Festival of Words

Literature festivals are a great way to meet writers and to get an idea about what weird and wonderful (or terribly ordinary and dull) creatures we are.  Here at the Festival of Words in Moose Jaw (great name for a place), I’m looking forward to listening to (and reading with) my old teacher Steven Galloway – author of The Cellist of Sarajevo.  He taught me during a fiction workshop sometime during the year before Life on the Refrigerator Door was published and he gave me ideas about writing that really made me rethink what I was doing.  I remember coming to festivals as an audience member and looking at the writers on the stage wondering how on earth they managed to get what they wanted to say on the page.  So, Steven gave me ideas about how to do that and now I get to read on stage with him.  Neat.

The whole thing about literature festivals is that they’re a kind of escape for writers who spend WAY too much time stuffed in lonely old offices deleting sentences.  Here in Moose Jaw, it’ll be good to meet with other authors, and to hang out at the spa where the festival puts us up.  Margaret Atwood was here a  few years ago and I’ve met more than one writer who loved swimming past her in the mineral baths here.

Friends of ours are joining us.  One of them is an emerging writer himself.  The festival will – hopefully – inspire him to keep going with his writing.  He can sit and listen to writers reading from their books, and chat with writers about their process and get ideas from them.  Or just hang out at the spa.

If any of you are in Moose Jaw, then come along and see some of the many readings and events happening over the next couple of days.  Writing festivals are an alchemical mix of established writers with their readers, and of emerging writers with their favourite authors.  Come along to get inspired yourself (and try to fit in a swim!)