Today is the busiest day of the festival and also the halfway mark! It’s hard to believe things are going by so quickly. This morning’s events were held at the College of the North Atlantic. Michael Johansen’s workshop “Creative Writing 101” drew a group of talented local writers, and Rosena Fung opened up the festival to a whole new participant pool with her workshop, “Character Design and Comics.” Rosena writes YA graphic novels, and her workshop was pitched at youth, but a few adults slipped in there as well. Rosena, Aimee Chaulk, and I were all main cast members at the newspaper, an independently run campus weekly at the University of Toronto, back in the early 2000s: Rosena made comics, Aimee was editor, and I made crosswords (one per week, every week except the summer, for four-plus years). These days Rosena is an award-winning graphic novelist, and Aimee is an award-winning editor, so I guess I’m the only one who fell off the wagon!

We’ll be back at the College this evening for another workshop that I’m eagerly anticipating: Nancy Gear on “Natural Approaches to Poetry.” Nancy is a brilliant poet, musician, and person. A few years ago I had the privilege to teach some classes she attended, and now I’ll have the equal privilege to be her student in turn.

Michael Johansen sharing secrets of the fiction writer’s craft. Photo by Mason Woodward for the Words of Warmth Literary Festival.