Inizjamed, in collaboration with the St. James Cavalier Centre for Creativity, will be running a series of four 3-hour workshops at St. James Cavalier in Valletta that start on Thursday 29 June at 1800 CET. These sessions will be led by Clare Azzopardi who has specialized in the teaching of creative writing, a subject she teaches at the University of Malta.
The writing course is open to all those who would like to experiment with creative writing. No experience is required. The course ends with a reading of the works produced on Friday 28 July at 2000 CET. Most of the course will be devoted to actual writing and participants will have the opportunity to discuss their work both with the tutor and with the other participants.
The workshops will be held on the following Thursday evenings between 1800 and 2100 CET; 29 June, 13, 20 and 27 July. The works will be read on Friday 28 July at 2000 CET at St. James Cavalier. The course fee is Lm20 (Lm12 for students).
Clare Azzopardi says that she would like these workshops to stimulate those young people who would like to write in a different way. “We all have stories to tell. But we often find it difficult to write about our inner selves, about the things that make us angry, about strange experiences and coincidences. And we often limit ourselves to our own stories, ignoring what is happening to others. Together with the course participants I would like to explore political, surreal and magical themes. I hope there will be moments when we leave our stories behind us and focus on the stories of others... and then return to where we started.”
These workshops in Maltese will focus mainly on narrative, although those who are more interested in writing poetry are also welcome. Ms. Azzopardi says that the exercises that she will be giving will help new writers to articulate their thoughts through the written word, and then to edit those words so as to make the finished literary work as striking and insightful as possible. “This will then allow the participants to read their work to their colleagues who will in turn give their feedback about it. These workshops are meant to inspire people to start writing: the course is merely the beginning of the creative process.”
Clare Azzopardi has run courses for adults who write for children and also for women writers. She is very active in the field of publication. Works of hers in the field of education have appeared in a number of books such as Prosit, Skaluni, Stilel, Senduq Kuluri and Senduq Buffuri. Her poems were published in Illejla Ismagħni Ftit (2001). In 2003 Clare Azzopardi was one of the writers representing Malta at the Biennial of Young Artists of Europe and the Mediterranean held in Athens. Translations of her short stories have been published in Cyprus, Scotland, Ireland and Malta, including her book Others, Across published by Inizjamed and Midsea Books (2005).
Those who would like more information about the course can visit www.inizjamed.org. Those who would like to apply for the course are to write to inizjamed@maltaforum.org.
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