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SUMMARY:Launch of The Brass Charm
DESCRIPTION:Monique Polak launches her first picture book\, The Brass Charm (Scholastic)\, illustrated by Marie Lafrance.\nAdmission is free\, but reservations are required: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/book-launch-monique-polaks-the-brass-charm-tickets-429873391887?fbclid=IwAR0iAj1ugfVvgVXe98gElGM-OH_QUnPIKu9x-Y6NvYmnY0lkirnHvlkoVac\nMonique will donate her share of book sales to the Montreal Holocaust Museum\nCopies of the French translation Le trésor d’Oma will also be available
URL:https://qwf.org/event/launch-of-the-brass-charm/
LOCATION:Montreal Holocaust Museum\, 5151 Cote Ste. Catherine Street\, Montreal\, Quebec\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Book Launch
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221121T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221121T200000
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SUMMARY:Advanced Memoir: The Second Draft
DESCRIPTION:This workshop on memoir is designed for people who have already studied at the intermediate level with Elaine Kalman Naves. Don’t be daunted by the “advanced” label. If you’ve completed an intermediate workshop with Elaine and are interested in writing\, reading\, and talking about memoir\, you are at a level to benefit from this workshop. \n\n\n\nAs of now\, we plan to host this workshop in-person at the QWF office\, with some slots open for remote participation. \n\n\n\nThough you need not be working on a book-length narrative\, you will be expected to have a specific project in mind. It can be something you were working on in a previous workshop or something entirely new. \n\n\n\nDuring the course of the eight-week workshop\, you will have the opportunity to submit a piece of up to 3000 words\, and with luck you will have a chance to present a second time. (More details about this once we get rolling.) \n\n\n\nInstead of a text\, you will have the opportunity to read some fine memoirs\, and the long lead-up to this fall workshop will give you a chance to do some advance reading. Please give priority in your summer reading to the terrific memoirs by the four writers who will be guest lecturers over the course of the session. (See below.) Once we have established who the actual workshop participants will be\, we will also supply you with a list of suggested optional works to enjoy over the course of the summer. \n\n\n\nThe emphasis will be on student input. Participants will not only be presenting their own work to the group but will also be expected to give careful reading of each other’s pieces in order to provide vital critical feedback. This element of the program is equally important to the writing. As in the past there will also be in-class exercises and discussion of topics of writerly interest. In a new departure\, we will start critiquing participants’ pieces at the very first session. Participants who volunteer to present early in the session will be much appreciated! Getting a head start will make it possible to present second drafts. Again\, we will work out these details ahead of time once the class list is established. \n\n\n\nHere are the names of the guest lecturers and their respective titles: \n\n\n\nMark Abley\, The Organist \n\n\n\nLinda Leith\, The Girl from Dream City \n\n\n\nHarriet Alida Lye\, Natural Killer \n\n\n\nRobyn Sarah\, Music\, Late and Soon \n\n\n\nAnd please don’t forget that William Zinsser’s On Writing Well is useful to have as a reference at your fingertips! \n\n\n\nTo apply\, please send the following to riley@qwf.org no later than July 6\, 2022. \n\n\n\nA 3- to 5-page double-spaced writing sample (nonfiction or fiction) that you feel is representative of your abilities.A paragraph or two outlining the writing project you plan to pursue in the workshop.\n\n\n\nElaine Kalman Naves is a long-time literary journalist and the author of seven non-fiction titles\, and of a novel.  She is a two-time recipient of the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction\, the winner of two Canadian Jewish Book Awards\, and of a Canadian Literary Award for Personal Essay. Her memoir Journey to Vaja: Reconstructing the World of a Hungarian-Jewish Family has been made into a documentary film. Elaine’s novel\, The Book of Faith\, was nominated for the Leacock Prize for Humour. She has led workshops at the QWF since their inception in 1998.  To find out more about Elaine\, visit her website athttp://www.elainekalmannaves.com/
URL:https://qwf.org/event/advanced-memoir-the-second-draft/2022-11-21/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221121T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221121T220000
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SUMMARY:Writing About Trauma (Without Being Super Annoying)
DESCRIPTION:Open to all. \n\n\n\nLimited to 12 participants \n\n\n\nWe plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office\, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it\, this workshop may transition to a purely online model.  \n\n\n\nThere was a time when bad things would happen to me\, and I would be like\, this is so terrible\, my life is so awful. Then\, I became a writer. Now\, when bad things happen to me\, I think: this kind of thing is so awful… for people who are not writers. This is going to make such a good essay. \n\n\n\nBeing a writer is a superpower. Writers are often uniquely sensitive\, which can make us vulnerable — but that sensitivity\, when channelled appropriately\, can turn into our greatest strength. When we learn to transmute our challenging\, painful\, and even traumatic experiences into art\, we learn a very real kind of invulnerability: a capacity to spin agony into gold\, a way in which we are always safe\, always on top\, and can always have the last word. At its best\, this skill can allow us to wrest power back from our worst experiences and literally pave a road to fame\, fortune\, healing\, and transcendence. There are\, however\, a few essential skills we must learn along the way. \n\n\n\nIn this eight-week workshop\, Montreal-based poet and nonfiction writer Tara McGowan-Ross will take the participants on a journey through their shadows\, mistakes\, betrayals\, and heartbreaks\, towards the end of creating a powerful and transformative piece of work. She will cover subjects ranging from basic critical thinking and how to apply it\, to how to create a safe container for your difficult feelings\, to the ethics of writing nonfiction\, which inevitably includes other people with opinions and boundaries — to injecting the kind of skill\, humour\, and humanity required of a work so that it may avoid the most common pitfall of writing trauma narratives: being\, like\, super annoying. \n\n\n\nTara McGowan-Ross is an urban Mi’kmaw multidisciplinary artist and writer. She graduated from Concordia University’s philosophy program with a minor in Creative Writing in 2016. She is the author of poetry collections Girth and Scorpion Season\, and the memoir Nothing Will Be Different. She has served on numerous editorial boards\, including Goose Lane’s Icehouse imprint\, and has been anthologized in Best Canadian Poetry and Anthologie de la poésie actuelle des femmes au Québec. She lives in Montreal\, where she is a theatre critic\, a rebel educator\, a Substack columnist\, and the host of Drawn & Quarterly’s Indigenous Literatures Book Club. \n\n\n\ngirthgirl.ca \n\n\n\ntaramcgowanross.substack.com \n\n\n\n@girthgirl (Instagram/Twitter)
URL:https://qwf.org/event/writing-about-trauma-without-being-super-annoying/2022-11-21/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221122T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221122T200000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220803T160501Z
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SUMMARY:(Un)broken: Leveraging the Poetic Line
