Writing workshops, for the most part, are lovely week-long bubbles, basically summer camps for writers.  For me in particular they have been havens where I can get away from the soul-crushing realities of trying to carve out a career from something I do for love.  Paradoxically, they have also been places where I have made useful contacts as well as lasting friendships.

The Seawords workshop in Charlottetown, aside from having fine writing instructors, also boasts sessions with a bona fide literary agent all the way from Toronto.  Jackie Kaiser from Westwood Creative Artists was the resident agent at both Seawords workshops, counseling writers on the vagaries of getting published in the real world.  The irony that her sobering perspective of the business side of the writing game was available to us in PEI put a smile on my face.  You see, according to Jackie, admitting you live on the "gentle island" is enough to turn off any agent or publisher in Toronto.  I can confirm this with my own brief experience of being represented by an agent, who informed me that I lacked a Toronto presence (despite my considerable Internet presence, which seems to be de rigeur  for writers these days). 

The question that keeps popping up in my mind is to what degree should a workshop maintain its innocence and be only about the writing rather than the career?  Jackie worried that her honest and often bleak portrayal of the book industry, such as it is these days, was casting a pall on the overall good vibes of the workshop. On the other hand, her critiques of the query letters that some of us submitted addressed both writing skills and career aspirations. In general, I felt that having access to her brand of expertise proved to be invaluable.  Her presence, as far as I'm concerned, set the Seawords experience apart from other workshops.  

I assume that most of my fellow participants felt the same way, but it is also important to realize that not everyone who attends writing workshops is necessarily interested in a writing career.  Many already have other careers. I have met many doctors, teachers and, on one occasion, a minister.  Others are just there to satisfy their own curiosity about writing.  For those who want to network with professionals, there are many seminars and literary festivals specifically designed for that purpose.  At Word On The Street in Halifax I participated in an event called Pitch The Publisher, where writers can pitch their book ideas to a panel of publishers.  Opportunities abound for those who are seeking them.

The best one can do is to respect the overall spirit of whatever workshop one is attending.  There's usually something for everyone.

As anyone who has read my blog (you are out there aren't you?) knows, I do a lot of workshops.  I have been averaging two a year since 2004. That's a lot of workshops. I believe they are worth doing for many reasons: you get a chance to improve a piece of writing; you meet writers and make many useful contacts; you get to spend the week in a lovely literary bubble, etc.

If you’ve attended a workshop then you’ll know that they are basically summer camp for writers, but I have come to think of them as being my education.  In July I attended my sixth consecutive Great Blue Heron Workshop, where I received the Ultimate Participant Extreme Writer Award.  I was greatly touched. It is the closest I will ever come to receiving some kind of diploma.

And so I have come to the decision that I am graduating from the world of writing workshops. It's not a particularly easy decision. I know that when I receive the brochure for the 2011 GBH and it says that Michael Ondaatje (or whoever) will be giving a workshop, I will be quivering inside and ready to send my application in. But I won't.

Instead, I have been looking for opportunities to impart some of my hard-won wisdom to beginning writers. I have submitted my name to an upcoming mentorship program here on PEI and applied for a writer-in-residence opening that will be coming up in Newfoundland. I have no idea whether I'm actually qualified for either of these positions or if I will get them, but it feels as if I have turned a corner in my life as a writer and this is a new path I should at least try to follow. We'll see where it leads me.

It's been a while since I last posted.  In fact, since last year I have been quite derelict in my blogging duties, which I plan to rectify.  But I also promised myself that I will keep things short and sweet (or acerbic, as the mood strikes me).

Did two workshops this year.  In July it was the Great Blue Heron in Antigonish, where I did a playwriting workshop with Daniel MacIvor.  I took a one-act play called Hair Of The Dog, which is about a fifty-something recovering alcoholic who decides to have a bar mitzvah as a way of connecting to a higher power.  By the end of the week I realized that I needed to expand it into a full-length play, so that is what I will be doing for the rest of the year.  

In July I attended the Seawords workshop here on PEI.  My instructor was Christy Ann Conlin, with whom I got on like the proverbial house on fire (apt because her partner, James, is a volunteer firefighter).  We had a great group and I made some friendships that I think will last well beyond the workshop.  The other instructor was Erika Ritter, who I also got to know a bit. A funny and engaging woman, I look forward to staying in touch with her.

I will have more to say about both these workshops in future posts.

There has been some eventful writing news as well.  My screenplay adaptation of my novella Fatted Calf Blues is a Top 100 Semifinalist in the Scriptapalooza competition.  Although it did not advance further, the good news is that all the screenplays, from semifinalists up, will be promoted for the next year by Scriptapalooza.  I assume they will get sent around to film industry insiders in LA, which makes this competition unique.

The other huge news is that my book Fatted Calf Blues has been long-listed for the ReLit Awards, which are specifically for books published by small presses. It was a shock to see my book on the list because it came out in April 2009 and I assumed it would have been eligible for the 2009 awards.  When it wasn't on that list I just assumed it had been passed over and that was that. So, even if it doesn't go further than this I'm pretty happy that the book got some recognition a year and half after being released.

