Icon - DSpace - University of Regina

Friends Connie Gault (L) and Marlis Wesseler take some time out from their writing for a regular afternoon walk together.
One of the stories from Gault's second collection was adapted
into the full-length movie, Solitude, by Regina filmmaker and U of
R alumnus Robin Schlaht BFA’92. Gault co-wrote the screenplay
for the project. "It's a wonderful thing to see your work portrayed
in different ways. I feel pretty lucky because I've had radio and film,
video and stage [productions and adaptations]."
Gault says finishing a major project is what brings her the most
satisfaction as a writer, pointing to the completion of her first story
collection and her first play as career highlights. She was the fiction
editor of Grain magazine for three years, and has also helped teach
and encourage developing writers as part of the Saskatchewan
Writers Guild's mentorship program.
Gault is currently writing her debut novel, set in the late 1800s
in Saskatchewan and Ontario. "Mine's not a historical novel in the
sense that it's about a certain time period or historical events—it's
more integrated. It came from my interest in finding out what it
might have been like to live and think then."
Marlis Wesseler BA(Hons)’84
One of Connie Gault's classmates in the early 1980s was
another aspiring writer, Marlis Wesseler. After completing an
Honours BA in English in 1984, Wesseler went on to publish
two story collections and a novel. Her first collection, Life Skills
(1992), and the novel, Elvis Unplugged (1998), were both
nominated in multiple categories, including Book of the Year, at
12 THE THIRD DEGREE Spring 2004
the annual Saskatchewan Book Awards. Wesseler also worked as a
manuscript reviewer at Coteau Books for several years, and
recently completed a turn as Grain's fiction editor.
Wesseler says her years at the U of R were crucial to her
development as a writer, citing the affirmation and support she
received during that period from professor Joan Givner and
classmates Gault and Dianne Warren BFA’76 (yet another U of R
graduate who has become an accomplished writer).
Wesseler made her first sale as a fiction writer while she was still
at University, placing a story with CBC radio. "Joan Givner
encouraged me to start writing. So I wrote something for her, and
she suggested I send it to the CBC. And they took it."
Givner's mentoring and encouragement also helped pave the
way for the establishment of one of the most successful writers
groups in Regina's history. "We'd all get together for lunch with
Joan at the Faculty Club once in a while," Wesseler recalls. "So it
started with us as students. Eventually Connie, Dianne and I
joined a writers group called the Bombay Bicycle Club with Ven
Begamudré, Chris Fisher and Bonnie Burnard." The group lasted
for seven years. Wesseler says she, Gault and Warren are still close
friends, helping each other with their various writing projects.
Wesseler's second novel, South of the Border, is slated for
publication by Coteau this fall. She describes it as "the story of a
young Canadian travelling with her best friend in Mexico in the
1970s, and how she deals with one traumatic experience among a
variety of amusing ones."