The Manitoba Writers Guild’s Creative Arts Hub for North Point Douglas is hosting several exciting creative arts events for North Point Douglas this spring: a Four-Week Poetry Writing Workshop for “disadvantaged” Women, taught by Winnipeg’s inaugural Poet Laureate Di Brandt, and a series of Saturday afternoon Creative Arts Workshops in May for all interested adults living in NPD (with enrollment limits for each workshop).
The Four-Week Poetry Writing Workshop for Women of NPD concluded this week, with some exciting news – one of the workshop participants, Denise Cook, placed in the Winnipeg Free Press’s Writes of Spring contest with a poem she wrote in the workshop, in honour of Ashley Shingoose. She will be performing her poem at the Writes of Spring poetry reading on Sunday afternoon, April 27, at McNally Robinson Bookstore. Please come out to support new poetry and poets there!
The Saturday afternoon Creative Arts Workshops in May are open to all NPD (or nearby) residents. They are being taught by professional artists who appeared at the Pe-kiyoke Creative Arts Festival in NPD last summer. The workshops feature contemporary meditative dance, taught by Carol-Ann Bohrn Japanese bamboo flute-playing with Eric Napier-Strong, and Indigenous poetry and poetics with Winnipeg’s inaugural Poet Laureate Duncan Mercredi. The fourth Saturday afternoon will feature a recital, with performances by participants of the Creative Arts Hub program in its pilot year, including workshop participants and instructors as listed here. All are welcome to attend the recital on Saturday, May 24 from 1-4 p.m. at the Filipino Senior Citizens Hall on Euclid Avenue in NPD.
The “Heart of the City” Creative Arts Hub for NPD is a pilot creative arts development program of the Manitoba Writers Guild, set in the disadvantaged community of North Point Douglas, with generous funding support from the Winnipeg Foundation and community donors. The Hub offers innovative creative arts learning, teaching, and performance opportunities for professional artists and residents of the neighbourhood, to help improve the public profile of this unique, challenged and spirited community, and to provide greater access to professional creative arts opportunities for the area.
The Hub is in need of a professional volunteer to help with writing up the year-end reports and apply for renewed funding from the Winnipeg Foundation for the second year of the program. Please contact Di Brandt, Hub Coordinator, at for more information, if you’re interested in contributing to this innovative program in this way, and have the skill set to do so.