Write! Vancouver?
Who are we? What do we do?
As you would expect, the people associated with Write Vancouver are an eclectic mix. We include one of the world's most influential theological thinkers (at least according to Time Magazine), and, remember watching the opening of the 2010 Olympics on TV? If so, you will have heard the words of another of our members. Some of us have been recognized for our excellence by the Canada Council for the Arts and won national and international awards and prizes. On the national level, The Word Guild, our parent body, includes recipients of the Order of Canada, the Queen's Jubilee medal and other high honors.
We are homemakers, professors, hotel help, butchers, retirees, construction workers, pastors, editors and more. Most of us struggle to find time to write. Some use social media expertly; others write with pens and pencils. We include internationally renowned writers and speakers, well known poets, and a few singers/songwriters who are household names. Our skill level ranges from the merest beginner to stars whose books sell in the millions. We write devotionals, mysteries, romances, children’s picture books, theological tomes, newspaper and magazine columns. We blog, journal and produce press releases.
Words are our raison d’etre. We see puddles in dark downtown streets, the beauty of reflected light in them, and then make the jump to the Sunday School song “Jesus Bids Us Shine.” We see pictures from the Hubble telescope and try not only to imagine God's view of the universe but to express our awe at the limited vision we have. We never forget that, while we seek to inform, excite or entertain the world around us, the glory belongs to God.
We live in a world that believes words are increasingly unimportant. At the moment, the visual image reigns supreme and, although it was coined a little more than a hundred years ago, the saying "A picture is worth one thousand words" has reached iconic status.
Wordsmiths, though, are a different bunch from artists and graphic artists. With just three words, cognito ergo sum, Rene Descartes laid one of the foundations for western philosophy. The gospel writer John needed even fewer, two actually, to encapsulate the humanity of Jesus with the sentence, "Jesus wept.”
At Write! Vancouver we strive for that same standard of excellence and welcome everyone.
