麻豆传媒AV

An aspiring writer originally from Yorkton has earned an award which has at least boosted her confidence in the field.

Shannon Landels, now of Saskatoon, was the first prize winner in the Open category of the 2011 24-Hour Playwriting Competition. The event is hosted annually be the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre.

"The win blew me off my feet," Landels told Yorkton This Week. "They announced the winners in a very interesting way. Instead of just saying who won each place, they brought in a group of actors to read out a scene from each of the winning plays. I was actually a little disappointed when they started to perform the honourable mention and third places scenes in the open category and I realized they were not mine, thinking they were the ones I had a shot at. So when the actors become my characters for the first place win."

Landels said the win is certainly a confidence builder.

"I think the biggest thing about winning the competition for me was the boast of encouragement and confidence it gave me in my writing," she said. "For a new writer, it is big to find out someone, other than your mother, believes in and enjoys your work. It also sparked the desire to turn the script into a play. The wheels are definitely turning and I already have recruited some fellow enthusiasts on board. So if, and hopefully it does, reach stage I hope to bring the performance to Yorkton."

The winning piece actually has its inspiration in a job Landels once held in the Yorkton area.

"The title of the play 'The Tenacity of Weeds', along with the ideology of the piece was inspired by the truly most satisfying and enjoyable job I have had in my vagabond travels," she explained. "For two summers I worked at the Prairie Dome Strawberries and Potatoes farm alongside the Vermettes who treated me like family, and I loved every moment in the dirt. One day Marie, Tonia and myself were weeding, a task that occupies most hours at Prairie Dome, when Marie commented on how we can learn a lot from the tenacity of weeds. The idea stuck with me for a very long time and I was excited when I first realized I could finally use it.

"Walking into the competition, I had a single idea: at the end of the world there sits a solitary bench, and there are two men who have somehow made it to this peculiar location. Eventually these two men turned into Tavner, a lonely and weary traveller, whose memory has been selective at the best of times and whose life has been peppered with hints of immortality. While the other is a mysterious character named Desmond who helps Tavner to relive his travels and the magic his memory has failed."

The competition was a first for Landels, a first on several levels actually.

"Yes, this was the first time I have ever done a competition in which we had to write the piece on site, or really any type of writing retreat," she said. "When I first saw the poster, I was definitely intrigued by the seclusion of the concept. I find, as I am sure everyone else does, that it is hard in everyday life to get the chance to completely concentrate on a piece of writing. There are always distractions, so the idea of being able to become entirely lost in writing for a full day seemed like a wish come true.

"And the competition definitely did not disappoint. The Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre took care of absolutely everything from more food than you could possibly eat, to copious amounts of coffee or humorously inspiring quotes, which allowed you to truly think only about the task at hand. I full heartily recommend the experience."

And writing plays was also a new experience for Landels.

"This is my first attempt at a play," she said. Up till now, I have mostly written short fiction with a couple prospective longer pieces.

"However, I have always been involved and fascinated with theatre, which has greatly affected my writing. I often, while writing a section of a story, close my eyes and watch the characters act it out before I commit it to page, so writing a play felt wonderfully natural."

While new experiences for Landels, the constraint of 24-hours was still the biggest challenge for the young writer.

"I think the biggest challenge, for anyone who does this type of competition, is the time limit," she said. "I find with any piece I write, I go through a natural progression. At first you are excited by the new idea or concept that you have stumbled upon and are anxious to scribble it down.

"Then half way through you hit the block of self loathing and start ranting in a British accent about how everything is rubbish. But then somehow by the end it all comes together.

"With only 24-hours to produce something readable, the whole gambit of emotions had to be speed up tenfold. So whether it was the caffeine overload or sleep deprivation, I found hour 19 a particularly delirious one which had me cuddled in a corner of the university chuckling with tears over the latest joke one character had made at another's expense. But by the end I felt ecstatic with the simple fact I was successful in completion of a play and a little reluctant to step back out into the real world."

For Landels writing has long been an interest.

"I have always been interested in writing," she said. My mother's second true love, next to my father, has always been the written word, and growing up she passed onto me this passion not only for collecting literature but composing, which she did beautifully and always encouraged me to do the same.

"I attended the Yorkton Regional High School, graduating in the class of 2005. In high school is when I started to take the writing process seriously and won a couple local contests under the skillful direction of my creative writing teacher, Mr. Nesseth. Unfortunately, come University, creative writing took a back seat to academia and I have only recently gotten back into it since I have convocated."

Landels said writing is not yet a career, but if that were to happen it would be welcome.

"For now writing is a hobby, but one day if I am so fortunate, I would love to be able to dedicate myself to it completely," she said.