YouthWrite Elbow River II Experience 2022
not available for sale
July 10 - July 15, 2022
Day or Overnight Camp For Ages 15-19
An unforgettable experience for creative youth, spending time with quality instructors and other talented peers discussing ideas and sharing their work.
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WhenJuly 10th - July 15th, 2022 Full Week |
WhereFCJ centre: 219 19 Ave SW, Calgary, AB T2S 0C8 |
WhoGuest instructors thus far: Wally Diefenthaler Laurel Deedrick-Mayne Trudy Hipwell Annette Loiselle Michelle Casten Magbanua Miranda Martini Conni Massing Omar Mouallem Pam Rocker Émilie Tremblay a.k.a. MLE Sue-Shane Tsomondo Spyder Yardley-Jones Blue-Pencil Café: Cheryl Foggo Clem Martini Our Special Guest Presenter: JC Rees Our Super Supers: Aftikhar Mominzada Becky Collins Mason Repka Moe Ahmed Yemariam Abebayehu Lead Super Anna Cooley Lead Super Joey Lucius YouthWrite Director-Coordinator: |
Guest Instructors
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YOUTHWRITE INSTRUCTORS: THE CREAM OF THE CROP!
Throughout YouthWrite's history, we have prided ourselves on the calibre of our fine instructors. YouthWrite invites superbly talented and reputable instructors who represent the many facets of the performing, visual, musical, dance, film, and written arts. |
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Laurel Deedrick-Mayne
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Wally Diefenthaler
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Trudy Hipwell
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Annette Loiselle
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Michelle Casten Magbanua
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Miranda Martini
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Conni Massing
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Omar Mouallem
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Pam Rocker
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Émilie Tremblay a.k.a. MLE
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Sue-Shane Tsomondo
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Spyder Yardley-Jones
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Blue Pencil Café with Cheryl Foggo and Clem MartiniBlue Pencil Café -Share a piece of writing with our resident editing experts and get constructive feedback on your wordsmithery! Poetry, fiction, dialogue, plots, operas, plays - our Blue Pencil experts can help you with your craft. Sign up is daily at camp. Cheryl Foggo -Cheryl Foggo is a filmmaker, playwright and author, whose work over the last 30 years has focused on the lives of Western Canadians of African descent. Her feature documentary John Ware Reclaimed premiered in 2020 and can be found at nfb.ca. Other recent projects include writing and directing the short film Kicking Up a Fuss: The Charles Daniels Story and writing The Sender for Obsidian Theatre Company’s 21 Black Futures. She is working on 2 new books and a new film. Clem Martini -Clem Martini is an award-winning playwright, novelist, and screenwriter with over thirty plays, and thirteen books of fiction and nonfiction to his credit, including the W.O. Mitchell Award-winning Bitter Medicine: A Graphic Memoir of Mental Illness, The Unravelling, and The Comedian. His recently premiered play, Cantata (Rumours of My Crazy, Useless Life) was the 2021 winner of Theatre BC’s National Playwriting Competition. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and teaches in the School of Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Calgary. |
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Our special guest presenter:JC ReesJC Rees was a camper at Youthwrite from 2001-2006 (age 12-17). In 2014, she graduated from the inaugural Faculty of Law at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops. From 2014-2019, she resided in Grande Prairie, where a large part of her legal practice was representing children and youth in divorce custody battles, as well as social service apprehensions. She also founded the Grande Prairie Pride Society, and ran it for four years as President. In 2019 she returned to her hometown of Calgary. She continues to practice law, and currently works for the Alberta government. In her spare time, you can find her spending time with her wife, dog, and two cats, exploring the wilderness at her cabin near Waiparous, or at various drag and cabaret shows across Alberta...but not necessarily in the audience. We've already said too much. |
The Amazing Supers
Handpicked and multi-talented, YouthWrite Supers are the centre of our camps. As artists, teachers and mentors, they bring the X-Factor to YouthWrite.
