[Reader-list] Creative Writing Masterclass: Call for Applications

[Aarti]

CREATIVE WRITING MASTERCLASS
Tutor: Sharmistha Mohanty

This workshop is open to those who wish to have a serious engagement 
with imaginative prose writing, fiction or non-fiction. There are two 
fundamental aspects that the workshop will focus on.

Because we are born into language, writing cannot be taught as a craft, 
like the other arts. We already know the codes, the grammar, how to make 
sentences, paragraphs, pages. In writing we work at the opposite end 
from a musician or a dancer who must first learn the basics, we need to 
refuse the ease with which words come. A first task then is to make a 
/relationship/ with language, different from the everyday one.

For myself, as a prose fiction writer, I see speech as close to thought, 
writing as close to consciousness. That is why it is often possible in 
writing to express something unknown even to oneself. More than finding 
a way to /make/ this relationship with language, we can look at how it 
can be/ allowed/. This may mean expanding the space of language, not 
shrinking it by taking on given structures, or having too defined a 
purpose, or using things one already knows.

A second task is to ask the question, what is form? In writing, form 
arises not from an external, not from mere wishes or ideals. Form arises 
from a real need. This is what must be identified, by everyone, 
individually, for themselves. Arising from a need and arriving at its 
shape through a struggle, each found form will have its own rigour and 
can never be whimsical or random.

By letting oneself be with these explorations, once can move towards a 
writing which is able to evoke what is not already known.

The basic principle I will work with in conducting the workshop is that 
writing, because it cannot be “taught,” can only be guided, by a 
practitioner, and the best form of guidance is to work on the actual 
writing and take it forward through criticism and dialogue.

Each participant will present their writing on a regular basis during 
the workshop. The writing will be discussed at the workshop by myself 
and all the other participants. I will also hold one on one sessions 
with every participant at least once during the course.

We will also be doing some reading in parallel. The reading will span 
vastly different kinds of prose, perhaps the autobiographical pieces of 
James Baldwin, the novels of W.G. Sebald, the prose of Claudio Magris, 
the short fictions of Bruno Schulz, the essays of Joseph Brodsky, and 
Indian myths and folktales which have their own special ways of 
approaching narrative.


[Sharmistha Mohanty received a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing 
(Fiction) from the Iowa Writer's Workshop. She is the author of the 
screenplay for the film Nazar (1989) by Mani Kaul, and two novels-- Book 
One (1995) and the just published New Life (India Ink/Roli Books, 2005). 
Her fiction has also appeared in the journals, Ploughshares (Boston), 
Siecle 21 (Paris) and Gender and History (London), and Inertia Magazine 
(New York, online).]


The duration of the workshop is nine sessions from 26 November 2005 to 
24 December 2005. The participants will meet every Wednesday and 
Saturday, from 4 pm to 7 pm.

The class will have a limited number of participants. Applicants should 
send in a writing sample of imaginative prose, of not more than five 
pages (it can be an excerpt from a longer work), and a page on why they 
would like to attend the workshop.


Masterclass fee: Rs. 1500/-, payable on confirmation of selection.
Last date for applications: 25 October, 2005
Selected participants will be informed on email by November 10, 2005.


Applications and queries can be sent to dak at sarai.net, with the subject 
line "Creative Writing Workshop". Paper applications should be posted to:

"Application for Creative Writing Workshop"
Sarai / CSDS
29 Rajpur Road
Delhi - 110054