Annasi and Kadalagotu Literary festival returns

The Annasi and Kadalagotu Literary festival returned over the weekend. This year saw the event being extended to two days. Firm favourite writers and authors’attended as well as some new exciting faces.

Book launches were held with a range of workshops for travel writing,journalism, poetry, blogging, scriptwriting and even a class on the art of humour by acclaimed author Ashok Ferrey.

Day one saw a mixture of book launches, workshops and discussions on literature. Writers, aspiring writers, students and teachers held in-depth conversations from a range of topics that included religion in literature, writing that heals and crafting characters.

During a very informative and descripted workshop named ‘Stories that win hearts and minds and sometimes prizes” prize winning author Madubhashini Dissanayake Ratnayake, seasoned highly acclaimed writer Vasanthi Thayabaran and newcomer Ashan Jayatilaka read passages from books of theirs that had wonprizes.

While each writer has as varied background as genre they all held firm the certain themes of how to win over an audience with the power of storytelling. A case in point would be Ashan book on mythology ‘Tristan’s Conquest: Knights of Olympus’, which is not set on earth yet deals with themes of conquest, reconciliation human suffering and strife. Much the same has to be said of Madubhashini’s book ‘There is Something I Have to Tell You’ where by the book deals with similar themes from the view points of four different characters based in the south of Sri Lanka. She parted with many valuable words to aspiring

writers, telling them “better always to never judge yourself, just write!” She explain that she was encouraged to write at an early age and a good way to motivated children is to enter completions in the newspaper, “when a child sees there name in print, it becomes addictive.”

The close of the day was a well-attended amusing class, performed by veteranauthor Ashok Ferrey and extrovert actor Biman Kasun Wimalaratne on the art of

crafting humour in literature. During the session Ashok and Kasun carefullychoreographed funny extracts from his many books, and most infamous ‘Colpetty People’. The characters were given dramatic presences with the on stage antics by Kasun who would shout loudly and jump around on the furniture.

The enactment was highly entertaining while at the same time informative. Ashok describes that a good comedy writer needs “great rhythm and timing, if it doesn’t read well out loud and you stumble you have failed.”

The second day include much the same as the first with a host of book launches from established authors and up and coming fresh writers. There was a highly informative discussion on the perils and pitfalls of writing a blog with other session on poetry and music.

While still in its infancy ‘AK Lit Fest’ proved to be rather informative, explanatory from new and celebrated writers. Class were not overtly crowded,yet in time this will change with its growing popularity.

Pix and text by Dilantha Dassanayake