Recent grants from Silverton, Slocan and New Denver, under the Columbia Basin Trust’s Community Initiatives Program, have bolstered the second annual Convergence Writers’ Weekend at the Heart’s Rest Retreat Centre in New Denver, June 14 to 16.
The $1,500 awarded by the three municipalities will go for youth scholarships to the event, whose theme is “Writing a New World.” The event will offer talks, writing workshops convened by area published authors, and one-on-one writing consultations with featured presenter Alanna Mitchell, author of the bestselling Sea Sick: The Global Ocean in Crisis.
Registration deadline is May 24 for the Convergence Weekend, which is limited to 25 participants. Cost of the weekend, including all meals, is $350, with scholarships available for youth between 15 and 30 years of age. More information, including registration procedure, is available at heartsrest.com/convergence/convergence-writers-retreat.
Mitchell contends that although awareness of the environmental crisis is vital, society cannot achieve a better world unless we can imagine what that world would look like. The author, winner of the 2008 Atkinson Fellowship in Journalism and the 2010 Grantham Prize for environmental writing, is a former Globe and Mail reporter who now directs her attention to investigating changes in earth’s life-support systems.
Besides her participation at the Convergence Writers’ Weekend, she will give a talk at the Nelson United Church (602 Silica Street) at 7 p.m. on June 13 about moving from environmental despair to imagining a new world. An opportunity to meet the author and book signing will follow. A donation of $10 is suggested, with youth and students free.
This year’s Convergence Weekend is sponsored by the United Church of Canada, the Columbia Basin Trust, and the Heart’s Rest Retreat Centre.