Special Article

The Creative Writing Workshops

The Creative Writing Workshops are held each year to bring together teachers of English throughout the Asia-Pacific region and produce creative work. In addition to this participants have to present a paper that has Creative Writing/Literature as focus in a one-day conference at the same venue. Most of the work done at this event is published.

The Creative Writing Workshops started in Bangkok, Thailand in 2003. Dr Tan Bee Tin initiated it and the Assumption University was the venue for the first event. Professor Alan Maley was Chair of the first Conference. Professor Maley is the now the Permanent Chair of the series.

The Second Creative Writing Workshops and Conference was held in the historic city of Melaka, Malaysia in 2004. The Riviera Bay Resort was venue for the event. Dr. Jayakaran Mukundan was Chair with Professor Alan Maley as the Advisor. Professor Maley introduced a new phase to the Creative Writing Workshops in Melaka. He conducted workshops on Poetry. The participants then had to compose poetry. The short stories and poetry produced by the writers for the second event have been published by Pearson Malaysia.

The Third Creative Writing Workshops and Conference was held in Fouzhou, The Peoples Republic of China. June Lin Lihua of The Fujian Women’s College helped organize it. Professor Lin Benchun, the President of the College was Chair. The demands made on the writers this time were far greater. They had to write poetry, two short stories, two ideas for teaching writing and a full paper related to creative writing and literature. An interesting aspect of the workshops in China was that on the second day, the writers had the opportunity to write poetry on a mountain – the Gushan Mountain. The breathtaking views and the serene surroundings made the writers come up with some wonderful poetry. The products of the China Creative Writing Workshops and Conference will be published soon.

Nations have already started bidding to host the next in the Creative Writing Workshop series scheduled for September 2006. Amongst the candidates are Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand.

Edited on : September, 13, 2005