Wordstock: City's artistic renaissance impresses Sandra Shamas

She admits she spent most of her time as a Sudbury High School student hanging around a nearby bakery, smoking and drinking coffee, and dropped out of school when she was just 17.

It was only later that Shamas realized she had a penchant for the performing arts, acting with the Second City and working as a puppeteer on the children's series "Fraggle Rock."

Imagine her delight, then, at the city's burgeoning arts scene in 2015. Ironically, her old high school, now named Sudbury Secondary School, hosts an arts education program.

Shamas, who now lives on a farm in the Halton region, returns to her hometown June 19 as one of the guest speakers at an event kicking off the city's Wordstock Sudbury Literary Festival.

Along with author Terry Fallis, she'll take part in an evening of “readings, retellings and revelations” starting at 5:30 p.m. in the Sheridan Auditorium, at her alma mater, Sudbury Secondary School.

“I think it'll be fun,” Shamas said. “When I grew up in Sudbury, the idea of a literary festival — well, there weren't even two words that even remotely looked like literary festival.

“I'm impressed that Sudbury is embracing the arts as they clearly are doing, that there is a thriving community, and that there is enough interest there to have a literary festival. Good for you, Sudbury. Well done.”

Shamas writes, directs, produces and performs her own works, which usually take the form of one-woman monologues using her life story as material.

She has documented in this way her journey through dating and relationships, divorce and despair, life on the farm and hot flashes.

Shamas has been nominated for a Governor General’s Award for Humour and has won a Gemini for Best Performance in Comedy and the Best Theatre Award at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.

She was also a finalist for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour in 1998 for her one-woman trilogy, "My Boyfriend’s Back and There’s Gonna Be Laundry."

In writing new shows, Shamas said she pays very close attention to her own life.

“People remember births, deaths, things like that, and they are the things we all experience, regardless of who we are,” she said. “We can all tell that story without any hesitation, every one of us, and we've probably told it 1,000 times.”

In appearing at a literary festival, Shamas said she wants to encourage writers to pursue their craft.


“My first piece of advice is, you're not wrong,” she said. “Whatever is in your head, whatever thinking you're doing, and is frightening you, you're not wrong, you're right.

“You're right about who you are. You're right about what you want. If you're not seeing it in the world, it means that you have to create it.”

Besides the event with Shamas and Fallis, Wordstock includes a full day of programming June 20, including workshops, panel discussions, a book launch and performances.

Tickets, which cost between $10 and $50, are available at brownpapertickets.ca or at The Motley Kitchen, Bay Used Books or the Northern Initiative for Social Action.

For the festival's full schedule, visit www.wordstocksudbury.ca.