Pohl-Weary's Street Writers

They say you should always “write what you know,” and what author Emily Pohl-Weary knows best is Parkdale, the gritty downtown Toronto neighbourhood where she was born and raised. Pohl-Weary’s two novels – A Girl Like Sugar and the YA work Strange Times at Western High – are both set in Parkdale-like communities. And now, she’s launching a writing workshop geared at youth from the area, encouraging them to write about their experiences growing up there.

Beginning next Tuesday, the Parkdale Street Writers will meet every week for the next seven months for a series of workshops aimed at burgeoning authors between the ages of 15 and 21. A related workshop, geared at young artists and designers, will gather on Thursdays, led by Toronto artist and book illustrator Willow Dawson. To help lead the sessions, Pohl-Weary has enlisted a number of local writers, artists, and poets, including Skim author Mariko Tamaki, writer Kristyn Dunnion, hip-hop lyricist Mindbender, and Stro1, a street artist and videographer.

Growing up, Pohl-Weary didn’t receive a lot of encouragement to pursue a career in the arts, which she regrets. “My main interest is to bring in local people, so that the youth can actually see that working as a writer – or in the arts – is a viable option,” she says.

Pohl-Weary got the idea after leading writing workshops for high school English classes as part of the Descant Arts and Letters Foundation’s S.W.A.T. program. But Pohl-Weary was dismayed by the fact that her students were there only because they had to be. By contrast, when she launched a 10-week pilot program in Parkdale last spring, she was overwhelmed by the number of enthusiastic young people who registered – nearly 40 participants, double the number she anticipated.

“I just thought it was phenomenal, because they’re not being paid to be there, they’re not being graded,” she says. “They’re not getting anything except a chance to come in and hang out with a bunch of other writers who are taking it seriously.”

Impressed by that early success, the Parkdale Community Health Centre stepped in as the main sponsor of the workshop, offering to provide space and resources. (The program is also receiving funding from the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council, with possible added funding from the Ontario Arts Council still pending.) The sessions will culminate with a gallery show for the artists; the writers will have an opportunity to be published in The Scrawl, a web journal created during the first Parkdale Street Writers program.

And the kids aren’t the only ones to get something out of it. Pohl-Weary says that the workshops help her sharpen her own skills as an author, too: “I get to eavesdrop on how [youth] talk to each other, so my dialogue is a little more natural.”