Catapult Your Craft

Slingshot Writing Workshop is a new organization that seeks to offer free writing workshops for people of colour led by instructors of colour. It seeks to provide tools to further hone writing skills and build community at the same time. Our first event is a three day writing workshop weekend where nine IBPOC writers will be led through two writing workshops led by Ins Choi and Tetsuro Shigematsu.


These workshops will provide hands-on skills to further hone the craft of writing, answer some questions, and give examples from real world experience. These workshops are intended for participants who identify as professional, early-career or late bloomer IBPOC writers and we welcome those who also identify as LGBTQ2IA+, d/Deaf, disabled, MAD, neurodiverse/neurodivergent communities to apply. Attendance at all the workshops is required as the material will be cumulative.

Friday Night Social (Friday, 7pm - 9pm)

Friday evening will consist of a fun social meet and greet where participants will be introduced to each other, the instructors and the people at vAct who made all this happen. There may be some speeches of appreciation, some entertainment and a little share and tell from each of the participants.

Story Principles with Tetsuro Shigematsu (Saturday & Sunday, 10am - noon)

Is your story dead on the page? Whether you’re a spoken word artist, a poet, a novelist, playwright, or any kind of storyteller, you can always recognize when a scene is lifeless. We will explore one ingenious technique that is the narrative equivalent of a defibrillator.

TV Writing with Ins Choi (Saturday & Sunday, 1pm - 5pm)

The purpose of this workshop is to demystify the process of writing for TV by going through the steps of creating one. Participants should have some writing experience and be game to pitch ideas, develop stories, work well with others in large and small groups and write dialogue.

Instructors

Ins Choi

Ins Choi

Creator of Kim's Convenience

Ins Choi was born in Korea but grew up and currently lives in Toronto with his wife and
two children. Some of his acting credits include Banana Boys, lady in the red dress (fu-GEN); Hamlet, The Odyssey (Stratford Festival); Alligator Pie, Death of a Salesman (Soulpepper). As a writer, his debut play, Kim's Convenience, won the Best New Play award and the Patron's Pick at the 2011 Toronto Fringe festival. It then launched Soulpepper theatre company's 2012 season, toured across Canada, and was adapted into a tv series of the same name with Thunderbird Entertainment for the CBC and Netflix for 5 seasons. Ins was a writer, executive producer and co-creator of the tv series. His next play, Bad Parent, is being produced by Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre company for the spring of 2022 at Prairie Theatre Exchange in Winnipeg, at the Cultch in Vancouver and at Soulpepper in Toronto. He is also developing other creative
projects in theatre, tv and film.

Tetsuro Shigematsu

Tetsuro Shigematsu

Creator of Empire of the Son & 1 Hour Photo

A former writer for This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Tetsuro Shigematsu became the first person-of-colour to host a daily national radio program in Canada, when he became host of The Roundup on CBC Radio, where he voiced nearly a thousand hours of network programming, as well as writing, producing and voicing over 50 pieces of radio drama. Dubbed “the voice of our Azn generation” by Ricepaper magazine, Tetsuro’s theatrical solo-work Empire of the Son was named the best show of 2015 by the Vancouver Sun, and has been touring continuously throughout Canada, and beyond. It has played in 18 cities to over 20,000 people, and was described by theatre critic Colin Thomas as, “one of the best shows ever to come out of Vancouver. Ever.” His other solo-work, 1 Hour Photo garnered five Jessie nominations, winning for Significant Artistic Achievement, and was named as a finalist for the 2019 Governor General's Award for Drama, and is currently touring virtually. Vancouver’s Georgia Straight declared him to be, “one of the city's best artists.” Follow him at shiggy.com.

Seeking nine early-career IBPOC writers to participate in this free on-line writing workshop weekend. Application Deadline: Friday, September 3rd at 11:59 PM PST.

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