Metaphor Magic
an afternoon writing workshop
facilitated by
Gwynn Scheltema
2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Thursday, October 16, 2025
The Northumberland Room
The Best Western Cobourg Inn
sponsored in conjunction with the
Third Thursday Reading Series
by the Cobourg Poetry Workshop
Fee: $25
Where do I dig up the treasure that enriches poetry?
What is the spark that ignites poetic fire?
Yes, most of us have a basic understanding of metaphors.
But really, we want total electrification on our creative grid.
Can we write metaphors that engage on a deeper level?
In this workshop, we will learn a magic trick
– how skilled contemporary poets use metaphors.
More, we’ll play with methods that create strong metaphors
full of surprise, punch, and power.
Put wind in your artistic sails.
Come ready to experiment.
Be prepared to tackle generative exercises.
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Later the same date, Gwynn will give a poetry reading for a public audience as one of three Featured poets during the October event in our regular monthly Third Thursday Reading.
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About the Facilitator:
Gwynn Scheltema has taught creative writing for over 25 years, at community colleges, private colleges, government conferences, retreats, and, day-and-evening workshops.
She is also an award-winning poet and fiction writer. Her most recent poetry collection, Everchild, was released by Aeolus House.
Gwynn was an editor for Lichen, Arts & Letters Preview literary journal for nine years. Her award-winning poetry and fiction have been published in anthologies, journals and magazines in Canada, and South Africa, online and in print.
She is President of the Northumberland Festival of the Arts.
Her chapbook "Ten of Diamonds" was released in 2021 by Glentula Press, and she is one of five featured poets in One Ticket Five Rides from Whirling Dervish Press.
Gwynn Scheltema is a member of the Cobourg Poetry Workshop.
She has received the Timothy Findley Creative Writing Prize, and the Julian Blackburn Essay Prize. Her work has placed in contests including The Toronto Star Short Story Contest, CV2 48-hour poetry contest, and the Spirit of the Hills Readers Choice Poetry Contest in 2021.
Gwynn is a member of the local artists and writers group “Spirit of the Hills.”
More than a decade ago, "the group became interested in the new radio station in Cobourg, Northumberland 89.7 FM. Felicity Sidnell Reid and I proposed a twelve week series in which we would interview writers of all kinds: novelists, memoirists, editors, poets and publishers from our region and invite them to read from their work."
She currently co-hosts and produces this literary radio show “Word on the Hills” on CFWN 89.7 FM, which has now been on the air since 2013 and is still running!
Gwynn is the President of the Northumberland Festival of the Arts, for which she received the Major Civic Award in Arts and Culture from the Town of Cobourg in April of this year.
Gwynn worked as a writing freelancer under her business “The Write Connection” for 25 years, during which time she wrote hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles and blogs. She also spent 15 years working in various communications offices in the provincial government as a senior writer/editor and communications trainer.
As a partner in WRITESCAPE she has facilitated creative writing workshops and retreats and helped many writers on their writing journey through coaching and editing services since 2008.
Gwynn writes from her forest home on the shores of Lake Seymour on the Trent Severn Waterway system in Ontario, but she was born and raised amid drought and dust and civil war in Southern Africa. Often her writing is inspired by the people, moods, and landscapes of these two contrasting places.
Gwynn finds solace and inspiration in the natural world, in the sensory and the sensual. Even when she explores human sensibilities—longing, guilt, gratitude, regret, love—the undercurrents of the physical world run deep.
Also check out other Arts events in Cobourg, Literary Art events in Cobourg, Workshops in Cobourg.
