Look into my crystal ball. It’s Saturday morning. October. October 16 to be precise. You have just finished a coffee and have that jittery-trembly buzz going that makes your heart race as fast as the squirrel-fest of ideas zipping around in your brain.
A man walks into the room. You pull out your pencil and paper. You’re happy. You’re excited. You’re ready to wrestle a word-storm.
You’re at the first session of the day of the Whistler Readers and Writers Festival, and the man is Michel Beaudry, and he’s going to give you the low down on the Power of a Good Story, to kick your day off with a bang and some superhero moves.
Here are five reasons you should trust him, despite that very intense look he gets after a cup of coffee and half an energy drink.
Coffee? Check. Energy drink? Check. Okay, let's friggin' write.
What’s taking up space on your screen/on your bedside table/inside your mind right now?
A Story As Sharp as A Knife – by Robert Bringhurst. A fascinating introduction to the Haida oral tradition, the book casts a totally original look at one of our most misunderstood (and under-appreciated) legacies. An established BC poet and university lecturer, Bringhurst blends soul and intellect to reveal the magic and power of indigenous storytelling in Haida Gwaii at the end of the 19th century. Indeed, Bringhurst did such good job of presenting the oral language of the times (in both Haida and English), that I felt like I could hear the Haida dialect in my mind by the end of the book. A must-read for aspiring storytellers anywhere (but particularly for those BC-based).
Festival guest author, Caroline Adderson, was just pictured in the Globe and Mail in the buff, confessing that the bathtub is her favourite place to read. If YOU were going to be featured in the Globe and Mail, how/where would you strike the pose?
In my outdoor, wood-heated hot tub, fifty feet above the Salish Sea on a quiet island off the Sunshine Coast with an unobstructed maritime view all the way to the Olympic Peninsula…
In that same article, Adderson offered up her ‘cure for an ungenerous heart, for boredom, for disillusionment: three drops of lavender oil in a hot, full tub; a glass of wine; something Russian to read.’ In that same vein, what are the top 3 ailments you need to tackle, and what are your prescribed cures?
My cure for hypocrisy, deceit and greed is to climb the steepest mountain I can find with a good book in my pocket and a quiet place in mind to read at the top.
Give us a teaser of the deep thoughts you are going to share in your seminar?
We are all storytellers. That’s what makes us human. All we need is permission (and a few basic storytelling tools) to discover that life-changing reality.
Three words to describe the Whistler Readers + Writers Festival?
Psyscheligroovyliscious. Yeah baby…
Attendees at the 2009 Whistler Writers Festival look on in awe as Michel Beaudry shows off his kung-fu writing moves, then says, "Now, you try."
Tags: michel beaudry, the power of a good story, whistler writers festival, whistler writing workshops
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