Events › Starting Place: What to Write About & How to Get Going with Ellie Sawatzky

This class explores two of the biggest questions writers face: What should I write about, and how do I begin? Through a mix of discussion, practical tips, and guided writing exercises, participants will discover strategies for generating ideas and getting words onto the page. We’ll explore ways to find inspiration in memory, observation, and imagination, and experiment with prompts that can spark poems, stories, or personal essays. 

This class is open to writers of all experience levels and genres. Come ready to try new approaches and leave with fresh material and starting points for your work.

--

Ellie Sawatzky (@elliesawatzky) is a poet, writer, editor, and teacher-facilitator who grew up in the territory of the Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty 3 (Kenora, Ontario), and who currently lives, works, and plays on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations (Vancouver). A UBC MFA alum, she is the author of the poetry collection None of This Belongs to Me (Nightwood Editions, 2021) and the founder and facilitator of the Strathcona Poetry Studio, an open-hearted poetry community that supports writers at all stages through generative writing sessions, accountability, and a commitment to curiosity, self-expression, and mutual care.

Ellie is a past winner of CV2’s Foster Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the 2019 Bronwen Wallace Award. Her poetry and fiction have been published widely in literary magazines, with recent poems appearing in The Walrus, The Fiddlehead, EVENT, Arc Poetry Magazine, and SAD Mag.