The Gratiaen Trust in association with the John Keells Foundation will be hosting “Write Back!”, a workshop held exclusively for young Sri Lankan writers residing in Sri Lanka to improve their skills.
Write Back!, to be held on 16 and 17 October, invites budding young writers between the ages of 14-17 years to participate in an online workshop that will help them sharpen their English creative writing skills, while learning how to bring short stories to life. Three award-winning Sri Lankan authors; Prashani Rambukwella, Delon Weerasinghe, and Lal Medawattegedara, will facilitate the two-day interactive, feedback-oriented workshop.
The creative writing workshops will be free-of-charge to participants and a certificate will be issued to participants who attend both days of the workshop. As the workshop is for a limited capacity, the selection of participants will be made by the Gratiaen Trust and is binding.
The three facilitators will help these young writers identify the spark that they need to continue their writing in the future.
Prashani Rambukwella, one of the facilitators, is a writer and corporate communications professional who has worked in Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, and India. She enjoys writing – both as a job and as a hobby. Some of the common themes in Prashani’s books include bullying and how we see people who are different to us, which shows us that she will be perfect in teaching these writers how to convey emotion and highlight important topics in their writing.
In conversation with Brunch about the workshop, Rambukwella commented: “If you had a five-feet long bookshelf to fill with books written in English, set in Sri Lanka, for older Sri Lankan children, by Sri Lankan writers – could you fill it? How about if it was just three-feet long? The chances are, you’d find it quite a challenge,” adding that she is very glad to be invited to participate in Write Back! by the Gratiaen Trust and hope that the workshop will give young writers the chance to take a closer look at the craft of writing. “The world needs to hear more stories that only we can tell,” expressed Rambukwella.
Delon Weerasinghe, another facilitator, has written professionally for the stage, print, screen, web, and radio. Best known perhaps as a playwright, his play Thicker than Blood won the Gratiaen prize in 2005. Since then, he has gone on to write commissioned plays for The Royal Court theatre in London and BBC World Service radio. In recent years, he has conducted many workshops on creative writing and writing for theatre and television in both English and Sinhala, making him an ideal facilitator for this workshop.
Speaking to Weerasinghe on being a part of the workshop, he explained that Write Back! will feature roughly about 20 prospective young writers who will go through a mentoring session by one of the facilitators. “We will start with an opening session where the writers will be addressed by all three of us, after which they will be split up into three groups, where each of us will get about seven students to mentor,” he explained on the topic of what the workshop will feature.
The workshop in his words, is more of a lecture and mentorship where they will talk the kids through the different steps of writing, how to break down a script, how to structure a story, and the nuts and bolts of how to approach writing a work of creative fiction.
We asked Weerasinghe if there was anything unique he would be bringing to the table, to which he commented that all the facilitators have different styles of writing: “I, myself am more of a playwright, so I will probably be able to bring more focus on the dialogue aspect of writing.” He also added that the whole idea is that every child will be given a similar experience and mentorship, so that nobody would get something another writer doesn’t.
Furthermore, he informed us that the three of them have worked out a structure, so that each aspiring writer will get the same kind of training despite which facilitator is to mentor them. “We will give them a very basic, but a strong foundation that they can use to start their career in writing,” Weerasinghe stated.
We also spoke to the third facilitator, Lal Medawattegedara, who is the author of two collections of short stories; The Window Cleaner’s Soul (short- listed for Gratiaen Prize 2002) and Can You Hear me Running; and two novels, Playing Pillow Politics at MGK (Winner Gratiaen Prize 2012) and Restless Rust (short-listed for Gratiaen Prize 2021). Medawattegedara teaches English at The Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL), again putting him in the perfect position to mentor these young writers.
When asked what his presence will be bringing to this mentorship, he commented: “I join this workshop as a Sri Lankan writer of English who has attempted his hand at both the novel and the short story.” He also wishes to share his own experiences as a writer who manipulates a blank page to their advantage with the potential group of youngsters who wish to take the same road as him someday.
Weerasinghe urged all young writers to send in their work, as this is the best age for them to learn the basics of writing so they can avoid making simple mistakes that lead to kids losing interest in their passions.
Writers that wish to apply for a chance at this workshop can send in their CV’s along with an original short story written in English (maximum 500 words) or an extract of a story written by them. The deadline for submitting applications is 4 October 2021. Email your application to gratiaenworkshops@gmail.com.
