Elliot Lake Writers' Fall Festival will be taking place Saturday, October 22, 2011.   It will be a day filled with writing competitions; open-mike readings; vendor tables; live entertainment and the launch of Elliot Lake Writers' Workshop's  anthology titled Elliot Lake Writers'Anthology of Short Stories and Poetry.

Special guest workshop facilitators on this day will be Brian Henry from Toronto and Dr. Ross Pennie from Hamilton.  We are thrilled to be welcoming them to Elliot Lake to participate in our Festival celebration.

Brian Henry will facilitate a workshop titled  "How to Get Published"

Dr. Ross Pennie will facilitate a workshop titled "Memoir Writing"

   Below is an excerpt from Brian Henry's  Quick Brown Fox.

"Have you ever considered writing your memoirs or family history? This workshop will introduce you to the tricks and conventions of telling true stories and will show you how to use the techniques of the novel to recount actual events. Whether you want to write for your family or for a wider public, don't miss this workshop.

Workshop leader Brian Henry has been a book editor and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He has helped many of his students get published, including our guest speaker, Ross Pennie.

Dr. Ross Pennie is the author of The Unforgiving Tides, a doctor’s memoir of Papua New Guinea (Manor House Publishing). He has also signed a contract with ECW Press for three medical mystery novels. The first of these, Tainted, came out last April and won Arts Hamilton Literary Award for Fiction.  Ross's next novel will be out this spring. At the workshop, Ross will speak on how to turn ordinary life into dramatic material and will answer questions about how he wrote his memoir and got it published."