Valerie Senyk

NEOVerse

/ Melanie Marttila

One of the contests I entered while I was struggling through grad school was for the League of Canadian Poets.  Through that competition, one of my poems was selected for publication in the 1997 (W)rites of Spring.

I read at their gala (with Valerie Senyk, Roger Nash, Sonja Dunn, Katerina Fretwell, and others) and subsequently submitted my poetry to Dr. Laurence Steven, who was now the proud owner of Your Scrivener Press.  He accepted my work and along with the work of two other northeastern Ontario poets, Monique Chenier and Natalie Wilson, he published NeoVerse (1999).

It stood for northeastern Ontario verse, but in a way, it was the beginning of a whole new life for me creatively.

I traveled all over the north giving readings that year: North Bay, Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie, and Parry Sound.  Due in part to my reading activity, I was invited to participate in an event in Caledon called Word Harvest, where several other poets were performing.

Thanks to the publication of my poetry in chapbook form, I was able to become an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets.

Also around that time, I was writing articles for the Sudbury Arts Council (SAC) in the Sudbury Star, after having served on the newspaper’s readers board for a term; I wrote interviews for the Laurentian University Alumni Magazine, and articles for Georgian Bay Today.  GBT didn’t last long.  The way I was to be paid was to sell advertising to local retailers.  I was not then, nor am I now, a salesperson, by any stretch of the imagination.

I put together a few workshops for elementary and high schools, and even one for the Manitoulin Writers’ retreat.

I was also putting together Web pages for the Huntington University Library and for the Art Gallery of Sudbury.  This was the old-fashioned (ha!), type-your-tags-out-in-Wordpad, HTML Web pages.  Eventually I adopted Microsoft FrontPage.

I started to write reviews for the Canadian Book Review Annual, took another short-term contract at the Cambrian College Library, and then two of my Laurentian professors contacted me with an offer of employment.  It would only be a part-time contract, but I could be the executive assistant for an organization called ACCUTE, the association of Canadian college and university teachers of English.

There, I developed another Web site, published the quarterly newsletter, and helped to coordinate their annual conference.

My first year with ACCUTE I did the crazy and auditioned for Theatre Cambrian’s production of Hair.  It was hard work.  Dancing, singing, and acting.  It was also one of the most fun, most amazing experiences of my life.

How about you?  Was there a time in your life when you became creatively fecund? What happened?  If you’re blogging about it, link through in your comments.  I’d love to see what you’ve been up to 🙂

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A visit from Valerie Senyk

/ Melanie Marttila

March 25, 2010.

Throughout the year, the Sudbury Writers’ Guild brings in guest speakers.  That year, there had been some interest from the membership in learning how to read one’s work more effectively.  One of our members, and past president, Janice Leuschen, had just started up her business and had delivered a session for the Guild already, but there were still rumblings and mumblings.

At the September meeting, where the year’s creative agenda was hashed out, I suggested Valerie Senyk as a possible speaker.  She is associate professor of theatre arts at the Georgian College University Partnership Centre as well as a poet, a playwright, a director, and a fantastic performer.

The members in attendance showed interest, so I got in touch with Valerie, who was also interested and coming to Sudbury to see her son in March.  We firmed things up and made the date.

I’d known Valerie since Spring Fever: the (W)rites of Spring in which our poetry was published.  Subsequent readings, events like the Northern Lights Festival Boreal, which featured not only our motley crew of spoken word performers, but her creative performance poetry collaborations LipSkinDance and Poemotion, and our association through Your Scrivener Press publisher Laurence Steven, often put us together.

At the time of our first association, Valerie was a professor in the Drama Department at Thornloe University, one of three federated universities within Laurentian University.  I’d seen her perform and attended several of her students’ productions at Thornloe.

Valerie did an evening workshop for the Guild and everyone in attendance read a work of short fiction or poetry and received excellent feedback and tips from Valerie.  Though I considered myself an experienced reader, she had some insightful advice for me as well.  It was a lovely evening, and it was great to see an old friend again.

It is always a pleasure to work with Valerie.

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