DESCRIPTION:Open to all. \n\n\n\nLimited to 12 participants. \n\n\n\nWe plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office\, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it\, this workshop may transition to a purely online model. \n\n\n\nWith few exceptions\, poets have access to one tool that other writers do not: the line. A defining feature of its genre\, the poetic line plays many roles in shaping a poem’s character. The line can serve simultaneously as pacing device\, secondary grammar\, image container\, rhythm driver\, and spotlight for sound. \n\n\n\nIn contemporary free verse\, attention is often paid to breaking the line. While valuable\, this thinking locates a line’s gravitational pull largely at its end\, sometimes excluding other possibilities. Lines\, after all\, are made as well as broken. And through this making\, a poem’s fingerprint takes shape. \n\n\n\nThis generative poetry workshop offers poets of all levels the chance to develop a broader and more nuanced understanding of how poems derive power from the line’s possibilities—including\, but also extending beyond\, its breaking. We’ll consider first lines\, line integrity\, flavours of enjambment\, and the line as both sound-vessel and gloss. We’ll also reflect on what happens between lines by thinking about juxtaposition\, stanza\, and pacing. \n\n\n\nOverall\, the goal is to support participants in enhancing their free verse at the line level as they generate new work. Participants can expect to draft four to six new poems and have at least one poem workshopped by the group. Early sessions will involve generative writing prompts and craft discussions\, while later sessions will focus on workshopping. To anchor our craft discussions\, we’ll look at work from a variety of contemporary poets. Writers should bring one of their own poems to the first session as a way of introducing themselves and their work. \n\n\n\nSarah Wolfson is the author of A Common Name for Everything\, which won the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Canadian and American journals such as The Walrus\, The Fiddlehead\, TriQuarterly\, Prairie Fire\, CV2\, Michigan Quarterly Review\, and PRISM international. Her work has earned notable mention in Best Canadian Poetry and funding from the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference. She holds an MFA from the University of Michigan. Originally from Vermont\, she now lives in Montreal\, where she teaches writing at McGill University. \n\n\n\n@SarahWolfson1 (Twitter) \n\n\n\nhttps://www.facebook.com/sarah.wolfson.14 (Facebook)
URL:https://qwf.org/event/unbroken-leveraging-the-poetic-line/2022-11-22/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221122T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221122T220000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220803T161912Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220808T152156Z
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SUMMARY:The Art of Writing Speculative Fiction
DESCRIPTION:Open to all. \n\n\n\nLimited to 12 participants. \n\n\n\nWe plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office\, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it\, this workshop may transition to a purely online model. \n\n\n\nSpeculative Fiction\, a literary genre that can encompass anything from science-fiction and fantasy to magic realism\, slipstream\, alternate history\, horror\, steampunk\, fairy tales and fables\, dystopia\, and surrealism\, has been with us for as long as we’ve been telling stories. In recent years\, it has grown in importance as writing genres continue to cross and blur\, and even the most conventional writers of literary fiction experiment with speculative tools as a means to add wonder and power to their tales. \n\n\n\nThis workshop is open to both new and experienced writers\, whether of speculative fiction or of other genres. In each session of this eight-week workshop\, we will delve into a different topic and/or element of craft. The sessions will typically include a presentation\, examples from the work of experienced writers\, an in-depth\, participative discussion\, and a hands-on exercise. In addition\, each participant will have the opportunity to present their own work of speculative fiction—be it a short story or an excerpt from something longer—for detailed discussion and feedback. There will be clear ground rules for workshopping that are designed to ensure that our discussions remain constructive and respectful at all times. \n\n\n\nSome of the topics that the workshop will cover include: \n\n\n\nWhat is speculative fiction and what distinguishes it from other types of fiction? What are its special powers and challenges?Questions of content and your story’s four limbs: idea\, world\, character\, plot;Questions of structure and your story’s bones: point-of-view and narration\, chronology\, tense\, tone;Special focus on world-building;Special focus on character-building\, voice\, and dialogue;What kind of story are you writing? What are you trying to say?How to edit and improve your speculative fiction and prepare it for publication.\n\n\n\nSu J  Sokol is a social rights advocate and a writer of speculative and interstitial fiction. Originally from Brooklyn\, xe now resides in Montréal. Sokol is the author of Cycling to Asylum (2014)\, long-listed for the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic; Run J Run  (2019); and Zee (2020)\, finalist for the Janet Savage Blachford Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Sokol’s short work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies. This summer\, Sokol’s debut novel was translated into French and published under the title Les lignes invisibles by VLB Imaginaire.  Check out Sokol’s website at www.sujsokol.com \n\n\n\nFacebook: cyclingtoasylum \n\n\n\nInstagram: cycling2asylum \n\n\n\nTwitter: cyclingtoasylum
URL:https://qwf.org/event/the-art-of-writing-speculative-fiction/2022-11-22/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221123T133000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221123T143000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20221101T180914Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221116T194606Z
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SUMMARY:Writing Beyond the Mother Tongue
DESCRIPTION:Join us for a panel discussion on what it means to write in a language other than one’s mother tongue\, the benefits and challenges of doing so\, and how this affects the work and the writer’s relationship to language overall. \n\n\n\nHost: \n\n\n\nSherry Simon\, author and translator \n\n\n\nParticipants:Oana Avasilichioaei\, author and translatorBaharan Baniahmadi\, authorSylvain Neuvel\, author \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWednesday\, November 23rd at 1:30pm (60 min) on the Espace littéraire stage.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/writing-beyond-the-mother-tongue/
LOCATION:Palais des congrès de Montréal\, 1001 Jean Paul Riopelle Pl\, Montreal\, Quebec\, H2Z1H5\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Community Events,QWF Events
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221123T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221123T200000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220803T163058Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220803T163156Z
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SUMMARY:Your Story\, Embodied
DESCRIPTION:Open to storytellers of all levels of experience. \n\n\n\nLimited to 12 participants. \n\n\n\nWe plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office\, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it\, this workshop may transition to a purely online model. \n\n\n\nHave you ever sat captivated by a stranger standing on a stage recounting true events from their life? Did you get caught up in the tension of the room\, waiting with everyone else to find out what would happen next? Ever wonder what it would be like to hold an audience’s breath in the palm of your hand? \n\n\n\nYou can. You already have everything you need: your body. \n\n\n\nJoin Lukas and Emma\, two seasoned and engaging storytellers\, for eight weeks of exploration into using your body to craft and perform your own true-life stories. \n\n\n\nThe objectives of this workshop are to: \n\n\n\nEquip participants to prepare and perform a five-minute true story with no notes and no props.Facilitate and support exploration of emotionally charged material in search of unique stories.Harness the inherent strength of your body – the vessel for sharing your stories.Examine the tenets of storytelling\, including finding your narrative\, conflict\, and other essential elements of storycraft.\n\n\n\nThese intimate sessions will involve a mixture of group discussion\, critical analysis of stories\, and workshopping participants’ own stories with the goal of embodying an original five-minute story for invited guests at the final session. Stories will be workshopped in groups as well as one-on-one with facilitators and fellow workshop participants. \n\n\n\nEach week will focus on a particular theme with a corresponding body part\, with story examples to support each theme and illustrate the foundations of storytelling. By week 3\, participants should have a story in mind that we will work on for the final presentation. \n\n\n\nLukas Rowland is a writer\, storyteller\, and bodywork practitioner. He has told many stories with Confabulation\, where he is producer and communications coordinator. He was selected for the QWF Mentorship Program in 2020\, where he studied under Carousel author April Ford as a fiction mentee. He curated and produced an evening of queer stories for the Violet Hour. Though he has lived in and around Montreal these past 14 years\, he comes from Southern Louisiana\, where storytelling is part of every Cajun’s life. You can find him on Twitter @lukaslikeswords and on Instagram at @luka2ndfloor and at lukasrowland.com. \n\n\n\nEmma Lanza is a born-and-bred Montrealer with a background in storytelling\, theatre performance\, and arts management. She earned her Master’s degree in Library Science and currently works in medical research administration. A self-proclaimed fat bisexual babe\, Emma is a staunch believer in fat liberation and radical self-love and she wants you to know you look fabulous in that outfit! She has performed at Confabulation\, YARN\, The Wiggle Room\, Concordia University\, and Grownups Read Things They Wrote As Kids. She founded the bi-monthly Fattie Book Club @fattiebookclub and can be found on Instagram @emma_lanza and on Twitter @emmalanza.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/your-story-embodied/2022-11-23/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221123T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221123T220000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220803T164302Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220805T201243Z
