Sunday Times 2

Fairway English Creative Writing Workshop to uplift novices

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The Fairway English Creative Writing Workshop presented by Fairway Holdings will be held for the second consecutive year on November 3 and 4 at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies.

Vijitha Yapa

The programme is designed to offer a broad ‘first exposure’ to the creative writing process; from the blank page to the published work. The resource panel of academics, writers and publishers will share their experiences and knowledge on understanding creative writing, writing novels, short stories and poems, playwriting and screenwriting, editing for publication and getting them published.

The workshop has a nominal all-inclusive registration fee of Rs. 500 and details for registration are available at www.fnla.lk. Participants should be between the ages of 16 and 35 and will be registered for the workshop on a first-come first-served basis. The closing date for entries is October 28, 2017.

The first session ‘Understanding Creative Writing’ will be conducted by Madhubhashini Disanayaka Ratnayake, Gratiaen Prize winner and senior lecturer in the English Language Teaching Unit of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

The session on ‘Writing Short Stories’ will be conducted by Ameena Hussein, writer/publisher, whose book of short stories Zillij won the State Literary award. She co-owns the Perera Hussein Publishing House.

Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of Vijitha Yapa Bookshop, the largest English bookstore chain in the country Vijitha Yapa will take the participants through the session on ‘Getting Published’.

The session on ‘Writing Novels’ will be conducted by Charulatha Abeysekara Thewarathanthri, winner of the Gratiaen Prize 2016 for her novel Stories while playwright and director Arun Welandawe Prematilleke will handle the session on ‘Playwriting and Screenwriting’. Prematilleke studied Drama and Theatre Arts at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

The session on ‘Editing for Publication’ will be conducted by Jill Macdonald who was, for many years the Principal of The British School in Colombo and as founding Principal of The Study, continues to teach Advanced Level English Literature.

The final session on ‘Writing Poetry’ will be conducted by poet and writer Ramya Chamalie Jirasinghe, whose book There’s an Island in the Bone won the State Literary Joint Award for Poetry. She was long-listed for the Fish Poetry Prize of Ireland in 2011 and was a joint runner-up in the UK’s Guardian Orange First Words Prize of 2009.

“There are very few opportunities to learn the craft of creative writing in Sri Lanka. We want to facilitate this learning process and also encourage young people to aspire to high standards in creative writing while preserving their vision and originality,” Fairway Holdings Deputy Chairman, Kavinda Dias – Abeysinghe said.

The Fairway English Creative Writing Workshop stems from the organization’s alliance with the Fairway Galle Literary Festival and the Fairway National Literary Awards – the highest yielding literary awards offered to novels in all three languages.