It’s going to be a busy two months for Estevan’s newest writer in residence.
Lampman author Maureen Ulrich is up for the challenge though and said she’s excited to work with different facets of the community on various workshops lined up this summer.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” Ulrich said.
“I’m looking forward to meeting with people to talk about their writing, I’m looking forward to working on the play and having some feedback and input from some of the local kids into the content and characters and I’m really looking forward also to the notion of working on a play on my own.”
Ulrich is known penning the Jessie Mac triliogy and numerous plays that have been performed in the area.
Part of the residency’s terms involve writing a play for the Souris Valley Theatre’s Act 3 Theatre Camp as well writing a play for herself that likely won’t be performed.
For the Act 3 play, though, she plans on bringing in some help from local students at the schools she’ll be visiting, and getting them to help brainstorm ideas and characters.
She wrote the Act 3 play last year as well, she said, called Game of Phones, and this time around they’ll be doing Game of Phones 2 the Canadian Edition.
The plays involve time travel, so the Canadian Edition will have time travel exclusive to Canadian History for the last 150 years starting with the John A. MacDonald and the Charlotte Town conference.
Ulrich has workshops lined up at Lampman School, Spruce Ridge School, Westview School, Sacred Heart/ Sacre Coeur School and Weldon School in Bienfait where she’ll spend 45 minutes helping the Grade’s 6 to 8 students with writing.
Her residency is through the Saskatchewan Cultural Exchange and the organization will be paying her for the months of June and July to complete 20 hours of facilitating in the area as well as 20 more hours working on her own material.
“I’m also doing some work with the (Southeast) Newcomers (Services), so I’m doing some adult workshops where we’re just going to basically write about their experiences coming to Canada; immigration experiences,” she said.
“I’ll also be working with Newcomers with some kids in an after school program, they’ve got five or six kids that are going to come in after school and I’m going to work with them on their literacy.”
Playwriting classes with Metochos Ministries Lutheran Bible Camp is another thing on the agenda for Ulrich, where she’ll attend a weeklong writer’s retreat, then she’ll head to some seniors’ homes in Lampman as well as Creighton Lodge and Hillview Manor to work with residents on memory writing.
Then in July she’ll be available Thursdays at the Estevan Public Library to do critiques on the work of anyone who’s interested, they just have to register, get a time slot and provide the piece in advance, after which she’ll meet, give constructive criticism and try to point the writers in the right direction.
Ulrich mentioned the critiquing is for ages 15 and up, since she’s doing the workshops for younger people at the schools, and wants as many different people to benefit from her residency as possible.
“I’m just looking for them to give me a short segment like 1,500 words and I’ll critique that. I’m not available to do entire manuscripts, because that’s time consuming,” she said with a laugh.
She added poetry isn’t really in her wheelhouse, though she’d give critiquing it a shot, but admitted there’s a good chance any poets who might show could be more advanced in the genre than she is.
“So it’s a pretty busy schedule for the two months,” she said. “It’s a really wonderful opportunity and I hope people will take advantage of it.”