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SUMMARY:Playwriting 101: A Playwriting Intensive
DESCRIPTION:Open to all. \n\n\n\nLimited to 12 participants. \n\n\n\nThis workshop will be conducted via Zoom. \n\n\n\nPlaywriting is an artform about curiosity\, obsession\, energy\, entertainment\, transformation\, and illumination. It’s about inspiration\, dedication\, and practice. It’s about following your impulses and shaping those impulses; about creating a series of freedoms and constraints that focus inspiration into a text that can be used as a blueprint for performance. Unlike most other forms of writing\, a play text must leave space for other creators to bring their artistry to the work. Director\, actors\, designers and technicians eventually fill in those spaces left by the writer to transform what is on the page into a three-dimensional performance that necessitates an audience for it to be fully realized. Having written plays that have been staged throughout Canada and beyond (Stratford Festival\, Shaw Festival\, Soulpepper Theatre\, Segal Centre\, Centaur Theatre)\, Erin Shields has developed a number of exercises\, strategies and best practices to imagine\, explore\, and write plays. \n\n\n\nPlaywriting 101 is an invitation for writers of other genres to try their hand at playwriting and for playwrights to deepen their practice. Throughout this eight-week workshop\, participants will bring their own particular understanding of story\, character\, and theme to the table\, to explore how to apply those same skills to the art of playwriting. Each class will focus on one of the following dramatic elements: character\, conflict\, desire\, premise\, form\, plot\, and structure. Through conversations\, focused exercises\, and sharing work\, participants will gain an understanding of how to organically and technically write a play. The process will alternate focus each class between the micro elements (character\, dialogue) and macro elements (theme\, story structure)\, as writers gradually learn how to build the world of the play with nuanced characters. \n\n\n\nDuring these eight weeks\, participants will write. A lot. By the end of the workshop\, writers \n\n\n\nwill have a strong understanding of the basic elements of a play and how to use those elements to write their own play. \n\n\n\nErin Shields (www.erinshields.ca) is a Canadian playwright. Most of her work highlights the negation or misrepresentation of women in classical texts by adapting these stories through a feminist lens for a contemporary audience. Erin’s adaptation of Paradise Lost premiered at The Stratford Festival of Canada and won the Quebec Writers Federation Prize for Playwriting. Erin won the 2011 Governor General’s Award for her play If We Were Birds\, which premiered at Tarragon Theatre. Other theatre credits include: Jane Eyre (Citadel Theatre)\, Piaf/Dietrich (Mirvish Productions/Segal Centre)\,The Lady from the Sea (The Shaw Festival). Upcoming productions include Queen Goneril for Soulpepper Theatre and Ransacking Troy for The Stratford Festival.  \n\n\n\nFacebook: Erin Shields \n\n\n\nInstagram: shieldserin1 \n\n\n\nWebsite: www.erinshields.ca
URL:https://qwf.org/event/playwriting-101-a-playwriting-intensive/2022-11-23/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221124T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221124T200000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220803T165449Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220803T165503Z
UID:10002988-1669312800-1669320000@qwf.org
SUMMARY:The Art of the Short Story
DESCRIPTION:Open to all. \n\n\n\nLimited to 12 participants. \n\n\n\nWe plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office\, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it\, this workshop may transition to a purely online model. \n\n\n\nOpen to writers of all levels\, this 10-week workshop is an investigation of the modern short story. What exactly is a story? What distinguishes it from an anecdote\, or a lie?  Most of us recognize a good one when we meet it on the page. It moves us\, often unexpectedly\, to laughter or tears. And it marks us\, reaching inside us and shifting\, sometimes subtly and other times with a jolt\, our views about ourselves and the world. The best stories articulate truths that we hadn’t\, until the moment of reading\, thought to put into words. \n\n\n\nThere is no set of rules for how to write a good story.  Each writer has to find their own way\, and each story demands fresh experiments. Writing is like living. It requires close listening and relentless improvisation.  The best way to learn how to write a good story is to read one. In this workshop\, we’ll read “In the Cart” (1897) by Anton Chekhov\, and investigate Chekhov’s views about this genre. We’ll also look at his technique: how he used elements like detail\, narrative point of view\, and speech to create a story strong enough to withstand the tests of time and translation. Over a century after Chekhov’s death\, his stories are still read and loved in places totally unlike Czarist Russia. What secrets can his work reveal to us in 21st-century Quebec? \n\n\n\nOur first four meetings will be devoted to discussing “In the Cart” (accessible online; also translated as “The Schoolmistress\,” and “A Journey by Cart”). Exercises relating to various elements of craft will be offered. The last six meetings will be reserved for workshopping our own stories and continuing the exploration of what exactly a story is\, and how to write one. \n\n\n\nClaire Holden Rothman is a Montreal writer\, translator\, and fiction editor who has published two collections of stories and three novels. The Heart Specialist (2009) was long-listed for The Scotia Bank-Giller Prize\, and My October was long-listed for the Giller and short-listed for the Governor General’s Award. Her most recent novel\, Lear’s Shadow\, was short-listed for Quebec’s 2020 Jacob Isaac Segal Award\, and won the 2019 Vine Award for Jewish Canadian Fiction. For many years\, Claire taught English literature and creative writing at Marianopolis College. She has also taught fiction workshops at McGill and Bishop’s Universities.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/the-art-of-the-short-story/2022-11-24/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221124T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221124T200000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20221116T195053Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230426T202118Z
UID:10003170-1669316400-1669320000@qwf.org
SUMMARY:A Conversation with David Mitchell
DESCRIPTION:Free\, no registration required\, and open to the public. \n\n\n\nÉdi­tions Alto and the Que­bec Writ­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion are delighted to present a spe­cial Salon dans la ville event fea­tur­ing for­mer Giller Prize win­ner Sean Michaels in con­ver­sa­tion with the inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned author of Cloud Atlas\, David Mitchell. \n\n\n\nThe New York­er has com­pared David Mitchell to Nabokov and Sara­m­a­go and called him ​“one of the few writ­ers whose dis­po­si­tion for arti­fice is tru­ly super­nat­ur­al.” He has been short­list­ed twice for the Man Book­er Prize\, notably for his nov­el Cloud Atlas\, which was adapt­ed for the screen in 2012 by Lil­ly and Lana Wachows­ki and Tom Tyk­w­er. In 2018\, he received the Sun­day Times Award for Lit­er­ary Excel­lence\, which hon­ors an author’s entire body of work. His most recent nov­el is Utopia Avenue (2020).
