Northern Lights Festival Boreal 2009 - In Review
I'd like to issue a hearty hello to people who are following this for the first time! Welcome to my writing blog. Many of you are probably looking for the Sudbury Hypergraphic Society (SHS) or the Sudbury Writers' Guild (SWG) websites. I've just linked to them for you, just hop on over and grab your updates about their upcoming events.
This past weekend I manned a booth at the Northern Lights Festival Boreal in Sudbury. The weather cooperated for most of the weekend, giving us a comfortable 21 C and some beautiful sunshine. I was at the booth almost all day Saturday and Sunday, only breaking for food and washroom. It was great to see and talk to so many people who share a passion for the arts and the community of Sudbury! I was thrilled to speak about all the great things coming up in the area with so many different people from so many different walks of life.
One theme seemed to be pretty common among the people whom I had opportunity to speak. They were all surprised to discover that Sudbury had a writing group, let alone two! Although the SHS is a newly formed organization, just through its eighth month, the SWG has been in existence since at least the early '90s. So why have so few people heard of these groups? I would claim it to be lack of trying, but considering both the SWG and SHS just obtained their websites recently and neither have attended many local festivals in the past, I have to go with lack of publicity. One would think that to be something to approach the Sudbury Arts Council (SAC) about, but that group has just ended a two-year hiatus and is trying to reform and reorganize after having been left in something of a shamble.
It seems the arts community in Sudbury has been running itself as a series of small, unrelated and for the most part, untalking groups. For a city like Sudbury, the arts is due to push the city into its own renaissance. The hustle and bustle of the industrialized and unionized city is subsiding because of the economic recession, and people are trying to turn their hobbies (jewelcrafting, painting, writing, acting, woodwork, etc) into a secondary income as they're forced to resort to minimum wage jobs. With new groups forming across the city to encourage these endeavours, it is my hope that we can all come together and help rejuvenate the city, becoming an artistic jewel in Northern Ontario. The Northern Lights Festival Boreal showed me that there is a huge interest in the arts in Sudbury. People just find it hard to find out what is going on across the city, and how to get involved in something that is of interest to them.
My main purpose during the festival was to push and introduce people to the SWG, the SHS, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), Script Frenzy, and The Ontario Poetry Society (TOPS). All of which are active in the area. Miriam H. Harrison now stands as the current branch head of TOPS, and will be getting something happening on that front starting in the fall when she returns from a fact-finding mission out west. I am the Municipal Liaison for the Sudbury area for NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy, and successfully lead a group to completing their 50k novels last year. Representing the SWG this weekend we had their incoming president, Scott; the VP Miriam, the webmaster Andy, and members Judy and Ken. For the SHS we had Andy, Ken, Miriam, and myself.
By sharing a booth among members of different literary organizations, I really came to feel that we were doing more together than could ever be done as individual groups. Different people were interested in different aspects of our table, from the casual onlooker who spotted the ancient typewriter (and our free draw), to the writing enthusiast that wanted to know about everything. I think, come September, the SWG will find itself with an influx of fresh blood from many of the people that we spoke with at length about the group. I also fully expect a blossoming of participants in NaNoWriMo this upcoming Novemeber. I look forward to seeing what becomes of all this.
I also look forward to hearing from a lot of people about donations for the SHS' summer book sale. We'll take just about any book you wish to donate, and resell it at the book sale August 22nd, 2009 at the Market Square. The proceeds from the sale are going to be donated to a youth literacy program. If you wish to book a time to drop off the books, contact me.
One thing I know for sure, Sudbury is not a cultural void. Although it may be hard to find the group you're looking for, we're out here. Even more important, we're ready to start working together. The time to rejeuvenate the culture of Sudbury has arrived, and I can hardly wait.
This past weekend I manned a booth at the Northern Lights Festival Boreal in Sudbury. The weather cooperated for most of the weekend, giving us a comfortable 21 C and some beautiful sunshine. I was at the booth almost all day Saturday and Sunday, only breaking for food and washroom. It was great to see and talk to so many people who share a passion for the arts and the community of Sudbury! I was thrilled to speak about all the great things coming up in the area with so many different people from so many different walks of life.
One theme seemed to be pretty common among the people whom I had opportunity to speak. They were all surprised to discover that Sudbury had a writing group, let alone two! Although the SHS is a newly formed organization, just through its eighth month, the SWG has been in existence since at least the early '90s. So why have so few people heard of these groups? I would claim it to be lack of trying, but considering both the SWG and SHS just obtained their websites recently and neither have attended many local festivals in the past, I have to go with lack of publicity. One would think that to be something to approach the Sudbury Arts Council (SAC) about, but that group has just ended a two-year hiatus and is trying to reform and reorganize after having been left in something of a shamble.
It seems the arts community in Sudbury has been running itself as a series of small, unrelated and for the most part, untalking groups. For a city like Sudbury, the arts is due to push the city into its own renaissance. The hustle and bustle of the industrialized and unionized city is subsiding because of the economic recession, and people are trying to turn their hobbies (jewelcrafting, painting, writing, acting, woodwork, etc) into a secondary income as they're forced to resort to minimum wage jobs. With new groups forming across the city to encourage these endeavours, it is my hope that we can all come together and help rejuvenate the city, becoming an artistic jewel in Northern Ontario. The Northern Lights Festival Boreal showed me that there is a huge interest in the arts in Sudbury. People just find it hard to find out what is going on across the city, and how to get involved in something that is of interest to them.
My main purpose during the festival was to push and introduce people to the SWG, the SHS, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), Script Frenzy, and The Ontario Poetry Society (TOPS). All of which are active in the area. Miriam H. Harrison now stands as the current branch head of TOPS, and will be getting something happening on that front starting in the fall when she returns from a fact-finding mission out west. I am the Municipal Liaison for the Sudbury area for NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy, and successfully lead a group to completing their 50k novels last year. Representing the SWG this weekend we had their incoming president, Scott; the VP Miriam, the webmaster Andy, and members Judy and Ken. For the SHS we had Andy, Ken, Miriam, and myself.
By sharing a booth among members of different literary organizations, I really came to feel that we were doing more together than could ever be done as individual groups. Different people were interested in different aspects of our table, from the casual onlooker who spotted the ancient typewriter (and our free draw), to the writing enthusiast that wanted to know about everything. I think, come September, the SWG will find itself with an influx of fresh blood from many of the people that we spoke with at length about the group. I also fully expect a blossoming of participants in NaNoWriMo this upcoming Novemeber. I look forward to seeing what becomes of all this.
I also look forward to hearing from a lot of people about donations for the SHS' summer book sale. We'll take just about any book you wish to donate, and resell it at the book sale August 22nd, 2009 at the Market Square. The proceeds from the sale are going to be donated to a youth literacy program. If you wish to book a time to drop off the books, contact me.
One thing I know for sure, Sudbury is not a cultural void. Although it may be hard to find the group you're looking for, we're out here. Even more important, we're ready to start working together. The time to rejeuvenate the culture of Sudbury has arrived, and I can hardly wait.