U of R Homecoming

Friday night I went to the U of R English department's Homecoming event at the University Club. Four creative writers and alumni spoke about how the U of R had influenced their writing. The four writers were the very acclaimed Angie Adbou, Connie Gault, Joan Givner, and Diane Warren.

Read about how amazing this night was after the jump!


It was so inspiring hearing these four women speak about their experiences at U of R. Abdou talked about how taking Milton classes from Jeanne Shami, Medieval classes from Cameron Louis, and other classes taught her how to be a good reader. Literary allusions from both Milton and the Canterbury tales have since found their way into her work! She said she never took a creative writing class at the U of R, but that her time was so important in teaching her how to be a close reader, and a lover of books, something she commits herself to today. Remembering that she loves books before anything else helps protect her from negative feelings sometimes experienced in the business world of writing, she said.

It was interesting that Joan Givner was on the panel, because one thing the other three writers shared was a sense of how much Givner had influenced them. Connie Gault talked about how Givner had been the first person to recognize her as a writer. Givner had said one day, "Well you're a writer, aren't you?" and for the first time to anyone in her whole entire life, Gault responded that she was. Gault shared many insightful and funny lines from Givner's classes at the U of R. Gault talked about the literary lunches that Givner held with two other classmates and writers, and how that friendship has lasted over the years. I really got a sense of how important a writing community can be to an emerging writer, and how frightening it is to say those first words out loud, and proclaim that you are a writer.

Diane Warren, who was not an English major, talked about how her background in visual art has influenced her writing. She talked about how she had signed up to major in art for her BFA even though she had never made a piece of art before. She commented on the gall and tenacity of her younger self in doing such a thing (I wish I could remember the specific words she used!). She also talked about the literary lunches with Joan Givner and how that group of women has remained her harshest critics and closest friends throughout the years. I found Warren's link to visual art, and how she always knew she would make art and be a writer (even if she didn't recognize the link between school and writing at the time) to be very inspiring.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to hear Joan Givner speak. She talked with such grace, and humour. She was so hilarious and at the same time very honest about her time at the University of Regina. She talked about the changes at U of R in each decade in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. She talked about the little office she had in the Adhum building, and how if she closed the door she had a quiet place where she could work for hours. But if she opened the door she had instant access to experts in fields of Philosophy and Biology and History who were passionate about their work and excited to share it. She talked about how in her early days at U of R women writers were not taught or talked about in many classes. I think she played a role in changing that, and in nurturing the other three women writers on the panel.

Seeing four amazing and successful women writers on the same panel really showed how much has changed, even in Givner's lifetime. Now we study women writers in every class we take, there are additional classes focusing on women in various literary periods, and my creative writing classes are full of women writers. I am so inspired by this panel, so amazed at these four women, and so excited to be part of the same U of R writing lineage. Sometimes I forget about how hostile and dismissive university used to be towards women. I am now thinking of my own teachers and mentors... many of them women... many who have encouraged and pushed me to be a hardworking student and writer.