URL:https://qwf.org/event/a-conversation-with-david-mitchell/
LOCATION:Atwater Library Auditorium\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, 2nd floor\, Westmount\, QC
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221124T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221124T210000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220803T180335Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220805T201303Z
UID:10003006-1669316400-1669323600@qwf.org
SUMMARY:Edit like an Editor: How to Edit Your Own Prose
DESCRIPTION:This workshop is open to all levels of writers who have a prose manuscript they want to work on. \n\n\n\nLimited to 12 participants. \n\n\n\nThis workshop will be conducted via Zoom. \n\n\n\nUsing tips\, tricks\, and hands-on exercises\, workshop participants will learn about the different types of editing (including developmental editing\, line editing\, copyediting\, and fact checking) and how to see their own work with fresh eyes. \n\n\n\nThrough reading\, discussion\, and exercises\, this workshop will cover: \n\n\n\nHow to see your own work with an editor’s eyeSpotting common problems (info dumping\, “as you know\, Bob” explanations\, insufficient conflict\, misunderstanding genre conventions\, etc.)Understanding character development (goals and motivation)How to make the most out of dialoguePoint of view\, and common problems with point of view (e.g. head hopping)\n\n\n\nThis workshop is geared toward book-length manuscripts\, including short story and essay collections. Applicants must submit an excerpt from their manuscript (maximum 25 pages) along with a short description of the whole project in order to be considered for the workshop. After registering below\, you have until September 9 to send your document(s) to workshops@qwf.org\, with “For Maria Turner” in the subject line. \n\n\n\nBy the end of the workshop\, participants will have an in-depth editorial plan for their manuscript and have a solid understanding of the different types of editing and how to apply them to their own work. \n\n\n\nMaria Schamis Turner is a freelance editor specializing in developmental editing and line editing for fiction and creative nonfiction. She is a founding editor and previous editor-in-chief and creative nonfiction editor of the literary magazine carte blanche. She worked for 10 years on literary projects for CBC Radio\, including as an editor for Canada Writes. She was also the producer of the true story storytelling series This Really Happened and has taught numerous workshops on storytelling\, writing\, and editing. \n\n\n\nTurneredits.com \n\n\n\nTwitter: @turnmaria \n\n\n\nFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/turnmaria
URL:https://qwf.org/event/edit-like-an-editor-how-to-edit-your-own-prose/2022-11-24/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221124T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221124T220000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220803T175106Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220803T175205Z
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SUMMARY:Writing Outside the Box: A Workshop on Edgy Fiction
DESCRIPTION:Open to writers of all experience levels. \n\n\n\nDue to the content in some of the exercises\, this workshop is restricted to participants aged 18+. \n\n\n\nLimited to 12 participants \n\n\n\nWe plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office\, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it\, this workshop may transition to a purely online model. \n\n\n\nLooking to shake up your process? Interested in breaking the rules a little? Designed to inspire unique approaches to creative writing\, this workshop will help squash your inner editor and provoke your inner rebel\, giving you the confidence you need to write more openly and honestly. \n\n\n\nOver the course of eight weeks\, participants will delve into the work of unconventional writers like Italo Calvino\, Kelly Link\, John Elizabeth Stintzi\, and George Saunders. You’ll learn tips and techniques for producing work quickly and fearlessly. You’ll dabble with ekphrasis\, magic realism\, and second-person perspective\, and you’ll hone your ability to give and receive constructive feedback in a wildly creative working environment. \n\n\n\nThis is a fun\, provocative\, and productive workshop that’s generated award-winning fiction and long-term friendships. It is suitable for writers of any experience level\, from the shy beginner to the established professional\, working in any medium or genre. And while filled with lesson-based exercises and guided assignments\, this workshop is happily (and willfully) anti-academic. Participants are not taught writing theory but are encouraged to develop their skills through the acts of reading and writing alone. Here\, you learn by doing. \n\n\n\nThere is no submission required prior to the first session. Participants will be expected to share fiction with the group as the workshop progresses. \n\n\n\nThis is the perfect way to kickstart a project\, rejuvenate your existing process\, or to simply step outside of your comfort zone by experimenting with new approaches to creativity. \n\n\n\nCome play with the weird kids of creative writing. (One of us. One of us.) \n\n\n\nTrepassey-born writer Tracey Waddleton splits her time between the island of Newfoundland and the island of Montreal. Her first book\, Send More Tourists… the Last Ones Were Delicious\, was published by Breakwater Books in July of 2019 and won the 2020 ReLit Award for Short Fiction. She is the inaugural recipient of the Quebec Writers’ Federation Max Margles Writing Residency and is spending/spent the month of August writing in Dublin\, Ireland  in 2022. \n\n\n\nwww.traceywaddleton.com \n\n\n\nInstagram: @bartlebomb \n\n\n\nTwitter: @traceywaddleton \n\n\n\nFacebook: www.facebook.com/tracey.waddleton
URL:https://qwf.org/event/writing-outside-the-box-a-workshop-on-edgy-fiction-4/2022-11-24/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221125T134500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221125T164500
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20221116T194524Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221116T194526Z
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SUMMARY:Club de lecture insolite – Unexpected Book Club: Anglo-Quebec Lit Club
DESCRIPTION:Anglo-Quebec authors and books can remain elusive to Quebec’s French-speaking readership. Reaching across linguistic and cultural barriers\, three fans of the genre—a bookseller\, a translator\, and an author—explore this literary sphere by presenting their favourite books. This event is presented by AELAQ in collaboration with the Salon du livre de Montréal.Host: Annabelle Moreau\, journalist and literary critic \n\n\n\nFeaturing:Chantal Ringuet\, author and translatorGabrielle Garbeau\, Librairie RacinesArizona O’Neill\, artist \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFriday\, November 24th at 13:45 (60 min) on the Agora Stage.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/club-de-lecture-insolite-unexpected-book-club-anglo-quebec-lit-club/
LOCATION:Palais des congrès de Montréal\, 1001 Jean Paul Riopelle Pl\, Montreal\, Quebec\, H2Z1H5\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Bilingual/Multilingual,Festival
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221125T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221125T174500
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20221101T181150Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221116T194608Z
UID:10003164-1669395600-1669398300@qwf.org
SUMMARY:Translating English Quebec
DESCRIPTION:Join us for a panel discussion with English-to-French translators and the authors of the original books on the importance of translating English Quebec literature into French\, the challenges of the translation process\, and the influence of the two literatures on each other. \n\n\n\nHost: \n\n\n\nAntoine Tanguay\, Founder and Director of Publishing\, Éditions Alto \n\n\n\nParticipants: \n\n\n\nRachel McCrum\, author \n\n\n\nJonathan Lamy\, translator and author \n\n\n\nMarcela Huerta\, author \n\n\n\nDaphné B.\, translator and author \n\n\n\nFriday\, November 25th at 5PM (45 minutes) on the Agora stage. 
