Dear Fellow Creative Writing Instructors:
Many of you may remember an email in November 2008 from the University of Calgary Creative Writing Faculty proposing to form an organization of Canadian creative writing instructors. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and included many concrete proposals. As a result, our committee has expanded and decided to pursue the initiative. What follows is a specific, detailed proposal.
The University of Calgary Creative Writing Program and the Banff Centre for the Literary Arts propose the formation of an association called Canadian Creative Writers and Writing Programs (CCWWP). This association of creative writing instructors and programs would address the unique challenges facing Canadian writers who provide instruction in the art of creative writing in all its forms within Canadian institutional, post-secondary, non-parchment, non-institutional, and other creative writing programs.
To this end, a small organizing committee composed of creative writing instructors from the U of C, the Banff Centre, and York University met in Banff over the weekend of February 21st, 2009 in order to draw up a working draft of the association’s mission statement and list of goals, and a rough outline of the founding conference program. This working mission statement and list of goals will be rewritten or reformulated according to the responses of creative writing instructors prior to the conference and at the founding conference, set for October 7-11, 2010.
We are attaching a detailed questionnaire prepared by the organizing committee asking for your possible amendments to the working mission statement and list of goals, as well as your opinion on other issues such as why you think an association of Canadian creative writing instructors is important, and what services and support you would like to see offered by the association once it is established. The statistical information pulled from your responses to the questionnaire will provide direction for the organizing committee in the association and conference planning. Our hope is that in future years, the CCWWP can be a useful, self-sustaining organization that will support and fulfill the needs of all Canadian creative writing instructors. We would also eventually like to offer subsidies for annual general meeting and conference registration, travel, and accommodation.
We have included for your information in this email attachment, our original November 2008 proposal for a Canadian CW instructors organization, a draft version of the conference program, and a description of possible breakout sessions. This conference program is subject to change as funding for the conference has not been confirmed (the organizing committee will be working on funding over the next year and a half). If you have any suggestions regarding potential funding sources, your input would be much appreciated. Please feel free to forward this email and attachment to any creative writing instructors you feel might be interested in the association.
Please email the completed questionnaire and any questions you might have to ccwwp@ucalgary.ca or contact the CCWWP Organizing Committee via post at:
The CCWWP Organizing Committee
c/o Suzette Mayr
Dept. of English
University of Calgary
2500 University Dr. NW
Calgary, AB T2N 1N4
Yours truly,
The CCWWP Organizing Committee
(Christian Bök, Mark Giles, Robert Majzels, Clem Martini, Suzette
Mayr, Robyn Read, Steven Ross Smith, Priscila Uppal, Aritha van Herk,
and Tom Wayman)
The Writing Pool 