The Swift Current Lyric Theatre will be welcoming all poetry and short story enthusiasts tonight, for a launch of the book, ‘Apart, a Year of Pandemic Poetry and Prose.’ 

The book is an anthology, composed by over 60 writers from all across Saskatchewan and was produced by the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild. 

Caitlin McCullam-Arnal, one of the writers who helped bring the project to life and said that the pieces are centered around the common theme of a pandemic. 

“It's all the writing is about the pandemic, so not necessarily COVID-19,” she said. “There are some stories that allude to the Spanish flu, but it's all poetry in prose about the pandemic.” 

The project, a response to the pandemic began in February of 2021, providing writers with a place to submit their work during a time when many jobs were coming to a halt. 

“A lot of people were out of work during the pandemic and so the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild, they started this project, to come up with an anthology for writers to contribute to,” McCullam-Arnal stated. “So, last February, so that would have been 2021, there was a call to submit your work” 

The project will be participating in the Lyric Theatre’s Write Out Loud Series, which will be posted on their Facebook and Youtube pages and will be available to watch at 7 p.m. this evening.

Participating in the reading will be four of the writers that contributed to the anthology. McCullam-Arnal will be one of the four readers for the event, and will be reading her contribution to compilation, a short story called, ‘Leonard Goes to Yoga.’ 

You can purchase ‘Apart, a Year of Pandemic Poetry and Prose’ by visiting the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild website here, or contacting them by phone at (306)-791-7740. 

You can find the Lyric Theatre’s youtube channel here.