the time a listener takes to absorb and process what she has heard from someone speaking to her. Rather than interrupt her duty to listen deeply, the listener maintains her commitment to attend to the speaker. The listener refrains from checking out of the conversation to think of how she will respond to what is being said to her, she resists the urge to impose her own thoughts on what she hears, and she accepts the invitation of the speaker to journey inward.

The listener listens, truly listens. What a gift!

This pause time is rich with potential, and this is another powerful motivator for me. I do fiercely believe that listening deeply is an Indigenous cultural practice that must continuously resist the noisy forces of a colonial world that makes it difficult to hear and to listen. I am a peacemaker, and I want to hear my Mentees thoughts fully and completely, so that I may coach them forward in the best way possible. This pause time is a gift that the listener gives to her interlocutor. It is a gift to be heard above the cacophony, and the Horizons Writers’ Circle offers Mentors and Mentees an important opportunity to hear each other deeply and meaningfully as they venture inwardly toward those tiniest little kernels of thought, thoughts as nascent as a cluster of seeds and help them grow into a beautiful juicy Saskatoon pie of a composition that we simply cannot resist!

Thank you to Ellen Kartz for being such a champion of writers and for inviting me to apply to be a Mentor, Luciana Erregue-Sacchi, Program Coordinator of the Horizons’ Writers Circle, Giorgia Severini, Executive Director of the Writers’ Guild of Alberta, and to Rona Altrows, the Edmonton Community Foundation, and the Edmonton Arts Council for supporting this important program that is so vital to the health of our community!

A writer, a teacher, a canoe paddler, a trail walker, and a deep street talker extraordinaire, Naomi McIlwraith is a Métis poet who reads and writes and listens and talks to figure things out. Moreover, Naomi writes to honour her ancestors both Indigenous and European, her Mom and Dad and the rest of her family. She also writes and talks to make peace in a dangerous world. You will find “Peacemaker” on Naomi’s resume. Her favourite words are “imagine” and “tawâw.”

Work cited Ermine, Willie. “Aboriginal Epistemology” in Southern Door: Connecting With and Maintaining Our Relations. Eds. Marie Battiste and Jean Barman. First Nations Education in Canada: The Circle Unfolds. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press, 1995.

van der Wey, Dolores. “Pause Time.” Women Writing Reading: Indigenous Feminism Conference. Edmonton: University of Alberta, August 2005.

#horizonswriterscircle #yegwrites #indigenousart #indigenous #yeg

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