All the write stuff
Club doesn't cramp writers' style

Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (Feb 10/99) - If writers write words and plays with them, but then go on to shape sentences and build paragraphs, does that make them playwrights or wordsmiths?

The answer many not be cut and dried, but at least there is a place where you can go to split hairs -- if not infinitives -- and where ideas can be tossed about and inspiration gained: The Yellowknife Writers' Club.

Alastair Campbell has been attending the bi-monthly Wednesday meetings at the Yellowknife Public Library since just after the club's founding in 1995. He describes the group as both supportive and inspirational.

"I think what happens in the group is that you're exposed to other people, and though it's not obvious it does give you ideas," he said, "It provides a stimulus."

Typically, half-a-dozen members gather at a time and, in the spirit of the club's informal atmosphere, share samples of their work.

Membership changes along with the city's somewhat transient population, and is open to individuals of all ages and backgrounds. Campbell said Richard Van Camp of Fort Smith is a former member who turned professional with his 1996 "The Lesser Blessed" novel.

Campbell himself is currently working on territorial division with the GNWT but said it was his private passion that made him join the club.

"I was interested to see who else had done some writing in Yellowknife and to try out some of my stuff," he said.

Campbell's "stuff" ranges from translations of French poetry to an epic poem on Trotsky's assassination. And while he has also had translations published by "Deep South," a online journal from New Zealand, he said most writers prefer to see their work immortalized the old-fashioned way, on paper.

"I suppose it's because they see the Internet as too transitory," he said.

For this reason, the club recently hosted Raven Books publisher Diane Brookes, who reviewed the business for them. Campbell said it was inspiring to know there's a publisher at hand who welcomes new authors, adding he wouldn't be surprised if the club produced more published authors.

As for himself, Campbell said he is an admirer of writers like Kurt Vonnegut Jr. who managed to combine satire with underlying seriousness. This admiration, as well as his love of wordplay (not just figuratively but literally) comes across strongly in "Bon Appetit!", a poem shaped like a pizza and that alludes to his appetite for truth.