Brian Stiller, now Chancellor of Tyndale University College and Seminary, launched the first national Canadian Christian writers’ conference in 1984, when serving as President of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC). Patricia Paddey spoke with him on the 25th anniversary of the conference.
Patricia Paddey: You started the annual conference that has evolved into Write! Canada. Why?
Brian Stiller: There was nothing like it in Canada. Plus, I didn’t have enough writers to fill the pages of Faith Today magazine. And so I thought, "Let’s do [a conference] to see whether we can interest people in writing."
Patricia Paddey: What were the obstacles in getting that first conference going?
Brian Stiller: Money. Inertia. Newness. People who had an interest in writing, but were afraid to express it in case they would be seen as trying to be more than they were. We had to shatter that false veneer and affirm with people that if you have a desire to write, you probably can write. And if you probably can write, then it’s a gift of the Lord and you have a responsibility to nurture that gift, and we’re going help you.
Patricia Paddey: As you reflect back on that first conference 25 years ago, and you look at what it is today, what are your thoughts?
Brian Stiller: It’s matured incredibly. There’s a breadth of competent people here who bring to aspiring and current writers insights, suggestions of helps, and open doors that we never had before. Twenty-five years ago, we had no Christian publishing company in Canada. We didn’t have a magazine. Everything came from the States.
Patricia Paddey:: As you think about the ripple effect of all the words that have been written by all the writers who have been nurtured at this conference over the past quarter century, how does that make you feel?
Brian Stiller: I’m delighted to see the Church of Jesus Christ strengthened. That’s my love; the Church. And if I can work with others in putting together those kinds of things—whether it’s a writers’ conference, whether it’s the EFC, whether it’s Tyndale—to strengthen and embolden people to use their gifts and be oracles for the King, then I’m gladdened.
Buy the CD with Brian's 40-minute plenary talk at Write! Canada in June 2009.
Patricia Paddey is a freelance journalist and a member of The Word Guild.
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