CHILDREN and young writers are being encouraged to attend a five-day creative writing workshop, sponsored by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) this August. The duration is from Monday, August 8 to Friday, August 12, between 09:00 hrs and 16:00 hrs at the National Library.
Literary activist, Mr. Petamber Persaud, who issued the invitation, in a telephone interview with the Guyana Chronicle yesterday, said the programme will facilitate 45 persons in three groups of 15 each.
One category will cater for junior writers under 18 years of age, who have just begun to write or are interested in starting.
There will be a second group, of experienced adult writers who want to continue honing their skills and a third wishing to write for children, he said.
For the last, Persaud said: “We are looking for persons who wish to write for children. We want to find people who can relate to children.”
He said that the seminar will also give participants a platform to present their work in view of the general public, by performing their pieces in a working lunch format.
Persaud said students would be able to interact with facilitators and each other and joining in the exercise will be ‘Writers in Concert’ and there would be peer reviews where works are reviewed by other writers, with some of the better ones submitted for publication.
Some areas to be covered over the five days are ‘Good Literary Criticism’, ‘Good Editing’, ‘Good Proof Reading’, ‘Preparing a Manuscript’, ‘Marketing your work’ and submitting for a literary prize.
Interested persons can get more information through telephone number 226-0065 or by email oraltradition2002@yahoo.com.