URL:https://qwf.org/event/translating-english-quebec/
LOCATION:Palais des congrès de Montréal\, 1001 Jean Paul Riopelle Pl\, Montreal\, Quebec\, H2Z1H5\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Community Events,QWF Events
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221128T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221128T200000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220727T160507Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220803T160708Z
UID:10002947-1669658400-1669665600@qwf.org
SUMMARY:Advanced Memoir: The Second Draft
DESCRIPTION:This workshop on memoir is designed for people who have already studied at the intermediate level with Elaine Kalman Naves. Don’t be daunted by the “advanced” label. If you’ve completed an intermediate workshop with Elaine and are interested in writing\, reading\, and talking about memoir\, you are at a level to benefit from this workshop. \n\n\n\nAs of now\, we plan to host this workshop in-person at the QWF office\, with some slots open for remote participation. \n\n\n\nThough you need not be working on a book-length narrative\, you will be expected to have a specific project in mind. It can be something you were working on in a previous workshop or something entirely new. \n\n\n\nDuring the course of the eight-week workshop\, you will have the opportunity to submit a piece of up to 3000 words\, and with luck you will have a chance to present a second time. (More details about this once we get rolling.) \n\n\n\nInstead of a text\, you will have the opportunity to read some fine memoirs\, and the long lead-up to this fall workshop will give you a chance to do some advance reading. Please give priority in your summer reading to the terrific memoirs by the four writers who will be guest lecturers over the course of the session. (See below.) Once we have established who the actual workshop participants will be\, we will also supply you with a list of suggested optional works to enjoy over the course of the summer. \n\n\n\nThe emphasis will be on student input. Participants will not only be presenting their own work to the group but will also be expected to give careful reading of each other’s pieces in order to provide vital critical feedback. This element of the program is equally important to the writing. As in the past there will also be in-class exercises and discussion of topics of writerly interest. In a new departure\, we will start critiquing participants’ pieces at the very first session. Participants who volunteer to present early in the session will be much appreciated! Getting a head start will make it possible to present second drafts. Again\, we will work out these details ahead of time once the class list is established. \n\n\n\nHere are the names of the guest lecturers and their respective titles: \n\n\n\nMark Abley\, The Organist \n\n\n\nLinda Leith\, The Girl from Dream City \n\n\n\nHarriet Alida Lye\, Natural Killer \n\n\n\nRobyn Sarah\, Music\, Late and Soon \n\n\n\nAnd please don’t forget that William Zinsser’s On Writing Well is useful to have as a reference at your fingertips! \n\n\n\nTo apply\, please send the following to riley@qwf.org no later than July 6\, 2022. \n\n\n\nA 3- to 5-page double-spaced writing sample (nonfiction or fiction) that you feel is representative of your abilities.A paragraph or two outlining the writing project you plan to pursue in the workshop.\n\n\n\nElaine Kalman Naves is a long-time literary journalist and the author of seven non-fiction titles\, and of a novel.  She is a two-time recipient of the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction\, the winner of two Canadian Jewish Book Awards\, and of a Canadian Literary Award for Personal Essay. Her memoir Journey to Vaja: Reconstructing the World of a Hungarian-Jewish Family has been made into a documentary film. Elaine’s novel\, The Book of Faith\, was nominated for the Leacock Prize for Humour. She has led workshops at the QWF since their inception in 1998.  To find out more about Elaine\, visit her website athttp://www.elainekalmannaves.com/
URL:https://qwf.org/event/advanced-memoir-the-second-draft/2022-11-28/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221128T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221128T220000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220808T152458Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220818T164258Z
UID:10003020-1669665600-1669672800@qwf.org
SUMMARY:Writing About Trauma (Without Being Super Annoying)
DESCRIPTION:Open to all. \n\n\n\nLimited to 12 participants \n\n\n\nWe plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office\, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it\, this workshop may transition to a purely online model.  \n\n\n\nThere was a time when bad things would happen to me\, and I would be like\, this is so terrible\, my life is so awful. Then\, I became a writer. Now\, when bad things happen to me\, I think: this kind of thing is so awful… for people who are not writers. This is going to make such a good essay. \n\n\n\nBeing a writer is a superpower. Writers are often uniquely sensitive\, which can make us vulnerable — but that sensitivity\, when channelled appropriately\, can turn into our greatest strength. When we learn to transmute our challenging\, painful\, and even traumatic experiences into art\, we learn a very real kind of invulnerability: a capacity to spin agony into gold\, a way in which we are always safe\, always on top\, and can always have the last word. At its best\, this skill can allow us to wrest power back from our worst experiences and literally pave a road to fame\, fortune\, healing\, and transcendence. There are\, however\, a few essential skills we must learn along the way. \n\n\n\nIn this eight-week workshop\, Montreal-based poet and nonfiction writer Tara McGowan-Ross will take the participants on a journey through their shadows\, mistakes\, betrayals\, and heartbreaks\, towards the end of creating a powerful and transformative piece of work. She will cover subjects ranging from basic critical thinking and how to apply it\, to how to create a safe container for your difficult feelings\, to the ethics of writing nonfiction\, which inevitably includes other people with opinions and boundaries — to injecting the kind of skill\, humour\, and humanity required of a work so that it may avoid the most common pitfall of writing trauma narratives: being\, like\, super annoying. \n\n\n\nTara McGowan-Ross is an urban Mi’kmaw multidisciplinary artist and writer. She graduated from Concordia University’s philosophy program with a minor in Creative Writing in 2016. She is the author of poetry collections Girth and Scorpion Season\, and the memoir Nothing Will Be Different. She has served on numerous editorial boards\, including Goose Lane’s Icehouse imprint\, and has been anthologized in Best Canadian Poetry and Anthologie de la poésie actuelle des femmes au Québec. She lives in Montreal\, where she is a theatre critic\, a rebel educator\, a Substack columnist\, and the host of Drawn & Quarterly’s Indigenous Literatures Book Club. \n\n\n\ngirthgirl.ca \n\n\n\ntaramcgowanross.substack.com \n\n\n\n@girthgirl (Instagram/Twitter)
URL:https://qwf.org/event/writing-about-trauma-without-being-super-annoying/2022-11-28/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221129T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221129T200000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220803T160501Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220808T151538Z
UID:10002956-1669744800-1669752000@qwf.org
SUMMARY:(Un)broken: Leveraging the Poetic Line
DESCRIPTION:Open to all. \n\n\n\nLimited to 12 participants. \n\n\n\nWe plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office\, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it\, this workshop may transition to a purely online model. \n\n\n\nWith few exceptions\, poets have access to one tool that other writers do not: the line. A defining feature of its genre\, the poetic line plays many roles in shaping a poem’s character. The line can serve simultaneously as pacing device\, secondary grammar\, image container\, rhythm driver\, and spotlight for sound. \n\n\n\nIn contemporary free verse\, attention is often paid to breaking the line. While valuable\, this thinking locates a line’s gravitational pull largely at its end\, sometimes excluding other possibilities. Lines\, after all\, are made as well as broken. And through this making\, a poem’s fingerprint takes shape. \n\n\n\nThis generative poetry workshop offers poets of all levels the chance to develop a broader and more nuanced understanding of how poems derive power from the line’s possibilities—including\, but also extending beyond\, its breaking. We’ll consider first lines\, line integrity\, flavours of enjambment\, and the line as both sound-vessel and gloss. We’ll also reflect on what happens between lines by thinking about juxtaposition\, stanza\, and pacing. \n\n\n\nOverall\, the goal is to support participants in enhancing their free verse at the line level as they generate new work. Participants can expect to draft four to six new poems and have at least one poem workshopped by the group. Early sessions will involve generative writing prompts and craft discussions\, while later sessions will focus on workshopping. To anchor our craft discussions\, we’ll look at work from a variety of contemporary poets. Writers should bring one of their own poems to the first session as a way of introducing themselves and their work. \n\n\n\nSarah Wolfson is the author of A Common Name for Everything\, which won the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Canadian and American journals such as The Walrus\, The Fiddlehead\, TriQuarterly\, Prairie Fire\, CV2\, Michigan Quarterly Review\, and PRISM international. Her work has earned notable mention in Best Canadian Poetry and funding from the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference. She holds an MFA from the University of Michigan. Originally from Vermont\, she now lives in Montreal\, where she teaches writing at McGill University. \n\n\n\n@SarahWolfson1 (Twitter) \n\n\n\nhttps://www.facebook.com/sarah.wolfson.14 (Facebook)
