MOOSE JAW — Stepping into the Moose Jaw Public Library’s theatre during the Festival of Words felt like crossing into a different world — part university classroom, part antique bookstore, and part sacred literary space.
For an hour on July 19, three decorated Canadian writers brought that space to life, offering a window into the beauty, complexity, and power of storytelling.
The featured authors — novelist Guy Vanderhaeghe, poet Sylvia Legris, and physician-author Dr. Jarol Boan — took part in a Saskatchewan Book Awards reading session, one of the festival’s anticipated events. Each offered a distinct literary lens, touching on everything from Prairie birds to cross-border medicine to the evolution of Canada’s literary identity.
“This book is a departure for me,” said Vanderhaeghe, reading from his new nonfiction collection, Because Somebody Asked Me To: Observations on History, Literature, and the Passing Scene. It marked a notable shift in Vanderhaeghe’s four-decade writing career, which had focused exclusively on fiction until now.
“There’s no way I could summarize this book,” he told the audience. “When I attempted that, it sounded like a five-year-old telling you about his amazing favorite cartoon.” Instead, he opted to read aloud the introduction.
He reflected on the changing role of literature in Canada, lamenting the general decline of newspaper book sections and literary magazines. “My generation of English-speaking Canadian writers was preoccupied (with) defining themselves in opposition to the daunting cultural hegemony of the United States,” he said. “We were struggling to learn how to write the reality of our country.
“What passes for reviewing now is now shuttled off to Amazon.ca and Goodreads, where inanity proliferates,” he added, quoting Cynthia Ozick.
Boan read from The Medicine Chest: A Physician’s Journey Towards Reconciliation, which recounts her return to Saskatchewan after 20 years in the United States. “You need to go back to Saskatchewan. That’s your goal,” she recalled a spiritual advisor telling her 10 years prior.
She spoke about the profound impact of working in Indigenous communities, where cultural knowledge and lived experience deepened her clinical perspective. “(There are) several examples in my book of places where I was touched and changed by the cultural interaction that I had.”
Legris opened with an intricate nature poem, describing Prairie plants, birds, and insects in arresting detail. Her phrase “rapid peering,” she explained, was inspired by 20th-century ornithologist Joseph Grinnell, who used it to describe the restless, scanning head movements of birds like grackles and blackbirds as they forage. Legris uses the term as a metaphor for poetic observation — the constant shifting of perspective needed to fully take in the world.
Saturday’s session was part of a festival-wide lineup that included reading sessions, author panels, an earlier fish-and-chip literary trivia night, and the 50th anniversary celebration for Thistledown Press. The festival wrapped up Sunday with a catered breakfast and two themed panels at the Cosmo Centre, closing out another chapter in Moose Jaw’s annual celebration of the written word.
For more information, visit FestivalOfWords.com.
