The Lyric Theatre in Swift Current recently hosted an event showcasing local writers and authors from here in the prairies.

Write Out Loud is an event with over 30 years of history, originally hosted in various local cafes around Swift Current, it was adopted by the  Lyric Theatre and their Write Out Load committee.

Terry Toews is a member of the Write Out Loud Committee, and she shared some key information about the event.

"The committee at the Lyric Theatre brings in writers, generally from the prairies," explained Toews. "We've widened that from time to time to include BC and even Ontario and every February we have a local writers night that features up to four area writers from Swift, Current and around the city."

The long-standing goal for Write Out Loud is to provide exposure for the local reading public to local talent in writing. Prairies authors can often go overlooked at home, so this event helps to put them on the radar of the people they are often writing for and about.

This year's local talent was a quadrilogy of prairie writers from here in Saskatchewan.

"This year we had Jill Cavanagh, a writer from Swift, Current, Melanie Larson, a children's writer from Simmie, Norma Hunter, also a children's writer, from Shaunavon, and Tina Marie Letwiniuk, who is a writer, a member of the Prairie Quilt writing group in Swift Current and now also on our committee, who just joined this year."

For the last two years during the pandemic, the event has been hosted online. They compile videos of guest authors sharing their works and put them up on their Facebook page and on their youtube channel. The Lyric hopes to host the event live in person again this coming fall.

"We just really appreciate our audience," Toews affirmed. "They've stuck with us through thick and thin and we're hoping to be back in the theatre in the fall. We'll see where the pandemic takes us, but that's our genuine hope for the future."