Finding Creative Identities: Mennonite Writers in Winnipeg

Diane Driedger (1) ABSTRACT/RESUME In this paper, the authors focus on the changing creative identities of Mennonite writers in Winnipeg who move between two worlds in an electronic age, from oral to written encoding. This process began with three individual sojourners who found it difficult to gain a following in Winnipeg. Since the 1970s, two young Mennonite writers have become mentors who, with great difficulty, bridged the rural-urban gap. They were rooted in Winnipeg and became important leaders in the Mennonite literary world. Since then the creation of a publishing house, the Writers' Guild, and various social networks have encouraged two dozen Mennonite writers to flourish and compete with the best. In a search for Winnipeg Mennonite poets, novelists, and short story writers, the authors interviewed twenty-three Mennonite writers. Younger writers have become more rooted in the city, feel more at home there, and have developed agendas which go beyond immigrant adjustments and segregated, Mennonite identities. Les mennonites de Winnipeg se trouvent entre deux mondes, passant du codage oral au codage ecrit a un age electronique. Dans la presente communication, les auteurs se concentrent sur les identites creatrices en evolution des ecrivains mennonites. Cela a debute avec trois frontaliers individuels qui ont trouve difficile d' obtenir des suiveurs dans la ville. Deux jeunes ecrivains mennonites sont devenus, depuis les annees 1970, des conseillers qui avec beaucoup d' agonie et d'efforts ont comble la lacune rurale-urbaine, etaient enracines a Winnipeg et sont devenus d'importants meneurs dans le monde de l'ecriture mennonite. Depuis la creation d'une maison d'edition, >, les systemes sociaux ont encourage deux douzaines d'ecrivains mennonites prosperer et concurrencer avec les meilleurs. A la recherche de poetes, de romanciers, d'auteurs de nouvelles mennonites Winnipeg, les auteurs ont eu des entrevues avec 23 ecrivains mennonites et ont communique leurs conclusions. Les ecrivains plus jeunes so nt devenus plus enracines dans la ville, ils se sentent plus a l'aise la, et se sont tournes vers des agendas au-dela de l'adaptation des immigrants et des identities des mennonites segregues. In 1999, Manitoba Mennonites celebrated their arrival at the Forks in Winnipeg 125 years ago. The first Mennonite settlers docked at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers in 1874, but stayed in Winnipeg only long enough to buy supplies, farm machinery, and animals before they all moved on to the junction of the Red and Rat Rivers. They established villages on the East Reserve near Steinbach. When, on August 1 1999, the ancestors of these immigrants again boarded a boat to re-enact the original arrival at the Forks, much had changed and these changes need to be documented. Since then the Mennonites have migrated to Winnipeg, where 22,000 now reside. In this paper we focus on the changing creative identities of Mennonite writers. The search for identity began with individual urban sojourners such as Paul Hiebert, Arnold Dyck, and Rudy Wiebe, who found it difficult to gain a following for their writing endeavours in the city. Younger writers, such as Patrick Friesen and Di Brandt, became more deeply rooted in Winnipeg, and have mentored many others and helped create important social identities which bridge the experience of the Mennonite reserve and more complex urban demands. Younger writers today have become more rooted in the city, feel more at home and have developed agendas which go beyond immigrant adjustments and segmented Mennonite identities. In order to explore the changes in Mennonite urban creative writing identities in Winnipeg, we interviewed twenty-three poets, novelists, and short story writers. Identity Trials of Creative Sojourners Peter Pauls, in his Search for Identity, begins by saying ... to know oneself is a never-ending quest. …

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