Wild Words North!

Wild Words North, the second annual Writers’ conference in the Peace Liard Region of BC, took place on September 26 to 29 in Fort St. John. It was hot on the heels of InScribe’s annual Fall Conference in Edmonton, so I was a bit ‘conferenced’ out, having also been to a teacher’s conference in late August as well.

However, tired or not, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, learned some valuable information, and was able to network with other regional writers as well as some more famous folk like Richard Van Camp, storyteller extraordinaire and, in my opinion, one of Canada’s national treasurers.

A main focus was indigenous issues and we were treated to a very knowledgable panel, a lecture and readings by Billy Ray Belcourt, music by Kim Gouchie and others, and a super fun poetry writing exercise by Erin Moure. Of course there was so much more, and I took notes, but listing each thing here seems redundant. Here is a link to more about the festival: Wild Words North 2019.

Local author Jenna Morland gave a very practical and informative workshop on using Instagram. Another local, Brenda Neil, had some great advice on rejection sprinkled with some wonderful writerly quotes. For instance:

“All brilliant writers think they’re terrible; all terrible writers think they’re brilliant!” James Patterson

Connecting with other writers is always one of the best parts of these events, and this was no exception. Looking forward to it again next year…