As part of Say Anything/Something, a community-based performance and workshop series, Inspired Word Café is thrilled to present a prose workshop lead by writer Mackenzie Ground!
This workshop invites writers at all stages and experience levels to engage in a learning and sharing environment.
No registration necessary—spots are first come, first served. This event is free to attend.
About the workshop: In this workshop, we will consider our connection to place with memories and trees. We will free write and will then try various methods of combining and editing our writing to blend memory and place. This workshop contemplates ideas of where we are, have been, may be, and the ways we see ourselves t/here.
This workshop will feature accessible and welcoming writing exercises for all levels, with opportunities to share your work and receive feedback from Mackenzie and the group on your in-session writing. If you wish to bring a sample of up to one page of existing writing, you are also welcome to workshop that as time allows. We look forward to a supportive and inspiring event!
About Mackenzie: Mackenzie Ground is a writer and nehiyawiskwew from Enoch maskekosihk Cree Nation and amiskwacîwâskahikanihk Edmonton, Alberta in Treaty Six territory.
She is a PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University in the Department of English. She attended the University of Alberta for her MA and BA. Her writing has appeared most recently in The Capilano Review, The Denver Quarterly, and C Magazine. She is a member of the Writing Revolution in Place research collective, and she is an alumni of the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity’s Literary Arts 2023 Winter Writers Retreat and the Indigenous Arts 2021 Write Over Here — Open Rezidency.
She is a language learner of nehiyawewin (the Plains Cree language) which informs and guides her writing and thinking along with her walks and outdoor running. Her work considers the relationships of identity and place, to the land and to cities, and to the more-than-human beings who live on there. She often works with writing, story, images, inks and drawing, and collage.
The Alternator Centre is located in the Rotary Centre for the Arts and is wheelchair accessible. Bathrooms are gendered stalled washrooms, with a single, gender neutral and wheelchair accessible washroom available.
Our programming is made possible by the City of Kelowna, the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at UBC Okanagan, and the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art.
We respectfully acknowledge that we live and work in the unceded, ancestral territory of the Syilx people. It is a privilege to be able to put on events as uninvited guests on their land.
Photo courtesy of Mackenzie Ground.