Festival of Words concludes 25th annual event with applause, big plans for future

It was a weekend full of literature, panel discussions and connecting with authors about their craft, and organizers of the Saskatchewan Festival of Words are feeling great about how the 25th anniversary event was received.

“I think people really enjoyed it. You got a little bit of Moose Jaw online, and that's really a highlight, is giving that feeling,” said Amanda Farnel, operations manager and, previously, interim director. 

The Festival took place from July 15-18 as a hybrid event that included both virtual and in-person sessions for guests to attend — a decision that ended up being very last-minute but well worth the effort.

“It was a really difficult year for planning, we started out planning a fully in-person Festival, and then we moved to fully online, and then partially online,” said Farnel. “It’s just been a crazy rollercoaster, where we were still planning events a few weeks before the Festival.”

Most author readings, panels, workshops and Q&As were held by livestream on the Festival’s independent website, which also featured virtual tours of Festival venues, daily trivia and a video discussion room for the after-panel lobby experience.

But Farnel and the team happily added some in-person opportunities to attend Festival events once the province confirmed pandemic restrictions would be lifted in time. 

Working with the Moose Jaw Cultural Centre, the Mae Wilson Theatre was the place to be during the weekend, as guests were invited to watch the virtual sessions on the big screen in the theatre, enjoy a live concert from country-rock artist Val Halla and attend a series of three in-person author panels.

“People have been saying how much it meant that we’ve done some in-person and online,” said Farnel. “So I’m very happy that everything turned out and everyone seems really happy with how it went.”

Farnel said the return of a live audience to the concert was definitely a highlight, among other great moments over the weekend.

“I loved the panel on ‘festivals from an author’s perspective,’ that was really great,” said Farnel. “And the [after-event video rooms] were great, because it became almost like a little focus group on what people want to see in future years, [and] it's great to see people are so invested and willing to give us ideas.”

The goal of this year’s Festival was to feel as normal as possible, said Farnel, as the popular event celebrated 25 very successful years in operation. 

“We didn’t want it to be another session you’re watching on a screen, we wanted it to be more like entertainment, and I think we pulled it off,” said Farnel. ‘We were trying to make it feel in-person, but online and you’ll never capture that fully but I think we did pretty well.”

Attendee and author feedback was overwhelmingly positive, she continued, and organizers are already looking forward to next year’s event. 

Farnel confirmed that moving forward in the future, the Festival is going to be keeping a virtual aspect even as sessions return to their usual delivery and volunteers, attendees and authors once again converge on the Friendly City for the weekend.

She also added that being forced into a virtual event last year due to the pandemic really pushed the Festival to adapt sooner than it's natural timeline would have played out, but it turned out to be a positive move.

“For years, we’ve been talking about doing more virtual stuff and we have incorporated it in the past, but this really forced us to completely reevaluate how we look at our festival events,” said Farnel. “It's already giving us opportunities to get [guest authors] that we normally couldn’t because they can’t make it down for the four full days, so it’s really giving us more opportunity to expand and do some cool things.”

Already confirmed for appearances at the 2022 Festival of Words are Giller Prize-winning travel writer Will Ferguson, Cree writer, poet and lawyer Michelle Good and author and screenwriter Emma Donoghue, who penned the novel Room and later adapted it into an Academy Award-winning film.

The Book Launch session will also be making a return to the Festival, in partnership with Saskatoon-based publisher Thistledown Press.

Recordings of all the sessions from this year’s Festival of Words will be available for anyone to view until July 31, hosted online at SKFOW25.com.