URL:https://qwf.org/event/unbroken-leveraging-the-poetic-line/2022-11-29/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221129T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221129T220000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220803T161912Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220808T152156Z
UID:10002964-1669752000-1669759200@qwf.org
SUMMARY:The Art of Writing Speculative Fiction
DESCRIPTION:Open to all. \n\n\n\nLimited to 12 participants. \n\n\n\nWe plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office\, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it\, this workshop may transition to a purely online model. \n\n\n\nSpeculative Fiction\, a literary genre that can encompass anything from science-fiction and fantasy to magic realism\, slipstream\, alternate history\, horror\, steampunk\, fairy tales and fables\, dystopia\, and surrealism\, has been with us for as long as we’ve been telling stories. In recent years\, it has grown in importance as writing genres continue to cross and blur\, and even the most conventional writers of literary fiction experiment with speculative tools as a means to add wonder and power to their tales. \n\n\n\nThis workshop is open to both new and experienced writers\, whether of speculative fiction or of other genres. In each session of this eight-week workshop\, we will delve into a different topic and/or element of craft. The sessions will typically include a presentation\, examples from the work of experienced writers\, an in-depth\, participative discussion\, and a hands-on exercise. In addition\, each participant will have the opportunity to present their own work of speculative fiction—be it a short story or an excerpt from something longer—for detailed discussion and feedback. There will be clear ground rules for workshopping that are designed to ensure that our discussions remain constructive and respectful at all times. \n\n\n\nSome of the topics that the workshop will cover include: \n\n\n\nWhat is speculative fiction and what distinguishes it from other types of fiction? What are its special powers and challenges?Questions of content and your story’s four limbs: idea\, world\, character\, plot;Questions of structure and your story’s bones: point-of-view and narration\, chronology\, tense\, tone;Special focus on world-building;Special focus on character-building\, voice\, and dialogue;What kind of story are you writing? What are you trying to say?How to edit and improve your speculative fiction and prepare it for publication.\n\n\n\nSu J  Sokol is a social rights advocate and a writer of speculative and interstitial fiction. Originally from Brooklyn\, xe now resides in Montréal. Sokol is the author of Cycling to Asylum (2014)\, long-listed for the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic; Run J Run  (2019); and Zee (2020)\, finalist for the Janet Savage Blachford Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Sokol’s short work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies. This summer\, Sokol’s debut novel was translated into French and published under the title Les lignes invisibles by VLB Imaginaire.  Check out Sokol’s website at www.sujsokol.com \n\n\n\nFacebook: cyclingtoasylum \n\n\n\nInstagram: cycling2asylum \n\n\n\nTwitter: cyclingtoasylum
URL:https://qwf.org/event/the-art-of-writing-speculative-fiction/2022-11-29/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221130T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221130T220000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220803T164302Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220805T201243Z
UID:10002980-1669838400-1669845600@qwf.org
SUMMARY:Playwriting 101: A Playwriting Intensive
DESCRIPTION:Open to all. \n\n\n\nLimited to 12 participants. \n\n\n\nThis workshop will be conducted via Zoom. \n\n\n\nPlaywriting is an artform about curiosity\, obsession\, energy\, entertainment\, transformation\, and illumination. It’s about inspiration\, dedication\, and practice. It’s about following your impulses and shaping those impulses; about creating a series of freedoms and constraints that focus inspiration into a text that can be used as a blueprint for performance. Unlike most other forms of writing\, a play text must leave space for other creators to bring their artistry to the work. Director\, actors\, designers and technicians eventually fill in those spaces left by the writer to transform what is on the page into a three-dimensional performance that necessitates an audience for it to be fully realized. Having written plays that have been staged throughout Canada and beyond (Stratford Festival\, Shaw Festival\, Soulpepper Theatre\, Segal Centre\, Centaur Theatre)\, Erin Shields has developed a number of exercises\, strategies and best practices to imagine\, explore\, and write plays. \n\n\n\nPlaywriting 101 is an invitation for writers of other genres to try their hand at playwriting and for playwrights to deepen their practice. Throughout this eight-week workshop\, participants will bring their own particular understanding of story\, character\, and theme to the table\, to explore how to apply those same skills to the art of playwriting. Each class will focus on one of the following dramatic elements: character\, conflict\, desire\, premise\, form\, plot\, and structure. Through conversations\, focused exercises\, and sharing work\, participants will gain an understanding of how to organically and technically write a play. The process will alternate focus each class between the micro elements (character\, dialogue) and macro elements (theme\, story structure)\, as writers gradually learn how to build the world of the play with nuanced characters. \n\n\n\nDuring these eight weeks\, participants will write. A lot. By the end of the workshop\, writers \n\n\n\nwill have a strong understanding of the basic elements of a play and how to use those elements to write their own play. \n\n\n\nErin Shields (www.erinshields.ca) is a Canadian playwright. Most of her work highlights the negation or misrepresentation of women in classical texts by adapting these stories through a feminist lens for a contemporary audience. Erin’s adaptation of Paradise Lost premiered at The Stratford Festival of Canada and won the Quebec Writers Federation Prize for Playwriting. Erin won the 2011 Governor General’s Award for her play If We Were Birds\, which premiered at Tarragon Theatre. Other theatre credits include: Jane Eyre (Citadel Theatre)\, Piaf/Dietrich (Mirvish Productions/Segal Centre)\,The Lady from the Sea (The Shaw Festival). Upcoming productions include Queen Goneril for Soulpepper Theatre and Ransacking Troy for The Stratford Festival.  \n\n\n\nFacebook: Erin Shields \n\n\n\nInstagram: shieldserin1 \n\n\n\nWebsite: www.erinshields.ca
URL:https://qwf.org/event/playwriting-101-a-playwriting-intensive/2022-11-30/
LOCATION:Online via Zoom
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221201T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221201T200000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220803T165449Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220803T165503Z
UID:10002989-1669917600-1669924800@qwf.org
SUMMARY:The Art of the Short Story
DESCRIPTION:Open to all. \n\n\n\nLimited to 12 participants. \n\n\n\nWe plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office\, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it\, this workshop may transition to a purely online model. \n\n\n\nOpen to writers of all levels\, this 10-week workshop is an investigation of the modern short story. What exactly is a story? What distinguishes it from an anecdote\, or a lie?  Most of us recognize a good one when we meet it on the page. It moves us\, often unexpectedly\, to laughter or tears. And it marks us\, reaching inside us and shifting\, sometimes subtly and other times with a jolt\, our views about ourselves and the world. The best stories articulate truths that we hadn’t\, until the moment of reading\, thought to put into words. \n\n\n\nThere is no set of rules for how to write a good story.  Each writer has to find their own way\, and each story demands fresh experiments. Writing is like living. It requires close listening and relentless improvisation.  The best way to learn how to write a good story is to read one. In this workshop\, we’ll read “In the Cart” (1897) by Anton Chekhov\, and investigate Chekhov’s views about this genre. We’ll also look at his technique: how he used elements like detail\, narrative point of view\, and speech to create a story strong enough to withstand the tests of time and translation. Over a century after Chekhov’s death\, his stories are still read and loved in places totally unlike Czarist Russia. What secrets can his work reveal to us in 21st-century Quebec? \n\n\n\nOur first four meetings will be devoted to discussing “In the Cart” (accessible online; also translated as “The Schoolmistress\,” and “A Journey by Cart”). Exercises relating to various elements of craft will be offered. The last six meetings will be reserved for workshopping our own stories and continuing the exploration of what exactly a story is\, and how to write one. \n\n\n\nClaire Holden Rothman is a Montreal writer\, translator\, and fiction editor who has published two collections of stories and three novels. The Heart Specialist (2009) was long-listed for The Scotia Bank-Giller Prize\, and My October was long-listed for the Giller and short-listed for the Governor General’s Award. Her most recent novel\, Lear’s Shadow\, was short-listed for Quebec’s 2020 Jacob Isaac Segal Award\, and won the 2019 Vine Award for Jewish Canadian Fiction. For many years\, Claire taught English literature and creative writing at Marianopolis College. She has also taught fiction workshops at McGill and Bishop’s Universities.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/the-art-of-the-short-story/2022-12-01/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221204T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221204T170000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20221130T155208Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221130T155210Z
