The Board of the Fernie Writers’ Conference is pleased to announce two additional youth sessions for the 2011 Conference bringing the total number of youth offerings to four. Following the success of last year’s sessions youth program organizer and board member Natalie Fisher is excited to be offering writing workshops for youth ages 8-18. “The feedback we received on the youth sessions last year was extremely positive and it was wonderful to have children involved in the Conference. Expanding the youth program sets us apart from other literary festivals and conferences in the country and registration to date has been very strong.”

The 2011 Fernie Writers’ Conference youth sessions are Youth Writing Workshop (ages 15-18) with Kim McCullough Word Candy (ages 10-13) with Monica Meneghetti with the addition of Youth Poetry (ages 12-14) with Adam MacDonald and Writing & Visual Arts (ages 8-10) with Gail Bartel and Sally Manwaring. The 3-day youth sessions include a reading on Saturday July 23rd at 1pm as part of the literary festival component of the conference. While our fees are low, scholarships are available for those in need of financial assistance thanks to the generous support of our sponsors.

The Fernie Writers’ Conference is a weeklong celebration of writers and writing culminating in a three-day literary festival open to the general public with readings from Marina Endicott, Alison Calder, Sid Marty, and Tom Wayman. A full schedule of events is posted on the Fernie Writers’ Conference website at www.ferniewriters.com.