Copyright 2001 by Edward Willett

Saskatchewan has long been hailed as fertile ground for writers. They seem to pop up everywhere, like gophers emerging from their winter burrows and crocuses blooming in the melting snow in spring.

And, in fact, you can say with absolute truthfulness that many new Saskatchewan writers do emerge each Spring--not spring, the season, but Spring, the annual literary magazine put out by the Saskatchewan Writers Guild.

The 2001 issue of Spring, the second to be produced, has just been published, and is being launched with readings and receptions in Regina on February 28 at 7:30 p.m. in the Rosemont Art Gallery, Neil Balkwill Centre, and in Saskatoon on March 22 at the AKA Gallery.

With a glowing yellow glossy cover, decorated by a brilliantly colored reproduction of Saskatoon artist Anne McElroy's painting Red Hearts in a Forest, Spring's 2001 issue does indeed look like spring--a bright, sunny spring full of promise.

The inside is full of promise, too--promising work by emerging writers, who are defined as people who haven't yet had a book published. "It's an opportunity to kind of fill a gap for the Guild membership who are not beginning writers, but are not established writers," is how Laura Burkhart, the Saskatchewan Writers Guild program officer, describes the magazine's mission.

Last fall's call for submissions resulted in an issue that include poetry by Jennifer Still, Laura Burkhart, Darren Foster, Tracy J. Stebner, gillian harding-russell, David Sealy, Laura Alfaro, Katherine Lawrence, Veryl Listoe, Bernadette L. Wagner, Andrea Tait and Sandy Easterbrook; non-fiction by Lloyd Ratzlaff and June Mitchell, and fiction by Shelley Banks, B.D. Miller, Laura Burkhart and David Sealy.

Of course, to put out a magazine of any kind you need editors. Spring uses different editors every year, in the process giving emerging editors an opportunity to practice their editing skills, too. This year's editors were Shelley A. Leedahl, editor-in-chief and non-fiction editor; Jeanne Marie de Moissac, poetry editor; and Sharon MacFarlane, fiction editor.

Spring is distributed free to all members of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild, and is also available for sale in various bookstores and other locations, including the SWG Web site, for $5.

Laura understands the importance of Spring to emerging writers, since she placed two poems in the first issue, last year, and a poem and a short story in this year's issue (in all cases before she became an employee of the Guild). "It's a nice acknowledgement of progress," she says.

Saskatchewan is known across Canada as a hotbed of writers. There are many theories as to why that's so. Laura feels part of the reason is the geography. "With rural depopulation people are really isolated," she says, and that may result in a greater introspection among Saskatchewan residents. The climate plays a role, too, Laura feels. "I used to live in rural Saskatchewan, and those winters are really long," she says. "What is it that helps people deal with difficult situations? For me its going inside and accessing that creative impulse."

Saskatchewan also has a tradition of nurturing and encouraging writers, a tradition exemplified by the Saskatchewan Writers Guild, the largest and most active provincial writers' organization in Canada.

"I grew up in a real working class family where anything to do with the arts was considered not authentic or not important," Laura recalls. "You couldn't sit down and draw, you couldn't sit down and write, because there's work to be done and you couldn't make your living at that, so why even get involved in it.

"I don't see that in Saskatchewan. I see people really acknowledging, supporting and affirming literary activities. There is support for writers here that may not be available in a lot of other places."

Spring attracted a lot of attention and enthusiasm last year, Laura says, and she expects that attention and enthusiasm to continue this year. "There's lots of stories in Saskatchewan," she says. "We have such a rich history, and I think people are acknowledging that."

Posted September 22, 2004