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SUMMARY:The Annual "Write Here\, Write Now" December Reading
DESCRIPTION:The last few years have not been kind—many of us feel there is too much darkness in the world. Our poetry and prose cannot be as boisterous a celebration of the upcoming holidays as in previous seasons. \nFor the 2022 edition of their annual December reading\, Write Here\, Write Now members present more pensive and nostalgic pieces—but that does not mean the mood will include no leavening. There is joy and hope to be found even in the heart of darkness. \nThe last poem of the day is a WHWN standard that captures the whimsy of a child’s vision of the festive season. Everyone is most welcome! \nWrite Here\, Write Now is supported by Bishop’s University Lifelong Learning Academy.\nBishop’s University is located on the Traditional and Unceded Territory of the Abenaki People.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/the-annual-write-here-write-now-december-reading/
LOCATION:Online – Please RSVP
CATEGORIES:Community Events,Reading
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://qwf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/WHWNWinterReading.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221205T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221205T200000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220727T160507Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220803T160708Z
UID:10002948-1670263200-1670270400@qwf.org
SUMMARY:Advanced Memoir: The Second Draft
DESCRIPTION:This workshop on memoir is designed for people who have already studied at the intermediate level with Elaine Kalman Naves. Don’t be daunted by the “advanced” label. If you’ve completed an intermediate workshop with Elaine and are interested in writing\, reading\, and talking about memoir\, you are at a level to benefit from this workshop. \n\n\n\nAs of now\, we plan to host this workshop in-person at the QWF office\, with some slots open for remote participation. \n\n\n\nThough you need not be working on a book-length narrative\, you will be expected to have a specific project in mind. It can be something you were working on in a previous workshop or something entirely new. \n\n\n\nDuring the course of the eight-week workshop\, you will have the opportunity to submit a piece of up to 3000 words\, and with luck you will have a chance to present a second time. (More details about this once we get rolling.) \n\n\n\nInstead of a text\, you will have the opportunity to read some fine memoirs\, and the long lead-up to this fall workshop will give you a chance to do some advance reading. Please give priority in your summer reading to the terrific memoirs by the four writers who will be guest lecturers over the course of the session. (See below.) Once we have established who the actual workshop participants will be\, we will also supply you with a list of suggested optional works to enjoy over the course of the summer. \n\n\n\nThe emphasis will be on student input. Participants will not only be presenting their own work to the group but will also be expected to give careful reading of each other’s pieces in order to provide vital critical feedback. This element of the program is equally important to the writing. As in the past there will also be in-class exercises and discussion of topics of writerly interest. In a new departure\, we will start critiquing participants’ pieces at the very first session. Participants who volunteer to present early in the session will be much appreciated! Getting a head start will make it possible to present second drafts. Again\, we will work out these details ahead of time once the class list is established. \n\n\n\nHere are the names of the guest lecturers and their respective titles: \n\n\n\nMark Abley\, The Organist \n\n\n\nLinda Leith\, The Girl from Dream City \n\n\n\nHarriet Alida Lye\, Natural Killer \n\n\n\nRobyn Sarah\, Music\, Late and Soon \n\n\n\nAnd please don’t forget that William Zinsser’s On Writing Well is useful to have as a reference at your fingertips! \n\n\n\nTo apply\, please send the following to riley@qwf.org no later than July 6\, 2022. \n\n\n\nA 3- to 5-page double-spaced writing sample (nonfiction or fiction) that you feel is representative of your abilities.A paragraph or two outlining the writing project you plan to pursue in the workshop.\n\n\n\nElaine Kalman Naves is a long-time literary journalist and the author of seven non-fiction titles\, and of a novel.  She is a two-time recipient of the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction\, the winner of two Canadian Jewish Book Awards\, and of a Canadian Literary Award for Personal Essay. Her memoir Journey to Vaja: Reconstructing the World of a Hungarian-Jewish Family has been made into a documentary film. Elaine’s novel\, The Book of Faith\, was nominated for the Leacock Prize for Humour. She has led workshops at the QWF since their inception in 1998.  To find out more about Elaine\, visit her website athttp://www.elainekalmannaves.com/
URL:https://qwf.org/event/advanced-memoir-the-second-draft/2022-12-05/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221207T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221207T200000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20221202T160222Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230426T202118Z
UID:10003175-1670436000-1670443200@qwf.org
SUMMARY:Winter Solstice Poetry Reading
DESCRIPTION:Join Kelly Norah Drukker\, Gabrielle McIntire\, and Carolyn Van Der Meer for an evening of poetry in Old Montreal. \n\n\n\nKelly Norah Drukker is a Montreal-based writer. Her poetry collection Small Fires (MQUP\, 2016) won the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry and the Concordia University First Book Prize\, and was a finalist for the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal. Petits feux (trans. Lori Saint-Martin\, Paul Gagné) appeared in 2018. \n\n\n\nGabrielle McIntire is Professor of English Literature at Queen’s University. Her first book of poetry\, Unbound\, was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2021. She is also the author of Modernism\, Memory\, and Desire: T.S. Elliot and Virginia Woolf (Cambridge University Press\, 2008) and the editor of The Cambridge Companion to The Waste Land (Cambridge University Press\, 2015). \n\n\n\nCarolyne Van Der Meer is the author of four published books: Motherlode: A Mosaic of Dutch Wartime Experience (WLUP\, 2014); Journeywoman (Inanna\, 2017)\, Heart of Goodness: The Life of Marguerite Bougeoys in 30 Poems | Du coeur à l’âme : La vie de Marguerite Bourgeoys en 30 poèmes (Guernica Editions\, 2020); and Sensorial (Inanna\, 2022).
URL:https://qwf.org/event/winter-solstice-poetry-reading/
LOCATION:Librairie Bertrand\, 430 Rue Saint-Pierre\, Montréal\, Quebec\, H2Y 2M5\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Reading
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221207T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221207T200000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20221102T193114Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221102T193117Z
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SUMMARY:Canadian Parents for French Quebec & Nunavut Virtual Cultural Event: DECEMBER | Bilingual Story Time
DESCRIPTION:Join us for a bilingual bedtime story session with children’s author\, Candace Amarante. \nAmarante will be reading Le ciel me sourit\, a short poem she wrote that metaphorically describes the lunar phases of the moon.   \nThe story-time session will be followed by an art activity\, where participants are invited to draw and share the way they see the moon. \nTarget age group: 3-6 years old \nRegister here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe6y142aKIo4PCBIcAjv1NzBMUuq0fVB_MIEGuqwcuUt2s-bA/viewform
URL:https://qwf.org/event/canadian-parents-for-french-quebec-nunavut-virtual-cultural-event-december-bilingual-story-time/
LOCATION:Virtual
CATEGORIES:Bilingual/Multilingual
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://qwf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Story-Time-Poster.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221207T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221210T210000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20221129T182242Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221129T182245Z
UID:10003173-1670439600-1670706000@qwf.org
SUMMARY:The Pipeline Play Reading Series
DESCRIPTION:Infinithéâtre’s annual Pipeline play reading series is back! Join us from December 7th-10th at Maison Internationale des Arts de la Marionnette (MIAM) for four FREE readings of in-development plays by Québec writers\, including this year’s Write-on-Q winner. Come check out these new and promising pieces!
