Welcome to My Renaissance is an artist-in-residency featuring Calgary playwright Eugene Stickland and friends.
First there is the task of writing the book in the first place. In my case, this was a departure from writing plays, newspaper columns and poetry. So how does the approach and execution differ? And then what happens after the book has been written? What are the best options for publishing? Once published, how can one keep it alive in a world of a billion books. In the case of The Piano Teacher, there has been talk of turning it into a movie. What does that process look like? We will look at different aspects of the life of a novel and I will give a brief reading from the book. Anyone interested in writing a novel, maybe shifting from one form to another, all are welcome!
About Eugene Stickland
Born and educated in Regina, after completing an MFA in Theatre at Toronto’s York University, Eugene arrived in Calgary in 1994 and began a ten year residency at Alberta Theatre Projects. During this time he wrote and saw produced ten plays — 6 for ATP, 3 for Lunchbox Theatre and 1 for Theatre Network in Edmonton. In total, he has written 19 plays that have been produced in Calgary, Edmonton or Toronto and then throughout the world, from London to Istanbul. Following the residency at ATP, Eugene wrote a feature weekly column for the Calgary Herald for 6 years, a total of approximately 250,000 published words. In 2015 Eugene published his only novel (to date), The Piano Teacher, recipient of the W.O. Mitchell Award. Plans are being made to make a movie of the Piano Teacher, with Eugene writing the screenplay. Eugene currently has several projects underway which he is excited to share over the course of his cSPACE Eau Claire residency. He lives in the Beltline area of Calgary with his wife Belina.