Anyone who has read past entries on this blog or checked out my writing history on this site knows that I am a writing workshopaholic.  Every year I attend at least one workshop, and quite often two.  My first was the Maritime Writers' Workshop in Fredericton, NB in 2004.  I have participated in the Great Blue Heron Writing workshop at St. F.X. every year since 2005 and I have applied again this year.

I go to workshops for various reasons.  Since I never took any kind of creative writing course, I consider these workshops a form of continuing education where I can bring an early draft of a story, poems or even a film script that would benefit from some outside feedback to help bring it to the next level.  Workshops have also been one of the few places where I meet other writers, and I have kept in touch with some of these folks long after the workshops are over.  At their best, workshops are like summer camps for writers, a rare opportunity to work and socialize at the same time.  

Having benefitted from being in workshops with some of this country’s best writers, I often wondered how I would do as an instructor.  Well, this year it looks like I am going to get my chance and frankly, I'm pretty nervous about it.  

In June I will be reading at the Jewish Literary Festival in Hamilton, Ontario. The organizers, Lil Blume and Ellen Jaffee, are putting together an anthology of Jewish writing called From Sinai To The Shtetl And Beyond, to which I have contributed a poem.  The invitation was originally for me to read at the launch for the anthology during the festival.  In the course of my communications with Lil and Ellen, I was informed that some of the other writers would be giving workshops and was asked if I would like to do one too.   Although it was by no means mandatory, I figured this was my chance to see what a workshop would be like from the other side.

The big question was what would my workshop be about and did I really have anything to teach other writers?  After a little more back-and-forth with L & E, I found out that my workshop should take the form of a talk that might lead to a writing exercise, depending on how many actual writers were in my audience.  My publisher had suggested to me that I expand my repertoire by working on my ability to talk about my writing as well as giving readings.  I recognized here was a good opportunity to do just that.  It was decided between myself and L & E that I would read a story from Fatted Calf Blues called The Two Annes, which is about an artist who uses his talent to deal with personal loss, and talk about that process.  I would then move the talk to my own experience by discussing the novel I am working on, which uses some of my family history.  For a big finish I would ask the participants to turn a true event from their lives into a piece of fiction.

It all sounds easy enough, but on the inside I'm biting my fingernails to the quick.  Will anyone actually show up?  Will I be able to deliver the goods?  All will be revealed in June, if I don't die of nervousness first.

It's been quite a week.  On Monday I attended a day-long workshop given by the Writers' Union of Canada  called “From Desk to Bookstore: Making the Leap to Writing as a Career.”  It was a very good workshop and covered a variety of topics: getting published in magazines and books for both fiction and non-fiction (very different  because non-fiction involves much more querying and story pitching than fiction), agents, the editor/writer relationship, contracts, etc.

Although I learned quite a bit, I was also able to contribute some information, including a couple of web sites that are excellent resources for publishing in magazines.  One is www.placesforwriters.com which lists links to web sites for magazines in Canada and abroad, as well as offering updated calls for new work and contests.  The other is Duotrope's Digest, an ingenious search engine where you fill in the on line form with details like the genre and length of your submission (as well as other particulars) and -- Voila! -- you are immediately presented with a list of magazines and links to their submission pages.  I have published most of my work using both of these resources.  They are indispensable to any writer.  In the interest of giving credit where credit is due, I should mention that both of these web site were brought to my attention by J.J. Steinfeld, a fine fiction writer and poet in Charlottetown. 

As much as I enjoyed the workshop, I have to admit its title gave me pause for reflection.  I never really imagined writing to be my career.  As a matter of fact, although I have been writing on and off for most of my adult life, I rejected the possibility of making it my career.  At the risk of sounding somewhat pretentious, I would have to say, if anything,  I saw it more as a "calling" rather than a "career."  I guess by that I mean writing was something I came back to every so often, mostly as a way to vent frustration, in the course of trying to discover who I was and what I should be doing with my life.  In that way it seemed to be choosing me, rather than the other way around.  It wasn't until 2001, when my wife and I decided to move to Prince Edward Island, that I made the conscious decision to focus solely on my writing with the hope of eventually making it my livelihood.

So, in making this choice, was I also making the transition from "calling" to "career"?  I'm not sure what it is about the word "career", but it somehow implies a sense of conformity and also a limited shelf life.  After all, doesn't one eventually retire from a career?  Whereas "calling" carries a different kind of weight, a sense of destiny that suggests a life-long commitment.

This week I also had the opportunity to reconnect with one of my high school teachers.  His name is included on the page of acknowledgements in my book.  When I was his student I asked him what one needed to do to be a writer.  He looked at me soberly and said that to be a writer one needed to suffer.  Sounds a bit harsh and I have to admit his reply frightened me.  In retrospect, I believe he was telling me that I had to go out and experience life, the joy as well as the suffering, before I could ever write in earnest.  It's only now, when I look back on my life, that I realize that was exactly what I did, that all my years of drifting from job to job and trying to discover my place in life, were somehow preparing me for the writing life.  In my own circuitous way I was answering the call.  Careering toward my career, you might say.

