5th Annual Sleeping Giant Writers Festival

5th Annual Sleeping Giant Writers Festival
August 22, 23 &24
Prince Arthur Waterfront Hotel

Alistair MacLeod – The Art and Craft of Fiction
Alistair MacLeod’s critically acclaimed novel, No Great Mischief, won the highly prestigious 2001 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. He published two internationally acclaimed collections of short stories: The Lost Salt Gift of Blood and As Birds Bring Forth the Sun. Alistair is Professor Emeritus at the University of Windsor and teaches at the Humber School for Writers.
The Novel and Short Story will discuss setting, theme, tone, point of view, character development and more.

David Hayes - Feature Writing: Crafting Pitches that Sell
The Editor-Writer RelationshipDavid Hayes is an author, columnist and an award winning freelance writer who has been published in Toronto Star, Toronto Life, Saturday Night, Chatelaine, The Globe and Mail, Reader's Digest, and The New York Time Magazine. He teaches journalism at Ryerson University.
Feature Writing: Crafting Pitches That Sell will look at successful query letters to demonstrate how to do it right. Ideas are a writer’s currency. A compelling query is as valuable as gold.
The Editor-Writer Relationship will discuss their partnership; what they share and how they are different. Topics will include: seeing though an editor’s eyes, query letters, rewriting and negotiating fees.

John Geddes - Mastering the Magazine Feature
Fiction from Beyond the Big City John Geddes is a novelist and journalist. His novel, The Sundog Season, was co-winner of the 2006 Ottawa Book Award. His journalism career began in Thunder Bay with The Times-News. He is now the Ottawa Bureau Chief for MacLean’s. Mastering the Magazine Feature will be an introduction to writing the lead, structuring the story, establishing a flow, and blending personal observations and analysis with original reporting. Fiction from Beyond the Big City will demonstrate how to make sure fiction from small places doesn't feel merely nostalgic. The fictional community of West Spirit Lake in The Sundog Season is based on Cochenour, John’s childhood home, a small mining town in northwestern Ontario.

Steven Heighton
Steven Heighton is a novelist and poet. His novel, Afterlands, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ choice and a finalist for the Evergreen Award. His poetry book, The Ecstasy of Skeptics was a Governor General's Award finalist. He has won National Magazine Award gold medals for fiction and poetry.
Flash Characterization will focus on how to bring main or minor characters to life in just a sentence or two.Writing as Reenactment will focus on how to write poems that perform their subject matter by means of rhythm and music and punctuation rather than merely describing it.
(99 words)

Heather Summerhayes Cariou
Heather Summerhayes Cariou’s book Sixtyfive Roses: A Sister’s Memoir was a Globe and Mail pick for the 100 Best Books of 2006; and a Books and Authors.net choice for Best Book of 2007: Memoir, She serves on the Board of the International Women’s Writing Guild.
Memoir will use prompts and object exercises to help you climb down the rope of memory into the deep well where your best, and most surprising writing waits, and then Heather will help you haul it back up into the light.

Duncan Weller
Duncan Weller, an illustrator and writer of children’s books, won the 2007 Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature, Illustration for Boy from the Sun. He is collaborating with his brother, Eric, on a high definition video version of the book. Recently he returned to Thunder Bay where he grew up.
Writing and Illustrating for Children will present insights into the publishing business including layout, design and the production of a children’s picture book. (73 words)