The Writers’ Festival here will hold its Saturday seminar for aspiring writers, on Sept. 6 from 10am to 3pm.
This year’s seminar, Travel Writing and the Planet, has two compelling concerns: travel writing and the well-being of the planet. Four panelists will lead the session, sharing ideas on the genre and the possibilities of making a living from it, while addressing issues of ethical travel. The workshop is conducted in the outdoors at Camp Edgewood in Eden Mills.
Susan Catto’s latest work is Live and Work in the USA and Canada and is now in its fourth edition. Catto is a Toronto-based writer and editor with an international clientele.
Guelph native Laurie Gough’s latest publication is Kiss the Sunset Pig.
Chris Turner is author of The Geography of Hope: A Guided Tour of the World We Need. It was listed on Globe & Mail’s 2007 "Globe 100" list of the best books of the year.
Taras Grescoe is a Montreal writer and winner of the Mavis Gallant Prize and the Edna Staebler award for non-fiction for The Devil’s Picnic: Travels Through the Underground of Food and Drink and Sacré Blues: A Unsentimental Journey Through Quebec. His latest work is Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood.
Catto will talk about the practicalities of approaching travel writing as a profession or part of a freelance career. She’ll address the pros and cons of accepting subsidized travel, and about some recent controversies in the business.
Gough’s topic is World Travels and Travel Writing: Turning One Passion Into Another.
Grescoe will discuss Travelling with an Appetite: “When you travel, you gotta eat,” said Grescoe. “No way around it … these are also experiences that can be turned into vivid writing.”
Turner will lead a two-part discussion on The Moral Imperatives of Climate Change and the Ethical Dilemma of Writing About Travel in the Anthropocene Era.
Turner will also present a narrated slide show based on his most recent book, The Geography of Hope.
Workshop schedule
– 10-11am, Catto;
-11- 12pm, Gough;
– light lunch;
– 1-2pm, Grescoe;
– 2-3pm, Turner; and
– a reception and book-signing will follow.
Tickets are $40 and are available at the gate or in advance from The Bookshelf Bookstore, Guelph 519-821- 3311 www.bookshelf.ca. For reservations contact Wendy Smith at leydensmith@hotmail.com or 519-856-1089.
Participants are asked to bring pen and paper, weather-appropriate clothing and a canteen of water.