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Yemariam AbebayehuYemariam Abebayehu is a YouthWrite alum and member of SWYC (Edmonton's Spoken Word Youth Choir). Her first year at YouthWrite was in 2020, but she feels like she's been a part of YouthWrite for much longer! Yemariam is also a student at the University of Alberta pursuing a BA in Psychology. Yemariam is *Super* stoked for summer with YouthWrite and for being Gail’s favourite. |
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Moe Ahmed
Mohamed Ahmed is a former YouthWriter, and this camp changed his life for the better! He is a recent graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada and also a musician under the name "Just Moe," offering music on every platform. Moe is over the MOON to be back at YouthWrite this summer to help inspire and mentor this next generation of incredible writers and to be Gail's ultimate favourite! |
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Becky CollinsBecky Collins loves poetry, wordplay, and big ideas. A drama and humanities educator with Edmonton Public Schools, she uses historical and current media to explore complex narratives of our past and current global affairs with the young minds of tomorrow. Becky is a current graduate student at the University of Alberta in the Master of Arts and Communications and Technology program. After many years at River Valley YouthWrite, Becky is excited to be joining the Elbow River team. She is especially looking forward to singing Hallelujah by the fire with Gail and as her favourite. |
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Anna Cooley - Lead Super
Anna Cooley is an award-winning director, writer, cinematographer, and producer who has been telling stories with compelling characters and strong messages for over 20 years. Her projects push the boundaries of conventional storytelling by identifying unique narratives, collaborating with artists from a diverse range of disciplines, and experimenting with cutting-edge technologies such as virtual reality. Anna has been connected to YouthWrite for 22 years as both a camper and supervisor. She just can't get enough of Gail. |
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Joey Lucius - Lead SuperJoey Lucius is a performer and writer who's been a Rapid Fire Theatre staple for 15 years, contributes to the Beaverton, and is a Canadian Comedy Award winner for his work on YTV’s Canadian Screen Award nominated series That’s So Weird. He’s a proud cat daddy to a 16-year-old toothless angel named Gato. And he is so delighted to be Gail’s favourite. |
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Aftikhar MominzadaAftikhar Mominzada, originally from Kabul, Afghanistan, is pursuing an information technology management major at the University of Alberta. Interested in entrepreneurship, economics, and technology, he aspires to enter the world of business after graduation. Aftikhar occasionally plays guitar and enjoys swimming, soccer, and squash. He experienced teaching kids during high school back in India and has been involved in various entrepreneurship and event-organizing activities both inside and outside school. This summer Aftikhar decided to experience something different by being a Super at the YouthWrite, and he looks forward to making the camp even more fun and meeting new people, plus being Gail’s favourite. |
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Mason Repka
Mason wears many hats. Sometimes he is a writer, a creator, a world builder, a musician, and an artist. Other times he is a game master, facilitating worlds of play, whether it be LARP, D&D, or some other form of roleplay based shenanigans. Sometimes, he is a YouthWrite worker bee, doing communications and administrative work in the YouthWrite office. Still other times he is a homemaker and a cat-dad, and deeply enjoys spending time working around the house with his partner Cara and their cat, Phoebe. This summer, Mason is very excited to wear his super hat, and can’t wait for camp. Whatever hat he wears, he is always Gail’s favorite. |
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YouthWrite Director- CoordinatorGail Sidonie Sobatis a multi-award-winning teacher and author, with twelve books for children, teens and adults, and a number of educational and academic articles. A Global News Woman of Vision and an Arts and Culture Citation Award recipient, she is the YouthWrite creator/ coordinator, an international presenter, an instructor in the professional writing program at MacEwan University and in the Faculty of Education at U of A. Gail was The Writers’ Union of Canada Regional Representative for Alberta, NWT and Nunavut, and writer in residence with the Metro Edmonton Federation of Libraries. She has moved forty times in her life from Badlands to Siksika Nation Reserve to hideous suburbs to Istanbul to the Sunshine Coast to her writer’s garret in a century-old temperamental house. She adores all of her Supers & Coordinators equally, and loves YouthWrite like a madwoman! |
Join the FunCome one, come all YouthWriters! Have fun, make new friends, and create great experiences. |
Use your passion for writing and apply for a scholarship from our list of available scholarships & grants.