The Writing Week

The Writing Weeks 2024

Writing Week and Workshop tickets are now available. All other tickets for the 2024 Festival will be on sale June 2.

In 2024 we are offering two Writing Weeks, both running from Sunday July 14 through Thursday July 18.   (By popular request we have changed the traditional Monday to Friday time period so that participants are able to attend the festival’s first day – Friday July 19.)

Both workshops run from 9 a.m. to 1 pm for five days (Sunday July 14 through Thursday July 18)

Class limit:  8

Price of workshop:  $450

Location: 
Angie Abdou at 3390 Denman Road (top of ferry hill)
Kevin Chong at 4575 Denman Road, United Church Gathering Place (top of big hill)

1. Angie Abdou – Advanced Class

For writers who have already participated in introductory writer workshops and feel ready to advance their writing practice, delving into deeper level critique and theory, this class provides a week of advanced instruction and mentorship. The class will be specially tailored to the participants and their work in progress. A detailed weekly outline will be compiled once the instructor has read the student work.

 Applicants:  Once you have successfully registered in the workshop, please submit 20-50 pages of short stories, novel in progress, or creative nonfiction projects to workshop organizer Daryl McLoughlin at [email protected] no later than June 15.  This will be passed on to the instructor.  You will receive copies of the other workshop participants’ work and you are expected to have read these prior to the workshop.

 

2. Kevin Chong’s Fiction/Prose Narrative Class

Kevin Chong has taught fiction and creative non-fiction at UBC Okanagan, the UBC School of Creative Writing, the Writer’s Studio at SFU, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and the Banff Centre of the Arts. Kevin Chong, award-winning author of seven books of fiction and non-fiction, lives in Vancouver and teaches creative writing at UBC.  His most recent novel, The Double Life of Benson Yu, was on the shortlist for the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize.  His previous works include The Plague, written presciently pre-covid in 2018; Northern Dancer (2014), My Year of the Racehorse (2012), and Neil Young Nation (2005).  Chong was a popular presenter at the 2013 Denman Island Readers & Writers Festival. Read a review of his latest book here: https://denmanislandwritersfestival.com/2024-book-reviews/#10192

In this five-day session, drawn from my teaching at the above-mentioned institutions, we will mix workshops with talks that explore the principles of story structure, dialogue, setting, and tension using examples from published work and writing prompts.  We will also look at professional aspects of writing, including query letters, book promotion, and maintaining a regular writing practice.

See detailed workshop information from Kevin Chong.     

 

Applicants:  Once you have successfully registered in the workshop, please submit a 1500 to 2500 word novel excerpt, short story, or narrative nonfiction to workshop organizer Helen Mason at [email protected] no later than June 15.  This will be passed on to the instructor.  You will receive copies of the other workshop participants’ work and you are expected to have read these prior to the workshop.

CANCELLATION POLICY:  We regret that we cannot reimburse registration fees beyond June 15th

 

Please fill out the form below to purchase tickets for either of the Angie Abdou or the Kevin Chong class. Both run concurrently, so you cannot attend both! When you fill out the form, it will ask you for a contribution to Zeffy, the ticketing platform - click that to "0" if you do not want money added to your ticket.
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