Celebrating writing with Richard Van Camp

Thank you, thank you to Author, Teacher and my good friend Richard Van Camp for putting on a spectacular writing workshop for 14 of us mentor-starved writers here in Yellowknife.

We were a mixed bag of writers, some just starting out, others well-published, some with stories blocked inside us and others with them gushing out.

Richard is a natural storyteller and this day was devoted to all our writing stories. My first reaction to this was an inward groan because it seemed like it would take forever and that we would never get to down to the brass tacks of the craft of writing. But the stories were wonderful, and Richard wove the lessons about the craft and business of writing through our stories and his own. Verv skilled. Very impressive. We listened, laughed and unzipped our hearts, so that by the end of the day there was a sense that we were a community of writers. That's how stories do their work.


Led by Richard's unrestrained and unapologetic cheerleading, it was also a day of celebration of all we had accomplished and will accomplish. In particular we applauded the publication of Fran Hurbcom's first novel "Going Places," Cathy Jewison's pending book deal for her collection of short stories, Jamie Bastedo's completion of a new manuscript and Jennifer Knowlans new Zine--and all our hopes and dreams which, if you believe Richard, will come true if we work hard enough and turn our setbacks into opportunties.

Richard also left us with a plethora of pithy acronyms and tips to get us writing, keeping us writing, make us work hard, overcome our fear of rejection, face the publishing industry and so on. These were all great but I don't remember any of them due to sleep deprivation as a result of the passions stirred by the workshop, and also because I never take notes (unless I'm getting paid for it), didn't even in high school or university--and really Richard should be grateful that I am now grown up enough to resist the temptation that I still have whenver I sit myself down in a classroom to disrupt everything by making wisecracks and throwing spitballs or something.

Thank you, Richard. It was truly wonderful!