“The WCC writing workshops were a bold experiment for us to encourage individual creativity and community building. The project succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”
– Jim Swafford, Living Long In the Distillery
Reflecting Canada’s evolving demographics, the demand for Writers Collective of Canada (WCC) workshops in older-adult populations is growing. Every week, our workshops reach older adults through public libraries, community health centres, drop-in centres, Veteran service groups, naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs), supportive housing residences, virtual (Zoom) rooms, and other spaces.
As we engage with and listen deeply to older-adult populations, we are reminded of the powerful intersectionality of our program.
A flourishing circle of diversity
“Don’t think of me as a category. I don’t want to be thought of as a senior. I am a person. I happen to be older.”
– Carmel Suttor, WCC facilitator and trainer
While terms like “seniors” and “older adults” suggest a distinct group, in reality, this demographic spans the breadth of human experience.
At East End Community Health Centre (EECHC) in Toronto, “the older adults we serve are quite diverse,” says Martin Bryan, a WCC facilitator and community health worker at EECHC. “Our WCC workshop participants are various ages, from 55 to 90 and above, different races and cultures, socioeconomic statuses—many are low-income seniors.”
WCC workshops at WoodGreen St. Hilda’s retirement community in Toronto are open to residents of three distinct buildings, as WCC facilitator Helen Kennedy explains: “One is a streets-to-homes building with social workers and addiction support services. Another is an older-adults independent living residence, and the third is an assisted-living building. Among our writers are people from Jamaica, Philippines, Tunisia, Kenya, and more. It’s incredibly diverse in both culture and needs, and the stories reflect that diversity.”
WCC workshops also surface the breadth of human experience in communities that appear more uniform. Jim Swafford spearheaded and participated in a WCC writing program for seniors at Living Long in the Distillery—a naturally occurring retirement community (NORC)* in Toronto. He explains: “This is a fairly well-heeled neighbourhood, yet there’s a diversity of experience if you just scratch the surface a little bit. It is a great education for everybody in the writing group.”
The WCC workshop model is uniquely able to access and celebrate human experience. Facilitators spark creativity and reflection, then guide participants to affirm and celebrate every story shared. The depth and breadth of experience portrayed in the writing ignites deeper connection, in turn encouraging more stories, memories, and insight.
WCC writers and facilitators consistently credit the workshop experience for developing an increased sense of connection and community, along with greater tolerance and reduced feelings of judgement that they carry forward into the rest of their lives.
As most of our volunteer facilitators come from the communities we serve, the circle grows. Well over one quarter of WCC’s 400-plus facilitators are aged 55 and older, and most begin as writers in our workshops. Our program serves as a valuable social prescription. You can benefit either by participating directly or by training as a facilitator—an act of volunteering that is itself a recognized social prescription.”
Building community by writing together
“The WCC writing workshops gave me experiences to learn about myself more. They gave me opportunities for dreaming and fantasy that I found very surprising. This is a creative outlet that seniors don’t often get the chance to participate in.”
– Angela Turner, WCC writer and facilitator
Every WCC partnership reveals new ways that our workshop program builds connection and reduces isolation by igniting creative exploration.
“Writing or reading puts us in a very vulnerable position sometimes,” Martin says. “There is a fear of judgement, or of sharing our life experiences. The writers are often hesitant; perhaps a prompt brought up some emotional memories. But when they do read aloud, you feel their sense of pride that they were able to overcome something, and the others really validate the writer. It’s beautiful.”
The workshops at EECHC serve as a low-barrier touchpoint that deepens trust and connection between Martin and his clients. “The community members that come to WCC workshops sometimes have needs that are not met, and it’s an opportunity for me to connect with those folks and offer them additional services, whether that be a doctor or case management.”
At the WoodGreen workshops, Helen says, “We’ve been through a lot together as a group. One of our participants died last year, very tragically. It was really sad, but we met and we talked, and at the next workshop, the prompt was about loss. In another case, one of the participants lost their partner, and we wrote about lost loves.”
When Jim initially engaged with WCC, it was to support a six-month Life Stories project for LLID’s residents, but workshops persist beyond that project. “The project succeeded beyond our wildest dreams in terms of encouraging creativity and building community,” he reports. “These structured workshops have become a very important part of what we do and who we are now.”
Building selfhood through story
“The snippets of my life … poured out of the reservoirs of my mind in which they had been silently stored. [WCC] helped me bring them back to life.”
– Aysan Sev’er, WCC writer
In addition to connection with community and supportive services, WCC workshops spark connection to self—a critical step in social participation and self-advocacy. Because WCC welcomes everyone as a writer, traditional barriers to access writing programs, such as prior experience or level of literacy, do not exist in our workshops.
Michele Wozny, WCC facilitator at Salus Housing Corporation in Ottawa, provides a noteworthy example: “I’ve had people come to the WCC workshops who are functionally illiterate. So for them to have the bravery to attend—it’s such a big step for them just to walk through the door.” Doug Grundman, WCC facilitator and Executive Director recalls facilitating a workshop for newcomers to Canada in which stories just one-sentence long were encouraged and validated.
Even for those who are comfortable writing in one of Canada’s official languages, WCC workshops can surprise and delight.
Jim, a former professor of English literature, says: “The WCC writing sessions have me discovering and writing in a voice I didn’t know I had. A voice I didn’t even know that I intended to use, and I thought afterwards, Whoa, who said that? Where did that come from? Sometimes that voice was the mean side of myself, but it’s good to know that’s there sometimes, and I can think of that as fictional, too, rather than being the ‘real me’. There is something really weirdly freeing about that.”
Aysan Sev’er, another participant in the LLID workshops and former academic, credits WCC workshops in the foreword of her new book: “The zest for writing short stories got rooted in my own personal goals. I kept on writing the stories that eventually formed the collection in this book. The snippets of my life, sometimes funny, sometimes thought provoking, sometimes sad, and other times contemplative poured out of the reservoirs of my mind in which they had been silently stored. [WCC] helped me bring them back to life.” **
For WCC facilitator Angela Turner, the thrilling self-expression unlocked in WCC workshops motivated her to train to become a facilitator to offer the experience to others. “Most of the time [in WCC workshops], I was just writing total fantasies and dreams, and about other worlds that totally surprised me. I give a lot of credit to the facilitators and the environment they created allowed people to do that. For me, it was a really enriching experience that I don’t get in many other activities. I wanted to bring that to other people.”
She adds: “And you know, it’s very low cost. You don’t need anything but a piece of paper and pencil or a pen.”
Expanded programming for seniors on the horizon
To be human is to be wholly unique; to be in community is to learn how much we all share. Nowhere is this more richly experienced than in WCC workshops with older adults.
We are thrilled to be developing a strategy around programming for older adults. This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada’s grant, New Horizons for Seniors Program.*** While it is focused on programming for Canadians ages 55 and up, the investment will enrich and strengthen every aspect of our delivery model—because from seniors, we learn what it means to be human.
This is why we like to say: By writing together we discover ourselves.
We invite you to bring WCC workshops to your community. Become a WCC Program Partner or train to become a volunteer WCC facilitator.
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NOTES:
*To learn more about NORCs, visit the NORC Innovation Centre website
**Aysan Sev’er. Prologue. Looking Back: Short Stories from a Long Life. 2026.
***The ideas, views and opinions in this publication belong to the author(s). They may not reflect those of the Government of Canada.