Winona Kent: Lost Time

How did your time in the Creative Writing Program influence your work?

The habit of daily writing encouraged in the UBC Creative Writing Program as well as the thrilling experience of workshopping creative pieces (albeit virtually) were instrumental in my development as a writer. The all-important presence of the creative writing teachers was also imperative. Not only did they support me and cheer me on, they taught important lessons about craft and offered helpful feedback and criticism when appropriate.

Summer on-campus writing programs were also a fantastic way to bring us all together in community and spirit. I’ll never forget Screenwriting Bootcamp. It was a killer, but I fell in love with a brand new way of writing (for me), and it opened my mind and heart to aspects of dialogue, sub-text, three-act structure that I hadn’t even considered before.

The overall experience of the Creative Writing Program was exciting, enlightening and thoroughly enjoyable.

What’s your latest published/performed work(s)?

I have several works-in-progress right now, including short stories and a novel.

Are you connected to any creative writing communities you’d like to mention (UBC alums, film and theatre communities, etc)?

I am a member of Sarah Selecky’s Centered Writing Group.

Is there anything else about your writing career you’d like to share?

I continue to write with more confidence and awareness of craft now that I’ve graduated from the program. And I’m happily sending my work out into the world. What more could a writer ask for?!

In 2021 Elaine Woo’s Put Your Hand in Mine was cited by CBC Radio North by Northwest host Sheryl MacKay and Western Sky co-owner Tamara Gorin as one of the three best poetry collections in recent years. Her bio is also in ABC BookWorld. She has written libretto and song lyrics for art song and other media. Her collaborations with Vegas composer Rylan Leo Helmuth are found at https://soundcloud/elainesoundpath. Some pieces of her own creation are surreal pieces.

She has created vegan recipes and written articles about coping with anxiety and depression, the poverty of seniors, why people look angry for the mindfulness site The Elephant Journal in Boulder, Co.

How did your time in the Creative Writing Program influence your work?

This MFA was hugely important, supporting my career development as a writer. I arrived at UBC Acadia family housing from the Yukon with my husband and 2 young daughters. I benefitted greatly from writing workshops in my genres (plays, screen, short fiction) with Bryan Wade, Peggy Thompson, Linda Svendsen & inspiring student peers. I acted in Summerworks in my first solo incarnation of my play West Edmonton Mall (later produced for stage, radio) & adapted Professor Emeritus Patricia Marchak’s powerful book God’s Assassins for a Vancouver Institute public reading. My thesis play Where the River Meets the Sea won a national award and was produced; my early fiction forms part of my forthcoming collection. I had the confidence to co-found Gwaandak Theatre with my husband Leonard Linklater, pursuing our passion with a company focused on Indigenous and diverse Northern voices we didn’t see told often; the company is still thriving. The MFA helped me to find and chart my creative path.

What’s your latest published/performed work(s)?

Co-creator, Ndoo Tr’eedyaa Gogwaandak – Vuntut Gwitchin Stories, radio plays/booklets in Gwich’in/English (Gwaandak Theatre/Vuntut Gwitchin Govt.): vuntutstories.ca. Stage play Paradise, 2017, Playwrights Canada Press; Gwaandak/MT Space production toured nationally. Excerpt forthcoming, Refractions: Scenes, PCP 2020. Co-creator, Map of the Land, Map of the Stars, exploring untold stories of the Yukon’s history. Toured in north and nationally, published in Canadian Theatre Review, Spring 2018

What are your most recent awards?

Yukon Heritage Innovation, Education, & Community Engagement Award for Ndoo Tr’eedyaa Gogwaandak – Vuntut Gwitchin Stories (Gwaandak Theatre/Vuntut Gwitchin Government) in 2019 (I was a co-creator, dramaturg and co-director)
Selected participant for National Playwrights Retreat, Caravan Farm Theatre, B.C., 2019
Arts Builder Award, with husband Leonard Linklater, Yukon Arts Centre, 2016
Kiss That Alaska Highway, Winner, Female Eye Film Festival Script Reading Series, 2011

Are you connected to any creative writing communities you’d like to mention (UBC alums, film and theatre communities, etc)?

Actively involved in Playwrights Guild of Canada, incoming editor of Women’s Caucus Newsletter. Member of The Writers’ Union of Canada,
Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas. A founding director of new Yukon Words Society. Whitehorse fiction group: Joanna Lilley, Lily Gontard, Ellen Bielawski. Fellow MFAers: Marcus Youssef, Sara Graefe (a year ahead), Kevin Chong, CJ Gatchalian, Natalie Meisner, Rachel Ditor, Craig Holzschuh. Love to connect with others!

Is there anything else about your writing career you’d like to share?

Fiction collection Such A Lovely Afternoon forthcoming 2021. Working now on first novel.
Award-winning writer of produced/published plays, screenplays, fiction.
Currently Playwrights Guild CASA mentor working with South African playwright Tamara Schultz.
Also works as a dramaturg, director.

Recent residencies: Caravan Farm Theatre, Sage Hill Writing Experience, Alderworks Alaska
Links to plays:

https://www.playwrightscanada.com/Books/P/Paradise
https://www.canadianplayoutlet.com/products/sixty-below-leonard-linklater
https://www.canadianplayoutlet.com/products/street-signs
https://www.canadianplayoutlet.com/products/west-edmonton-mall
https://www.canadianplayoutlet.com/products/where-the-river-meets-the-sea
https://www.playwrightscanada.com/Books/R/Refractions-Scenes

Co-Devised Works:
https://vuntutstories.ca/
Map of the Land Map of the Stars: https://ctr.utpjournals.press/doi/10.3138/ctr.174.013
Other: Nightswimming Pure Research Project with Reneltta

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