Tuesday, February 17/09 7pm $10 Aqua Books
Aqua U. Presents
Speak, Writer!
Dancing Monkeys, Microphones, and Other Mysteries of Performance
Aqua Books Writer-in-Residence Tim Higgins and In-House Poet Chandra Mayor
Aqua Books Writer-in-Residence Tim Higgins and author Chandra Mayor join forces for a practical workshop, specifically for writers, full of tips, tools, and advice on how to give memorable readings and performances - from the mysteries of mics to choosing your material, body language to voice and breath. Being able to read and perform your own work effectively, to really engage with an audience, not only feels energizing, but is also becoming a necessity in today's writing and publishing landscape. But for many writers, from the emerging to the widely-published, giving a public reading can produce feelings of apprehension, fear, anxiety, panic, and out-and-out terror. Usually, we learn how to give a reading through our own trials and (terrible, terrible) errors, but without a lot of practical advice or training. Tim is an accomplished multi-genre writer and professional actor and director, and Chandra is a poet and novelist who has performed her work across the country in bars, coffeeshops, and grocery stores, and on stages, trains, and street-corners. They're pooling their resources, experiences, and enthusiasm for this one-night only workshop.
Register in person at 274 Garry Street, or call 943-7555, or email ariel@aquabooks.ca
Born into a Canadian Forces family during a posting to Washington, DC, Tim Higgins has lived in Winnipeg since 1952. His B.Sc. in zoology and graduate work in human genetics naturally led him to a thirty-year career in acting, directing and writing for television.
In addition to screenplays about the Northwest Rebellion, the Plains Cree and, most recently, the history of the Manitoba Telephone System, he was principal Canadian researcher for the nationally televised series, Empire of the Bay.
Tim has received two Manitoba Motion Picture Industry Blizzard nominations for screenwriting; one for an historical documentary, the other for drama. His first book, Dancing Backwards: A Social History of Canadian Women in Politics, co-authored with Senator Sharon Carstairs, was nominated for both the Margaret McWilliams and Alexander Isbister Awards for popular non-fiction.
His most recent book is the best selling Bears on Broadway: A Love Affair in Concrete. He has written and staged five Manitoba historical plays in the last decade and has taught a writing course on Creative Non-Fiction for the Manitoba Writer’s Guild.
Chandra Mayor is a Winnipeg writer and editor. She is the author of August Witch: poems (short-listed for four Manitoba book awards, and the recipient of the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book), Cherry: a novel (shortlisted for the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, and winner of the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award), and her new short-story collection, All the Pretty Girls. The recipient of the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Writer, the former Writer-in-Residence at the Winnipeg Public Library, and a mentor in the Sheldon Oberman Apprentice Program, she has widely published fiction, memoir, non-fiction, and poetry in magazines and anthologies. She has taught writing workshops for all age groups and at all levels, in multipurpose rooms, university classrooms, and VIA Rail smoking cars.