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Last updated:
November 5, 2005
National Writers' Symposium 2005
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The National Capital chapter of the Canadian Association of Journalists is hosting the annual National Writers' Symposium at the Westin Hotel in Ottawa, November 11 to 13, 2005. The Symposium will bring together some of the top writers in Canada to talk about how we can improve our writing, whether we work in print, broadcast or other media. |
Our presenters:
Akin / Banks / Berkowitz / Brooke / Brown /
Carty / Cobb
Drohan / Eggerston / Gibb / Harris-Adler / Lumb / Mofina
Drohan / Eggerston / Gibb / Harris-Adler / Lumb / Mofina
The Importance of Story and Style |
Ian Brown is currently the National Features Reporter for the The
Globe and Mail. But he has also been a radio and television host,
magazine writer, founder and editor of an on-line magazine and has just
completed his third book. His reporting and writing have won him numerous
National Magazine Awards and a National Newspaper Award. Keynote Speaker Top - Menu |
Feature Doctor |
Rosa Harris-Adler is editor of Ottawa Magazine, a two time National
Magazine Award winner and columnist for the Ottawa Citizen. She's been
performing major surgery on ailing magazine copy for longer than she can
remember. Rosa will lead a hands-on,
feature-writing workshop designed to improve the journalistic health and
appearance of several ailing features submitted to her by workshop
participants via e-mail prior to November 1st.
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How to Avoid the Warm Body Syndrome |
Don Gibb is a journalism professor at Ryerson where he was named Professor of the Year for 2001. Outside Ryerson, Don conducts writing and editing seminars for newspapers across Canada and is a visiting writing coach for the Globe and Mail. In his years at the London Free Press, Don was a bureau, general assignment and beat reporter, an editorial writer, assignment editor and city editor. Top - Menu |
Fact to Fiction |
Rick Mofina has been named Canada's best crime
writer - but much of what informs his writing comes from his long career
as a journalist. He spent 30 years reporting for newspapers across Canada. His
true crime reporting has appeared in such publications as The New York
Times, Penthouse and Marie Claire. Rick will talk about how to use real life experience
and your skills as a journalist to create compelling fiction.
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How to interview a mercenary: Connecting the stock market to the real world |
Madelaine Drohan, a veteran business journalist,
will tell us how to look for the exciting stories behind seemingly dull business stories. Using her experience in researching
Canadian oil and mining firms operating in Africa, which brought her into contact with mercenaries and warlords as well as oil company executives, she will discuss how to get information from unlikely sources and how to use it in business writing.
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Beyond "PC" to Better Journalism |
Lionel Lumb, a longtime journalist in India, Britain and Canada,
organized two cross-Canada conferences on media and diversity while a
journalism professor at Carleton. He has trained television journalists in
more comprehensive reporting. He'll show how an open mind and inclusive
research make gender and race sensitive writing for television a whole lot
easier and produce more effective journalism.
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Making Science Stories Sing |
Jacob Berkowitz will talk about the craft of turning scientific narrative
into engaging A1 news and feature stories. A freelance science journalist
with more than a decade of experience, Jacob's work appears regularly in
the Ottawa Citizen and other papers and magazines across Canada. He's also
the principal science writer for NSERC, Canada's largest science funder.
His book Jurassic Poop, on the fascinating science of fossil feces, is in
print with Kids Can Press.
"Science, like the rest of culture, is based on the manufacture of narrative." (E.O. Wilson) Top - Menu |
Writing for the Ear |
Bob Carty is an award winning veteran CBC documentary journalist who will detail the
keys to producing documentaries that go beyond the everyday news. How to
develop ideas, how to decide who to interview and how to compile the
interviews once they're completed. Bob will also discuss why
documentaries are the cornerstone of radio reporting.
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Broadcast Writing for Print Snobs : How to get a by-line, ever if you're a TV reporter |
David Akin will lead a workshop for those
interested the strengths and weaknesses of writing for newspapers and television news.
Find out how reporters working in one medium can ply their craft in the other.
Workshop participants are encouraged to bring examples of some work they
think might work in the other medium. (TV journalists should bring VHS
tape, not beta).
David was among the first of a new
generation of reporters, holding concurrent positions as National Business and Technology Correspondent for CTV
National News and Contributing Writer for the Globe
and Mail's Report on Business. He now does TV full-time as a Parliamentary
Correspondent for CTV National News but was a print guy for most of his
career. He's worked at the National Post, Hamilton Spectator and the Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal.
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Freelance Writing |
Laura Eggertson
is an award-winning Canadian journalist and freelance writer. She is a frequent contributor to a variety of Canadian magazines inlcuding Time Magazine (Canadian edition). Laura was awarded a Nieman Fellowship in journalism at Harvard University in 1995-96. For The Canadian Press, Laura has been a Washington correspondent and Queen's Park bureau chief. She has travelled to to Croatia, Bosnia, Haiti, Mexico, China and Malaysia to cover stories of interest to Canadians. After her career at CP, she reported on business and national affairs for The Globe and Mail in Ottawa, and covered the finance, environment and Indian Affairs beats for The Toronto Star on Parliament Hill. She now runs her own business in Ottawa.
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Red Pencil Session & Sports Writing |
Jeff Brooke, a sports senior copy and page editor at
the Globe and Mail, will lead a red pencil copy editing session where he will
highlight the nuts and bolts of writing good clean stories for
publication. Jeff will outline the most common errors and give tips on how to avoid
problems.
The session will go beyond simple corrections and grammar and illustrate how
writers need to be more flexible in the way they work because changes in
the newsroom have editors often rethinking the kinds of stories that are
being used. In today's newspaper pages, sometimes the layout determines
the way things are written rather than the stories driving the design.
On Sunday, Jeff will lead a session on the future of sportswriting. Top - Menu |
Writing for Community Newspapers |
Joe Banks will explains how to find a market for
your writing among community newspaper. Joe is a veteran of 25
years in the Ontario community newspaper industry. He now teaches
journalism at Algonquin College in Ottawa. There are more than 700 English-language community newspapers in Canada,
with a combined circulation of more than 12 million copies per week. With
a growing number of free-distribution suburban and urban papers,
re-designed established papers and the launch of ethnic and other niche
publications, community newspapers are showing solid growth where other
newspaper circulations are declining.
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Leonard, Conrad and Other Icons: Getting hot stories out of culture |
Chris Cobb has covered the arts journalism
waterfront from actors to Zeitgeist for the Ottawa Citizen. From celebrity interviews, to concert reviews, to dry federal and
international cultural policy, Chris has done it and will share his knowledge. Chris was a twice weekly columnist for
the National Post (Oct. 1996- Sept. 2001) writing irreverently on TV
sports broadcasting. His book Ego and Ink, the story of the founding of the
National Post and Canada’s subsequent national newspaper war, was published by
McClelland and Stewart in 2004.
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