Afterwords Literary Festival: Advanced Workshop with Sue Goyette

The AfterWords Literary Festival was co-founded by Ryan Turner and Stephanie Domet, and in the fall of 2019, AfterWords held its inaugural edition.  In 2020, due to Covid-19, the festival will host live events online between September 30th and October 4th. AfterWords is primarily interested in presenting (and being in the audience for) conversations among writers about the ideas that push them forward, the experiences that formed them into writers, and what writing can tell us about how to be human. Our mission is to give those writers who choose to join us the very best experience that Halifax has to offer.

We will offer live captioning upon request to all of our online events. 

We celebrate our festival on the unceded and traditional homeland of the Mi’kmaq People. We do land acknowledgements as a part of the reconciliation process. In order for this festival to exist, for Canadians to enjoy the lives that they have, Indigenous people were removed, displaced, and killed. This truth is an uncomfortable one, but one that is necessary to face if we, as fellow Canadians, are to understand our whole history. We honour the Mi’kmaq, whose stories have been shaped by Mi’kma’ki.

How do we engage with this tumultuous and potent time as writers? How do we keep our practice vibrant and intact? Sue will create a space for this crucial conversation and participants will be invited to recommit to their writing practice with a renewed vigour. Using creative prompts and through discussion, participants will have the opportunity to re-engage with the serious practice of play and emergence while reckoning with their private worries of failure and of success. Writers are invited to bring their worst fears about their work to the discussion so they may start the transformative practice of facing them.