This course is for people who want to write, but for whatever reason, have not. There are lots of reasons why people don’t write: opportunity, class, upbringing, understanding, resources, and access. For me, growing up, it was all of these things. I grew up in a blue collar, small town in Northwestern Ontario with zero exposure to the arts. Live theatre did not exist in my world. I didn’t see my first play until I was seventeen, didn’t write my first play until I was in my thirties. This course is for people like me, who are interested in writing, but don’t know how, or what they want to write. I have been a storyteller my whole life, but a playwright/writer for the last 18 years now. I keenly remember not knowing what I was doing. Not only that, but I had to ask a colleague to  look at my writing to tell me if I was writing a play, or not, because I wasn’t sure. 

This is the course I should have taken 20 years ago, as a way into my writing, a soft landing with no judgment. This is my opportunity to introduce people to my love of the theatre and the power that comes from writing compelling stories for a live audience. People say writing is a lonely life, but this course hopes to dispel this idea, and help foster a community of writers, who will be encouraged to embrace a more collaborative nature to the work, through group readings, feedback, and engaging with  new writing. Together we will explore what stories you want to tell, while engaging in dynamic conversations about contemporary performance.