The Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture at the University of Manitoba, the first institute of its kind in North America, is a place for creativity, for scholarly research into oral and literate cultures, and for making connections between the University and the community. Opened in the fall of 2008, the Centre provides crucial support for students, faculty and community members who are working to create their own stories or who are studying the stories of others.
The Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture is an interdisciplinary, research-based facility that permits artists, scholars and students from diverse backgrounds to explore the transformative possibilities of the spoken and written word.
To view a video of our facilities, please click here.
To view photos of our grand opening on September 10, 2008, click here.NEWS
Congratulations to all the winners and nominees of the 2013 Manitoba Book Awards! Special mention goes out to three CCWOC affiliates: MEIRA COOK, who won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award for her novel, The House on Sugarbush Road, DENNIS COOLEY, who won the Lifetime Achievement Award, and JONATHAN BALL, who won the Aqua Lansdowne Prize for Poetry for his work, The Politics of Knives. Kudos, everyone!
On April 13, 2013, CCWOC Board Member RENATE EIGENBROD, along with Cheryl Suggashie of Pikangikum First Nation, co-hosted a creative writing workshop to help indigenous youth find their inner voices as writers. To learn more about that workshop, please click HERE.
CCWOC extends its welcome to the Manitoba Writers' Guild's new Executive Director, Winnipeg playwright CAROLYN GRAY.
On November 21, 2013, the Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture hosted “Ekphrastic Encounters”, a poetry workshop co-facilitated by CCWOC's Fall 2012 Writer-in-Residence SALLY ITO and CCWOC Affiliate and Poet JENNIFER STILL. To hear some recordings that stemmed from that workshop, including a reading by CCWOC's Winter 2013 Storyteller-in-Residence, CLARE MURPHY, please click HERE.
On April 16, 2013, Canadian Poetries published a conversation about ekphrasis with former CCWOC Writer-in-Residence SALLY ITO and with CCWOC affiliate and poet JENNIFER STILL. Please click here to read that interview.
CCWOC wishes to thank its outgoing Winter 2013 Storyteller-in-Residence, CLARE MURPHY, for her excellent work with us. If you'd like to catch Clare's last performance in Winnipeg, click here for more details about her participation in Wine & Words: New Writings on April 13, 2013.
Congratulations to U of M Alumnus SALEEMA NAWAZ on the publication of her first novel, Bone & Bread. To learn more about this work, please click here and here.
To learn more about what it's like to be a professional storyteller, click here to watch an interview of CCWOC's Winter 2013 Storyteller-in-Residence, CLARE MURPHY, on CTV Morning Live.
Congratulations to CCWOC Office Assistant, JENNIFER STILL, on receiving the Banff Centre Bliss Carman Poetry Award for her winning poem, "Spiny Oakworm" in the annual Prairie Fire-McNally Robinson writing competition. Well done, Jenn!
In November, former CCWOC Writer-in-Residence Sally Ito and CCWOC Affiliate Jennifer Still offered a workshop entitled "Ekphrastic Encounters: Animating Art with Words," in which participants offered poetic responses to the University of Manitoba's School of Art Gallery's "Re-configuring Abstraction" exhibit. CCWOC invites you to listen to the 2012 ekphrasis poets reading their poems here.
The Centre wishes to congratulate CCWOC affiliate Annette Lapointe on her latest book, Whitetail Shooting Gallery!
CCWOC is pleased to announce its Winter 2013 Storyteller-in-Residence, CLARE MURPHY. Clare will be in residence with us from January to April 2013. For more information about Clare and how to reach her for a FREE CONSULTATION, please click here.
Congratulations to Méira Cook, a former CCWOC writer-in-residence, for winning the inaugural Walrus Poetry Prize. Her prize-winning poem, “The Devil’s Advocate,” will appear in the December 2012 issue of the Walrus.
Congratulations to CCWOC affiliate Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair and CCWOC Director Warren Cariou, co-editors of Manitowapow, which won this year's On the Same Page contest! Readers have selected Manitowapow as the book for all Manitobans to read during On The Same Page 2012-13!
CCWOC invites you to enjoy recordings of Yiddish stories and poems by women writers, read and recorded by members of the Winnipeg Yiddish Women’s Reading Circle, in collaboration with CCWOC. Please click here to listen to these wonderful works!
WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS? Many of us take our rights and privileges as citizens and as individuals for granted, and yet there is much political and social debate surrounding the many definitions of human rights. The Centre's Dr. Warren Cariou, along with Dr. Neil McArthur of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics, set out to investigate this issue in a documentary that asks, "What are human rights?" For more information about this work in progress, please click here. To see a clip of this documentary, please click here.
CCWOC Staff and Steering Committee
CCWOC Director, Dr. Warren Cariou
CCWOC's Assistant to the Director,
Jessica Woolford, with Dr. Cariou
CCWOC Research Assistant,
Susan Rich
CCWOC Research Assistant,
Marcos Cordeiro