Add the Mattawa River Writers Festival to the list of activities needing to get creative this year because of COVID-19.
The event is going digital.
“One of the loveliest aspects of last year was the opportunity for writers and readers to come together in a natural setting — we discussed the books, played games at the campfire, wolf howled, and hiked through the gorgeous northern forests of Samuel de Champlain Park,” said Janet Joy Wilson, Literary Curator. “This year is different, we all know that, but we will be outside. Our authors will utilize technology to deliver talks in their backyards, decks or any natural space that reflects physical distancing; viewers will do the same.”
This year writers will celebrate Earth Day through the lens of literature with a program of established Canadian authors” says Wilson.
"We cannot come physically together so we pivoted and will ZOOM into the woods instead. Authors will be in their backyard and we hope our audience can find a safe outdoor sit spot for the event.” Tickets are free through registering here
Writers will speak to how the natural world influences their work and includes the acclaimed author of Moon of the Crusted Snow, and CBC radio host Waubgeshig Rice. The dystopian context storyline has an unnamed disaster that cuts off a northern Ontario reserve from the outside world, leaving the community to deal with both dwindling supplies and desperate refugees from the south.
Christine Fischer Guy is a novelist and award-winning journalist. Her debut novel, The Umbrella Mender, appeared in September 2014 with Wolsak & Wynn (Buckrider Books). The timely storyline transports us to the 1950s Moose Factory, where a beleaguered staff of the local hospital is fighting to stem the tide of tuberculosis among the indigenous peoples of the North. She teaches creative writing at the School for Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto.
Gary Barwin is a writer, composer, visual and multidisciplinary artist and the author of twenty-four books of poetry, fiction, and books for children. His latest books include A Cemetery for Holes, a poetry collaboration with Tom Prime (Gordon Hill, Fall 2019) and For It is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe: New and Selected Poems, ed. Alessandro Porco (Wolsak and Wynn, Fall 2019.) His national bestselling novel Yiddish for Pirates (Random House Canada) won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour as well as the Canadian Jewish Literary Award (Fiction) and the Hamilton Book Award (Fiction). It was also a finalist for both the Governor General’s Award for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. A new novel, Don’t Fence Me In will appear from Random House in 2021.
Andrew Forbes was the 2019 Margaret Laurence Fellow at Trent University. The story collection What You Need, was a runner-up for the 2016 Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and was shortlisted for the 2016 Trillium Book Award. His second book, The Utility of Boredom: Baseball Essays, is currently in its fourth printing. Lands and Forests is Andrew’s latest short story collection.
Terry Campbell will facilitate a workshop called Storytelling as Medicine. This will provide prompts for emerging and established writers. She is currently a professor of education in language and literacy at Nipissing University. A storyteller and elementary school teacher before joining the department of teacher education, Terry’s practice and research interests have long been centred on the dynamics of storytelling, story writing, and story reading. Terry has travelled and published widely, presenting workshops on the central role of talk in learning and living. A storyteller at heart, Terry spins various yarns from three-minute folk tales to chapters from Homer’s Odyssey, in spaces such as classrooms, libraries, on CBC radio, and at outdoor festivals.
The day begins with a welcoming smudge delivered by Nipissing First Nation Indigenous educator George Couchie and finishes with a digital fire live at the Canadian Ecology Centre.
