Sassycribe reunion, L to R: Joan, Mary Ann, Kimberlee, Susan, Barb, Linda, Richard 

Sassyscibes reunion from Australia to US to Canada:L to R: 

Our poet Jay goes to the dogs ....dinner with Sandy aka the Dalmatian and his Lil Red Fire Engine book. 

Happy Presenters at Festival: L To R: Dennis Reid, Harold Rhenisch, Barb, Karleen Bradford, Jay Ruzesky 

Barb/President of Powell River Festival of Writers with Auzzie Sassyscribe Richard McLaren in Powell River 

Powell River Festival of Writers

What do you get when you mix writers, west coast beauty, top Canadian presenters, fun and fabulous food?

You get the Powell River Festival of Writers second annual event April 15-17,2005. A dream that was birthed last year, came into its own this year with more attention, more workshops, more registrants from farther afield. That gym at the college was bubbling with laughter and exciting energy!!

Even now, almost 2 weeks later people are stopping me on the street and congratulation me on the good job. Well...I didn't do it alone. This year I had a powerful team around me that helped to make this possible. We even had a visitor from Brisband, Australia fly in just for this event and leant his back to the work at hand. Richard McLaren's story is one of a man who literally climbed out of his bed of PTDS depression to make his dream come true to be with us his fellow Sassyscribes. Watch for his articles online and in magazines in the months to come.

There was a man in tights, Harold Rhenisch aka Shakespeare who launched his national book tour Friday night, reading some pretty racy versions of Shakespeare from his new book "Living Will." Considering I had only read his exquisite stories from the Cariboo with metaphors that took the reader on location, I was not expecting the other side of him. But once we all recovered from the shock and sat in on his workshop the next day on revision, we realized how talented he really is. Guess what he did was show us the "real" Shakespeare 2005 style.

We had a fisherman/poet/freelancer, Dennis Reid who taught us how to get find outlets for our articles and stories, how to write the query letters and what not to expect. Dennis has been a columnist for many years in Victoria.

Our poet, Jay Ruzesky really proved how multi-talented he was when he not only walked us through the world of poetry but showed how it is a part of our general writing. The audience gave him the highest marks for his practical workshop. I've given my local group an exercise from him that challenges us to "show not tell" the reader by replacing adjectives and adverbs with action thus taking him there. Email me if you are interested in the exercise: dreambg1@shaw.ca


Karleen Bradford, author of 20 children's and young adult books delighted us with her stories and wisdom. Karleen was thrilled to not be taking any of her books back to Ontario with her. She sold them all!! Each presenter had their own table to sell and work from.

Besides all that talent we also launched 3 other books from local authors. Sunday we brought 2 publishers in for an open discussion of the world of publishing. It was so popular I think I'll organize a one day workshop this fall. We needed way more time that was allotted.

Friday was dedicated to the schools as we sent our presenters out to 5 of them, one of them had their own festival complete with writers contest. As I sat on the judging panel of 39 out of 450 entries, I was blown away by the level of mature writing coming from kids no older than 15.

How exciting to attract global attention for not only the festival but the writers contest as well. We will likely launch next years contest early in the year to give it bigger exposure. Check out the site(not current, I need to post photos and notes from 2005): www.prmicro.com/festivalofwriters

Thank you Andreas, my other Auzzie buddy who gave me the KIP...Kick in pants to get back to my blog and post updates on the festival. Writers need other writers or else we become too isolated in our own minds and offices. That's the purpose of this site and my online writers group Sassyscribes:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sassyscribe2003

Keep on writing. Keep on following your dreams and your hearts song!
Barb

Retreat 2 Write

Retreat 2 Write