Tuesday, January 20, 2009

City of Stories

The British Council, MPH, and London based Spread the Word are organising a series of creative writing workshops for aspiring and developing local writers from 11 – 20 Feb 2009. Here's the blurb :
Everyone loves a good story and these sessions will help writers hone their storytelling skills inspired by real lives and our urban setting. Whether you’re a first time writer or a published author, there’ll be a workshop for you!

Check out the workshop descriptions, timetable and registration details here.

Limited spaces so register early to avoid disappointment!

Everyone has a story to tell and our experienced writer-facilitators from the UK will help unearth the stories from amongst the everyday.

City of Stories will encourage participants to derive inspiration from their surroundings for the production of written work. The writers’ skills will be developed through innovative activities that creatively and sensitively engage the writers with their cities and with the people who inhabit these spaces.

Jeremy Sheldon and Sarah Butler from Spread The Word are the workshop facilitators.

Check out the workshop descriptions here.

Registering for workshops

The creative writing workshops are divided into two categories: beginner writers and advanced writers.

Beginner writers are first time writers who are writing for pleasure, just starting out, who might be in a class or writing group.

Advanced writers are published writers (short stories, articles, non-fiction, etc.) who are either trying to improve specific aspects of their writing, or are trying to get to the next stage in their careers.

Also note that workshops are open to participants aged 18 years old and above and limited to 12 participants a session.

Participation fee:

Half day workshops – no fee
One day workshops – RM 30 (includes lunch)
Two days workshop – RM 50 (includes lunch)

To register, download and complete the registration form and email it to: arts@britishcouncil.org.my

Advice Surgery :

Jeremy and Sarah will be in store at MPH 1 Utama and Mid Valley on 12, 17 and 19 Feb for 1:1 sessions with writers to give their work a full diagnostics. Each session is an hour long and starts from 2.30pm up to 9.30pm and no fee is charged.

If you wish to book an advice surgery session, contact us directly with your preferred date and also include your contact details, a summary of your writing experience and the work you wish you discuss during the session. Work submitted should not be more than 4,500 words.

About the workshop facilitators :

Jeremy Sheldon is the author of two works of fiction, The Comfort Zone and The Smiling Affair, as well as a number of anthologised short stories. He is a tutor on the MA in Creative Writing Programme at Birkbeck, University of London, and at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. He has led fiction workshops for the Arvon Foundation and Spread the Word in the UK and has taught internationally for organisations such as the Geneva Writers Conference and the British Council. In addition to this, Jeremy continues to work as a script editor and development consultant for script writers and film production companies. He graduated from the MA in Creative Writing at UEA in 1996.

Sarah Butler is a writer and freelance project manager with a particular interest in the relationship between writing and place. In 2006 she set up her consultancy, UrbanWords , to explore the area of creative writing and regeneration. Sarah’s background is in community and participatory literature development and has an MA in creative writing from University of East Anglia. She is currently writer-in-residence for a project called Almost an Island? based on the Greenwich Peninsula.

Spread the Word is a London based organisation dedicated to developing writers of all ages and at varying stages of their careers, leading workshops and support groups for writers, and working with writers who offer a tailored approach to education and outreach.

The programme falls under the British Council Inclusive Cities project, which aims to promote that the channels of artistic and cultural expression in a city are inclusive of and accessible to a diverse range of community groups.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmm.. say Rm10 for lunch, how much do they make?

300x12 = 360-120 = 240 for the one-day.

500x12 = 600 -240 = 360 for the two-day.

9 days x 240/day = Rm2,160 a week.

Not a bad haul, how do I go about organizing one of those ? :)

bibliobibuli said...

you are a total bozo. don't you think you have to factor some expenses into the maths? duh.

Anonymous said...

RM30 for a 1 day workshop (with food!!) is pretty darn cheap. Can't get one hour massage for that price. Plus many sessions are free. I say thank you, organisers.

Anonymous said...

How do you go about organising one of these, Anonymous? First, you stop pissing people off with untenable accusations of cheating or nepotism, so that they might actually be able to bear being in the same room as you. Then you stop insinuating (or stating explicitly) that writing is a waste of time and that people who have to write are fools -- no one wants to learn from a teacher who doesn't take writing seriously. Then you actually write something so that your credentials include more than just squatting on other people's blogs claiming to be living The Writer's Life and disparaging people who actually *have* written something. It might seem awfully glamorous and controversial to you that you say silly things and then cry "CENSORSHIP!" whenever someone asks you to shut up, but it's actually just boring. So why don't you accomplish those three goals first and then get back to me for the rest of the list?

-- Preeta

bibliobibuli said...

water off a duck's back this will be Preeta. he doesn't care what we think of him as long as he gets to expend verbiage.

Anonymous said...

Just wanted to point out that the first Anon's maths is wonky (does this word exist?).

9 days does not equal a week. It's more like two (work) weeks.

If Anon's weeks stretch to nine days I'd sure like to learn the trick. :)

-Jen

Anonymous said...

Bib -

What expenses, isn't the location free? :)

Preeta -

Did you just say I should stop expressing my opinion because it's offensive to you? :) and you do seem to have made an awful lot of assumptions :) When did I say anything about cheating or nepotism, or anything of that sort?

And that's the other thing, what's with all the name-calling? are we all twelve or what? can't we all have a decent discussion without childish name-calling?

(am I goint to have to say "I know you are, what am I?" next ? :) )

Anonymous said...

Anonymous -- your first comment is an implicit accusation of cheating. You think the instructors are making easy money by charging more than what the course is worth. That, in most people's books, is cheating. So I don't think that's an "assumption" I made. Are there other assumptions in what I said? In the case of your believing that people who "have to write" are fools -- I think you said as much in another thread. Or at least, someone calling themselves Anonymous did, and I can't be blamed for not being able to differentiate between the two hundred grumpy, petty Anonymice on this blog. To me, you're all the same. If that bothers you, use the name your parents gave you.

Name-calling? What name calling? Kindly highlight the name calling. I think the problem is rather the opposite: a lack of names. If only I *had* a name to call you.

-- Preeta

Unknown said...

The location might be free, but I seriously doubt the two people conducting the workshops are:

1.doing it on their own time,

or

2.paying for their expenses in KL.

I do not understand the stream of negativity that keeps pouring from these Anonymice....somebody get them a life!

To start with, negative people like this complain nobody is doing anything for the literary scene in Malaysia, and when someone does, they can't stand it either.

I'm still waiting for an un-grouchy comment from any Anonymouse. Meh.

bibliobibuli said...

too true, Damayanti.