URL:https://qwf.org/event/the-pipeline-play-reading-series/
LOCATION:La Maison Internationale des Arts de la Marionnette\, 30 Av. Saint-Just\, Montréal\, Quebec\, H2V 1X8\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Community Events,Festival,Performance
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221208T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221208T200000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220803T165449Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220803T165503Z
UID:10002990-1670522400-1670529600@qwf.org
SUMMARY:The Art of the Short Story
DESCRIPTION:Open to all. \n\n\n\nLimited to 12 participants. \n\n\n\nWe plan to hold this workshop in person at the QWF office\, with up to two virtual slots available for people who are unable to come to our office. If public health conditions necessitate it\, this workshop may transition to a purely online model. \n\n\n\nOpen to writers of all levels\, this 10-week workshop is an investigation of the modern short story. What exactly is a story? What distinguishes it from an anecdote\, or a lie?  Most of us recognize a good one when we meet it on the page. It moves us\, often unexpectedly\, to laughter or tears. And it marks us\, reaching inside us and shifting\, sometimes subtly and other times with a jolt\, our views about ourselves and the world. The best stories articulate truths that we hadn’t\, until the moment of reading\, thought to put into words. \n\n\n\nThere is no set of rules for how to write a good story.  Each writer has to find their own way\, and each story demands fresh experiments. Writing is like living. It requires close listening and relentless improvisation.  The best way to learn how to write a good story is to read one. In this workshop\, we’ll read “In the Cart” (1897) by Anton Chekhov\, and investigate Chekhov’s views about this genre. We’ll also look at his technique: how he used elements like detail\, narrative point of view\, and speech to create a story strong enough to withstand the tests of time and translation. Over a century after Chekhov’s death\, his stories are still read and loved in places totally unlike Czarist Russia. What secrets can his work reveal to us in 21st-century Quebec? \n\n\n\nOur first four meetings will be devoted to discussing “In the Cart” (accessible online; also translated as “The Schoolmistress\,” and “A Journey by Cart”). Exercises relating to various elements of craft will be offered. The last six meetings will be reserved for workshopping our own stories and continuing the exploration of what exactly a story is\, and how to write one. \n\n\n\nClaire Holden Rothman is a Montreal writer\, translator\, and fiction editor who has published two collections of stories and three novels. The Heart Specialist (2009) was long-listed for The Scotia Bank-Giller Prize\, and My October was long-listed for the Giller and short-listed for the Governor General’s Award. Her most recent novel\, Lear’s Shadow\, was short-listed for Quebec’s 2020 Jacob Isaac Segal Award\, and won the 2019 Vine Award for Jewish Canadian Fiction. For many years\, Claire taught English literature and creative writing at Marianopolis College. She has also taught fiction workshops at McGill and Bishop’s Universities.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/the-art-of-the-short-story/2022-12-08/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221214T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221214T160000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20221205T173257Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221206T154026Z
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SUMMARY:Holiday Book Giveaway
DESCRIPTION:The Quebec Writers’ Federation is hosting a holiday get-together and book giveaway! \n\n\n\nStop by the QWF office for a friendly chat in the company of good friends and good books. QWF members get to take three free books (while supplies last). Non-members can come register and also get three free books. Bring your friends and/or family!Light refreshments will be available. \n\n\n\nWhere: Atwater Library\, Room 3 (upstairs).When: Wednesday\, Dec 14\, 11am-4pm \n\n\n\nNote: Wearing a mask is strongly encouraged and appreciated when not eating/drinking.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/holiday-book-giveaway/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Member Meetup,QWF Events
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230113T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230113T220000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20230110T151900Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230110T151902Z
UID:10003275-1673640000-1673647200@qwf.org
SUMMARY:Confabulation presents: The Shortest Story XIII
DESCRIPTION:Our annual 2-minute story tradition continues. True stories\, as quick as we can tell them.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/confabulation-presents-the-shortest-story-xiii/
LOCATION:Centaur Theatre\, 453 St. Francois-Xavier\, Montreal\, Quebec\, HZY 2T1\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Performance,Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://qwf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Shortest-Story.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230114T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230114T130000
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20221215T190433Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221215T190435Z
UID:10003257-1673690400-1673701200@qwf.org
SUMMARY:Illuminated Grant Writing
DESCRIPTION:This series of four workshops will examine how writers with projects for print\, spoken word\, or storytelling can make a strong literary arts grant application. From drafting a project description to balancing a budget\, we will also discuss artistic risk\, impact and cultural appropriation. Focus will be on funding programs at the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and an arts council program officer will join us to answer questions. This series is intended for Quebec-based writers at all stages of their practice: emerging\, mid-career\, or established. There will be tasks to complete between sessions and participants must have an original literary arts project in mind. \n\n\n\nAccess to MS Word or similar writing software will be necessary as well as a willingness to share work\, and give and receive feedback in a workshop setting. \n\n\n\nTawhida Tanya Evanson is a poet\, author\, multidisciplinary artist and producer. Her two poetry collections are Bothism (Ekstasis 2017) and Nouveau Griot (Frontenac 2018)\, and her debut novel Book of Wings (Véhicule 2021) won the 2022 New Contribution Literary Prize\, was on the 2022 CBC Canads Reads Longlist\, and was one of Quill & Quire’s 2021 Books of the Year. With a 25-year practice in spoken word\, she has performed in over a dozen countries and released several studio albums and videopoems including the award-winning Almost Forgot my Bones. In 2013\, she was Poet of Honour at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and received the Golden Beret Award for her contribution to the genre. Director of the Banff Centre Spoken Word residency and VP of The Quebec Writers’ Federation\, she is at work on an Afrofuturist film premiering in spring 2023 and a French translation of her novel. She moonlights as a whirling dervish.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/illuminated-grant-writing-3/2023-01-14/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230116T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230128T235959
DTSTAMP:20260403T155712
CREATED:20220502T160020Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220502T160022Z
UID:10002900-1673827200-1674950399@qwf.org
SUMMARY:Winter Writers Retreat 2023 | Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
DESCRIPTION:The Winter Writers Retreat is a self-directed program that offers time and space for writers to retreat\, reconnect\, and re-energize their writing practice. In addition to a single room\, and a small private studio\, you will be surrounded by a community of artistic peers with the opportunity to attend inspiring talks\, performances\, and meet with guest faculty to consult on your work. \nWhat does the program offer?\nThis self-directed residency offers the opportunity to work away from the constraints of everyday life. Delve deep into your creative project and take advantage of the artistic community of your peers around you. This program provides opportunities for consultations with mentors\, and optional group sessions led by guest mentors that allow writers to explore literary tools\, aspects\, and devices that you may find useful in your practice. You may also sign up for additional walks and day trips within Banff National Park as well as campus-wide activities organized by our Participant Resources team. \nThis 13-day residency provides thematic teaching from faculty members\, Q&A sessions\, public events\, and one-on-one workshopping. Instructors will discuss ideas\, experiences\, and obstacles that participants may be encountering with their writing across genre. This flexible program allows you to choose the amount of support you are looking for. All program elements are optional. \nWho should apply?\nWe welcome writers from all backgrounds\, and all gender identities and expressions. Writers in all creative genres are invited to apply. The program is designed for emerging and established writers with a proven publication record seeking a period of dedicated time to work on a project in any genre. \nWinter Writers Retreat 2023 only accepts projects that are being written in English. \nThis program is not open to applicants who have taken part in a Banff Centre residency in the last year\, nor to current faculty members of any other Banff Centre programming. \nApplication Deadline: September 21\, 2022 \n*Financial Aid of 100% of tuition and 50% of food and accommodation is available for this program.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/winter-writers-retreat-2023-banff-centre-for-arts-and-creativity/
LOCATION:Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity\, 107 Tunnel Mountain Drive\, Banff\, Alberta\, T1L 1H5\, Canada
CATEGORIES:Workshops
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://qwf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/LA_WinterWriters_FacultyCollage_22-04-11-2.jpg
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