Writers’ Guild marks 50 years of offering members support
Jean Freeman cannot remember a time when Saskatchewan wasn’t bursting with aspiring writers, but she can remember a time when there were practically no supports for them.
That changed in the summer of 1969, when a number of writers from across the province — including Freeman — met together and decided to form some kind of organization for writers. At first the idea of a writers’ union was tossed about, but Freeman said eventually a guild was decided upon, and the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild (SWG) was born.
From its humble beginning, the SWG has since grown to hundreds of members across the province, ranging from Saskatchewan literature enthusiasts and aspiring writers to award-winning authors.
In celebration of its 50th anniversary, the SWG held a conference over the weekend featuring a variety of workshops and events to bring together its members and other writers from all over Saskatchewan at the Travelodge Hotel in Regina.
“It’s wonderful to see how it’s maintained its momentum, how people are ... even more interested now in helping each other and making things happen,” said Freeman of seeing the organization reach this milestone.
Byrna Barclay joined the SWG in the mid-1970s as an aspiring author when one of her friends introduced her to it. She soon found herself the editor of Freelance, the SWG’S quarterly member magazine.
She would buy pizza and beer and, together with a couple of other writers at her home, she would piece the magazine together.
“It was really, really homespun, but exciting — really exciting news in it and poetry and bits of stories and things like that,” she said.
While some things, like the magazine’s editing process, have changed at the SWG over time, the core principles of supporting the province’s writers through teaching and networking with other authors has remained the same.
“In the early years ... I would go to the conference with a pen and paper and learn, write down everything I learned and then go home and apply it,” said Barclay.
“I wouldn’t be a published author today if it wasn’t for the Guild ... Besides the lessons in writing, it’s the confidence building that comes out of those workshops and conferences.”
Freeman said one of the most important accomplishments of the SWG over the decades has been establishing the idea in Saskatchewan that writing could be and was a legitimate profession.
“You can put your name on a form and say I am a writer ... it’s not just sort of pie in the sky,” she said.
“There always have been writers, but now there are more than ever and they’re teaching it, they’re spreading it to other people. It’s an accepted field.”
Looking ahead to the next 50 years, Barclay believes the SWG will continue to play a role in Saskatchewan’s literary landscape as it adapts to fit the current needs of a changing book industry.
“I think there’s always going to be people who want to write and I think there’s always going to be people who want to read,” she said.