Since 2012, Lynda Monahan has been working with communities in Prince Albert,  affecting the lives and hearts of hundreds of people.

Lynda’s Writer on the Wards program enabled people of all ages and abilities to write and tell their stories, providing patients, staff, families and caregivers a chance, within extremely difficult circumstances, to be positive and hopeful and to be able to say through their writing “this is me, these are my thoughts and feelings.”

Throughout the course of the program, Lynda spent time on the wards in the Victoria Hospital and other facilities in Prince Albert. With a cartful of colourful journals and a big basket of pens, she encouraged participants to write from their own experience, providing a listening ear and trying to reflect and reinforce the positive in what is communicated. Lynda has found giving people the tools and opportunity to tell their stories can provide a way of coping with pain and sorrow during these trying times in life.

Recently, working with Lynda as a mentor, emerging Indigenous writers participated in Voices of Today, part of the Anskohk 2017 Aboriginal Literature Festival coordinated by Audrey Dreaver with the Saskatchewan Aboriginal Writers Circle Inc. (SAWCI).  Participants also contributed to the Spinal Cord Injury of Saskatchewan’s Artists of Ability Festival, coordinated by Maggie Dixon. This festival was an opportunity for artists with a disability to showcase their work at an accessible arts festival. Lynda also worked with the newcomers at the Multicultural Council, which, in her words, was “so much fun–the sharing of stories and food and laughter and tears. It was a privilege for me to meet every one of these lovely people.” 

In May 2018 Lynda and Northern Artistic Director Judy McNaughton presented at the Saskatchewan Library Association Conference in Regina. Their presentation focused on the potential of collaboration between libraries, artists, and community arts organizations. Preparing the presentation and reflecting on six-years of transformational programming together, was a satisfying completion to Lynda’s work with Common Weal.

In the Spring of 2018, Lynda and the John M. Cuelenaere Public Library received a Canada Council for the Arts grant to continue their work through to 2019.

Certain people have a capacity to transform their environment. Prince Albert is rich with writers’ groups of varied ages and levels, producing inordinate numbers of published authors. This fertile environment can largely be attributed to Lynda Monahan, who supports and promotes the established writers around her, as well as the fledgling writer ready to emerge. Lynda has an ease with people and writing appears to flourish in every setting she enters, from the Rendelyn Home for young mothers, to senior care facilities, to incarcerated women, and children in hospital, all of these settings, in Lynda’s words, “contain the potential for writing.”