Coop Workshops & Classes

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Recently completed - Winter 2009

Winter class: Fiction Freefall

Instructor: Bernice Friesen

Learn to use techniques from the dramatic and visual arts to liberate your creative flow and pour the words onto the page. In this 8-week class for fiction writers, you’ll also develop valuable skills for self-editing and literary critique.

Bernice Friesen is an award-winning author from Saskatoon. Her novel The Book of Beasts (Coteau Books) won the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction in 2007 and was listed among the 100 best books of 2007 by the Globe and Mail.

Eight sessions, from Monday February 16 to Monday April 6, 2009
Time: 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Location: Jessie Miller Room, St. James Church basement (next to the Refinery, 609 Dufferin Ave.)
Cost: $130 Coop members/$140 non-members

Some class members More class members

Class members

More class members


Winter workshop: The Passionate "I" … narrative stance in
non-fiction

Instructor: Candace Savage

Does your memoir or travel story or historical work or engagement with nature sound better when written in first person, or in the third? To what extent must you “own” the words you use to narrate, and how can you best accomplish this? Founding Coop president and prolific non-fiction author Candace Savage took participants in this half-day workshop through reading, discussion and in-class exercises designed to explore the multiple perspectives accessible to writers of literary non-fiction. Pictures ===>

Candace Savage is the author of more than twenty non-fiction books, and recently taught an introductory course on Creative Non-fiction at St. Peter's College, Muenster.

Saturday, January 24, 2009
1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Basement of St. James Church (next to The Refinery, 609 Dufferin Avenue)
$30 for Coop members, $40 for non-members


Fall 2008

Fall poetry class: The Revision Sessions

Instructor: Barbara Klar

The fall class in poetry (yes, three in a row, but clearly we’re on a roll here) provided, among other things, an opportunity for its 19 enthusiastic members to practice the challenging task of revision. Pictures below and ===>

Barbara Klar is a well-known Canadian poet who has been publishing her work in books, journals, and anthologies for over twenty years. Her first book, The Night You Called Me a Shadow (Coteau Books, 1993) won the Gerald Lampert Award for the best first book of poetry published in Canada that year. The Blue Field (Coteau Books, 1999) was nominated for the Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry. Her latest collection is Cypress (Brick Books, 2008), a poetic vision quest focusing on the Cypress Hills of southwestern Saskatchewan (to be launched Tuesday, October 28, 8:00 p.m. at the Marr Residence, 326-11 Street East.) Klar is the recipient of numerous other awards, including the prestigious Joseph Stauffer Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Wallace Stegner Grant for the Arts. She has worked as a tree planter, camp cook, editor, mentor, and freelance writer for both print and radio. She lives in an old farmhouse northwest of Saskatoon.

Six evening sessions, from Monday, November 3 to Monday, December 8, 2008
7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Jessie Miller Room, St. James Church basement (next to the Refinery, 609 Dufferin Ave.)
$130 Coop members/$140 non-members

Some class members More class members

Class members

Barbara Klar and class


Fall workshop: Spelunking the Writer’s Creative Toolkit

In this not-quite-workshop, not-quite lecture, Jeff Smith, board member and instructor of last fall’s popular writing-technology workshop, led a small but enthusiastic group of participants through a mutual exploration of structure, process and tools. Jeff believes that the software tools available today are woefully neglectful of the writer’s creative process, and, as he explained in the second part of his presentation, he plans to do something about it (he is pursuing a doctorate in this very thing). Pictures ===>

Saturday, October 25, 3008
10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Digital Research Centre, 145 Arts Building, U of S campus
No cost

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Winter class

Bernice Friesen

Instructor Bernice Friesen


Winter workshop

Candace Savage

Instructor Candace Savage

Participants

Participants

Some workshop members

Fall class

Barbara Klar

Instructor Barbara Klar


Delores Hartman

Intrepid class member
Del Hartman drove from Elrose each week


Fall workshop

Jeff Smith

Facilitator Jeff Smith


Participants

Some workshop members



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