But the big news of this past week is that I finished the last round of copy editing before Fatted Calf Blues goes to print.  I reread the fourteen stories for what felt like the millionth time and listed the last of the changes I wanted to make.  By all rights, I should be sick of these stories, but in reading them I tried to imagine how other readers might see them.  In a way I was able to experience them with fresh eyes and gain some perspective on their strengths and weaknesses, as well as my own.

So this is it.  It's out of my hands now.  The next time I see my manuscript it will be a bonafide, honest-to-goodness published book.  In the meantime I am dividing my time between devising strategies for promoting the book and revising the novel I have been plugging away at lo these many years.  No matter how you see it -- calling, career or crap shoot -- a writer's work is never done.

This past week I attended the inaugural SeaWords Writing Workshop, which was sponsored by UPEI and the L.M. Montgomery Institute as a way of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables. The theme of the workshop was "Canada's Women Writers" and this theme held true in the choice of faculty. Writers Anne Simpson and Carol Bruneau led us budding wordsmiths in group and one-to-one sessions. Usually workshop groups are divided by genre (fiction, poetry, non-fiction, etc.), so it was not only refreshing but stimulating to have mixed groups of fiction writers and poets. I brought an excerpt of my novel, but since I also write poetry, I was interested in seeing how poetry influences prose and vice versa. I was in Anne's group and since she is a poet and novelist herself, she kept referring to this cross-pollination during our group sessions. In fact i had once taken a poetry workshop with Anne and came out of it with two publishable poems, so I was eager to see what would happen with fiction. I can't say I came out with a publishable piece, but it did change drastically in the rewrites I did during the week and I know what I have to do to get it into a publishable state. 

Playwright and novelist Ann-Marie MacDonald was a guest speaker who first wanted to know why we were at this workshop and engaged us in a lively discussion on why we were motivated to write. While she spoke candidly about her journey as a writer, she also expressed curiosity about us. A natural performer, she was very charming and entertaining. 

One of the things that attracted me to this workshop was the opportunity to meet Jackie Kaiser, a Toronto literary agent with Westwood Creative Artists, who spoke to us at length about various aspects of the publishing business. The cliched image of an agent as hard-nosed and cold-blooded doesn't seem to fit Jackie. Although I probably wouldn't want to go toe-to-toe with her in a high-stakes negotiating session, she proved to be very personable and approachable. She even gave all of us her business card. Jackie has much experience behind her as an editor at Penguin Canada. Even though we had a week, there was so much information to impart it seemed as if there was not enough time. We were asked to write "cover letters" as if we were going to submit our work to a publisher. Jackie critiqued some of the letters, which was helpful. But I would have also been interested if she'd gone through some of our stories and given us an agents perspective on our work. As an added bonus we also met and spoke with Lynn Henry, an editor at House of Anansi Press. Most interesting was her explanation of the various structures of novels and how she helps a writer find the best one to tell his story. 

I should also mention that the organizer of the SeaWords Workshop was Amy Kelly. This is not a job to be taken lightly and Amy did an amazing job. I know this because as far as I could see everything ran like clockwork. And if there were problems, I wasn't aware of them. That's when you know an organizer is doing the job right.

But the theme of "Canada's Women Writers" wasn't restricted to the faculty. Out of the 11 writers participating in the workshop only myself and one other were in possession of X and Y chromosomes. Not surprising, since the majority of readers are women; it only stands to reason that they would also aspire to create the books as well. 

The workshop took place at Shaw's Hotel, Canada's oldest family-operated inn. Lunches and snacks were included in the cost of the workshop tuition and they fed us very well. The faculty stayed in the hotel's cottages and some of the participants stayed in the rooms. I live a 60 minute drive from Brackley Beach and since things got started at 9:00 a.m. commuting wasn't practical for me. As beautiful as the hotel looked, I wasn't able to afford it as my accommodation and so opted to stay at the nearby Windsong Farm Bed & Breakfast. Proprietors Cindy and Alan are from Alberta and come to PEI to run the B&B in July and August. They are a friendly couple who showed great interest in the fact that I am a writer and wanted to know all about the workshop. Throughout the week the delicious cooked breakfasts included pancakes, waffles, fried eggs, quiche and french toast and always started with Cindy's freshly baked muffins and scones. Guests all ate at the same table and a general atmosphere of friendly chatter made for a terrific way to start the day. As I don't drive and the walk to the workshop would have taken me around 45 or 50 minutes (which I was perfectly willing to do) Alan generously offered to drive me every morning. Now that's customer service, folks! If you are ever in Brackley Beach, PEI I would heartily recommend staying at Windsong Farm.

And if the SeaWords Writing Workshop goes for a second year in 2009 I recommend you sign up as early as possible.