NorthWords program posted

The program for Yellowknife's 2008 NorthWords Writers Festival has been posted.

I'm leading a workshop called Breaking the Electronic Barrier on Saturday, June 14, from 9 to 10:30 a.m. While I would never claim to be the All-Knowing Being of the Website Universe, I've set up a couple of websites using a couple of different methods (the original NorthWords website in 2007, and my own website) and am happy to share what I've learned.

I've been cruising the web since the Jurassic period, when it didn't support graphics, and all you saw was green text on a black screen. (Had to type in your own commands to move from one page to another, and everything.) Given my background in journalism and public relations, I've watched with interest as the web has evolved. Along the way I've picked up a bit about Hypertext Markup Language, design principles, and how a website figures into author branding. We'll be talking about these things, and many more. The workshop will be held in the computer lab at Aurora College, so we'll be doing some hands-on work. And - the postal service willing - we'll have a draw for a copy of The Non-Designers Web Book by Robin Williams and John Tollett.

Right after the workshop I'll be participating on a panel called Writing and the Electronic Universe with Anita Daher and Richard Van Camp, moderated by Annelies Pool. We'll be looking at social networking media, including blogs, MySpace, Facebook, etc., and how they affect readers and writers. I'm looking forward to this event as well, because as much as I love the web, I'm not thrilled about the growing number of ways to spend even more of my so-called free time in cyberspace. Who knows? I could come out of it a convert . . . or not!