Budding authors can blossom this spring with the help of mentors and peers during the third annual Convergence Writers’ Weekend at the Heart’s Rest Retreat Centre in New Denver, May 2 to 4.
The theme of this year’s gathering is “Writing for the Wild,” so although participants may be working on fiction, non-fiction, or poetry on any topic, the weekend’s emphasis will be on how to create sturdier and more effective writing about wilderness and the effects of human society on it.
Besides workshops that will consider participants’ own writing, the weekend will include a panel, open to the public, featuring three area writer-activists on Friday, May 2 at 7:30 p.m.
Speaking at the Writing for the Wild panel will be publisher, author and Jumbo Wild campaign leader K.L. Kivi, author and Columbia River watershed expert Eileen Delehanty Pearkes, and journalist, public health care activist and a leader in the fight against the Northern Gateway pipeline Keith Wiley.
Panelists will speak on the relation of social justice to the environmental movement, overcoming despair, and finding joy in the work, in the context of writing about the wild.
The panel will be moderated by Heart’s Rest co-founder and past president of the Slocan Lake Stewardship Society Therese DesCamp. Leading the weekend workshops will be local author/educators Almeda Glenn Miller, Verna Relkoff and Tom Wayman.
Registration is now open for this year’s event, which is limited to 25 participants. Cost for the weekend is $275, which includes all six meals from dinner May 2 to lunch May 4. A limited number of scholarships are available for youth between 15 and 30 years of age, and this year also for residents of Silverton or New Denver of any age.
More information, including how to register, is available at heartsrest.com/convergence/convergence-writers-retreat/. Deadline for registration is April 11.
Support for this year’s event has come from the ProVision fund of the United Church of Canada and the Heart’s Rest Retreat Centre; supporters in earlier years have included the Columbia Basin Trust and the Trust’s Community Initiatives Program.