Maureen Ulrich has concluded her tenure as the writer in residence for the community.
Ulrich spent the months of June and July working with school students, senior citizens, newcomers and others in the region, while meeting with people at the Estevan Public Library, and developing her own writing.
It proved to be a really, really good experience.
“We set it up to try to provide some service in writing to a number of different target groups,” said the Lampman resident.
She admits she wishes she would have been busier, and she wanted to see more people. But the people she was able to work with seemed to benefit from the experience.
As a writer-in-residence, her goal was to facilitate writing, regardless of the age.
“When I went into the seniors homes, I got them to talk about their memories,” said Ulrich. “Initially I went in with the intent that they would do their own writing, and I discovered it was just better if I wrote the stories down. That’s what I did at Hillview Manor.”
She also read to them from Bessie Brekke’s book, Tales from the Twenties, and that helped jog their memories about their own experiences.
Ulrich held script-writing workshops with students in Grades 6, 7 and 8, giving them a chance to brainstorm ideas for Game of Phones 2: The Canadian Edition, which she wrote for the Act 3 theatre camp at the Souris Valley Theatre. The play was performed last week.
“To be part of that was a joy,” she said.
Ulrich visited Lampman, Westview, Bienfait Weldon and Spruce Ridge schools, as well as Sacred Heart School/École Sacré Coeur.
With the newcomers, she fostered writing skills with adults and children, working with them on different types of writing, including narrative, expository and descriptive, while helping them with grammar.
“With the young newcomers, who were ages 10 to 13, we were actually writing a story together, in which they were all characters, and that was a lot of fun,” said Ulrich.
Ulrich was also at the Estevan Public Library for people to submit their manuscripts. She read them over and offered suggestions.
She also had to complete some writing on her own, and so she penned her first full-length, two-act musical. She had written plays and novels in the past.
“I didn’t write the music, but I did write the lyrics for the songs,” said Ulrich.
She hopes the musical could be performed on a stage one day.
“It was great to have the motivation of you’ve got two months, you’re supposed to be writing a play, so that was what I wrote,” she said.
And she carried out the research for another play that she hopes to one day submit for production.
The only downside is that the number of people she met with wasn’t as high as she expected. There was interest in her services for critiquing, but not a lot showed up when she was at the library. She believes some people are nervous and apprehensive about having someone read their writing.
“Take advantage of it,” she said. “Bite the bullet and give them your stuff, and get some honest, constructive feedback.”
Ulrich admits June and July were tough months to be a writer-in-residence. She had to cram all of the visits to the schools into the first two weeks of June, because in the last two weeks, the schools were busy with year-end activities.
And her work with the Act 3 theatre camp kept her busy in July.
The late spring and early summer months are a busy time for people, she said, and many would rather be enjoying summer activities than sitting in front of a computer.
Ulrich encouraged the community to one day look at bringing in a writer in residence for a year, similar to what it did in the early 2000s, when Allen Safarik held the post at the Estevan Public Library.
“A lot of it could be done virtually by Skype or things like that, and the person would only have to be here one day a week, but I think Estevan would really benefit from that,” said Ulrich.
She expects she would enjoy the work of being a writer-in-residence for a year, but she would want to do it elsewhere. She knows many of the writers in Estevan, and local writers know her, and she believes the writing community would benefit from a fresh set of eyes or a different style of writer.
“A year is a long time,” said Ulrich. “That’s a really big commitment.”
