LEARN HOW TO WRITE MORE EFFECTIVELY ABOUT FAITH ISSUES AT WRITE! CANADA

Experts in matters of free speech, the treatment of faith issues in the mainstream media and the role of blogging in shaping public opinion will be among those teaching at Write! Canada.

TORONTO—Christian writers attending the Write! Canada conference will grapple with controversies making the headlines, including limitations on Canadians’ rights to freedom of expression and the Internet’s growing role in shaping public opinion at the same time as traditional print media readership declines.  Writers, whether beginners or veterans, whether working in mainstream or Christian markets, won’t want to miss the professional development, networking and marketing opportunities at Write! Canada, the nation’s largest Christian writers’ conference, from June 12 to 14 in Guelph, Ontario.  David Haskell, PhD, assistant professor of journalism at Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford campus, will address the topic of free speech in his continuing class, designed to teach advanced/professional writers how to write effectively from a Christian perspective.

Haskell contends that most mainstream media coverage “suggests that devout religious behaviour is, at best, a curiosity and at worst, dangerous.” While Christian writers should be able to provide an antidote to the misconceptions, he argues that “their effectiveness is often hindered by their inability to present arguments is a way that the un-churched can understand and appreciate.”  Haskell’s primary research involves Christianity and the media. Before his move into the academic sphere, Haskell worked as a print, radio and TV journalist and received awards for his news reporting.  Complaints to provincial and federal Human Rights Commissions about comments published by Canadian journalists Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn have brought the public debate about limitations on freedom of speech to a watershed, according to many commentators.Haskell does not see it as the “black and white issue” he maintains is portrayed in much of the mainstream media; he argues that news writers and publishers have an obligation to provide fair and balanced coverage.  Writers who are trying to bring Christian values and principles to the public arena should realize that they have a foot in both camps…,” he asserts. “They should be leading the charge when it comes to promoting a solution that is reasonable to both sides of the debate.”

Another expert teaching at Write! Canada, Kathy Shaidle, is one of Canada’s best-known proponents of blogging (commentaries on Web sites). She notes that, “Young people, even journalism students, don’t read the newspaper… Setting your sights on a career as a columnist, or hoping for that review of your book in a major daily, is to set your sights too low.”  Shaidle is an outspoken, passionate and widely-read journalist, whose first book was nominated for the Governor General's Award. Her blog, FiveFeet OfFury.com, has readers in the Pentagon, the U.S. Justice Department and all over the world. She also writes for the National Post, FrontPageMag.com, Pajamas Media and other venues.  “The blogosphere,” she says, “increasingly breaks news… I cancelled my last newspaper subscription years ago when I realized it contained ‘news’ I’d already read about on the Web two or three days earlier.”

Shaidle, who writes extensively about freedom of expression issues on her blog, argues that the blogosphere is “a wonderful forum for fact checking and analysis,” and has the capacity to create social change and galvanize public opinion, because of “the critical mass of tens of thousands of engaged readers.”

Classes by Haskell and Shaidle—as well as by 35 other faculty members—will help conference attendees learn to make maximum impact on contemporary culture through their writing and speaking.

Registrants will meet experts from mainstream and Christian book publishing, consumer and church press magazines, newspapers, film, television, radio and new media. They can sharpen their skills, advance their careers, connect with publishers, and rub shoulders with some of the most outstanding people in Christian publishing today.

For more information and to register online, see www.thewordguild.com. Discounts are available for full-time students and members of The Word Guild.

Media: For photos or more information, contact The Word Guild's Projects Coordinator Jane Twohey at jane@thewordguild.com or telephone The Word Guild’s Administrative Assistant Jeanette Duncan at 519-886-4196.

 
 BACKGROUND

 
At Write! Canada, writers from beginner to professional can take advantage of networking opportunities, manuscript critique services, appointments with literary agents and editors, question and answer panels with industry professionals, open-mike reading sessions and a well-stocked bookstore.  Among the 33 classes and workshops, the 2008 conference is offering a special track for screenwriters, including a small group critique class with Kevin Miller to provide hands-on opportunities to improve a script-in-progress. Romance writers also will work on their manuscripts in a small group intensive class with Carolyne Aarsen.

 Other classes will cover how to earn income from your writing skills, write opinion columns for mainstream media, write for consumer magazines, write for business, write for radio and new media, write publishable novels, etc. A separate track for authors will help them get their book noticed, increase their marketability, develop a public platform and design speaking events.

Write! Canada is designed to be a warm and supportive environment where participants from many backgrounds and Christian traditions are united in their common love of God and of writing. Whether in the classroom or in informal conversation, the focus is on subjects that foster the pursuit of excellence in writing.  From 1984 to 2001, Faith Today magazine and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada organized this annual conference, known as God Uses Ink. In 2001, The Word Guild was established and assumed responsibility for the conference, starting with the 2002 event. To mark the conference's 20th anniversary, the name was changed to Write! Canada in 2004. The conference’s 25th anniversary will be celebrated from June 18 to 20, 2009 in a special reunion event.

The Word Guild is an association of more than 325 Canadian writers and editors who are Christian, and who are committed to encouraging one another and fostering standards of excellence in the art, craft, practice and ministry of writing. Its mandate is to impact the Canadian culture through the words of Canadian writers and editors with a Christian worldview.

Three categories of membership, renewed yearly, are available: professional writers and editors; associate members who are beginning to put together a body of published work; and affiliate members, for those working in related fields such as publishers, booksellers, church librarians, etc. Membership benefits include discounted rates for Write! Canada.