VEMU Estonian Museum Canada’s Writers’ Club, which started up in late fall of 2023, has been busy throughout 2024. Those who gather have an ongoing interest in documenting their family histories and memoirs. Anne Remmel, who has just launched her first book, Two Worlds Within – A Memoir of Dual Identity, first shared her writing experience in the workshops, where we learned how to kickstart our own writing projects and conquer obstacles, find our roots, and do research. Anne gave us tips on how to cultivate self-discipline and find a suitable form of expression for ourselves.
The spring season was productive: we wrote vignettes about our childhoods, travels, and life in multicultural Canada as well as practiced how to write descriptive portraits. Discussions were very lively since Estonian-Canadians from multiple generations, but also Estonians who have come from the homeland, take part in the club.
For our summer projects, we wrote about how the Second World War has affected us and touched our lives. Over the course of the fall, we shared some of these stories with Eesti Elu /Estonian Life readers. This is our contribution to the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Great Escape.
New members joined the group in autumn. We’ve practiced writing dialogue and learned other useful techniques to help our texts reach our readers better.