A literary workshop, at which participants are expected to be exposed to enhanced writing skills, is set to get underway on Monday, April 9, 2001 at the Hotel Tower, Georgetown.
The workshop, which is being conducted by young, successful Caribbean author, Colin Channer, one of the contemporary voices writing in the regional idiom, falls under the aegis of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Guyana (UG), in collaboration with Caribbean Fellowship Inc. It will be guided by the theme “Writing the warm easy and easy way”.
Channer, who was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1963, became the first Jamaican author to pen a best-selling novel in the United States with the publication of his novel WAITING IN VAIN.
And this was not to be Channer’s only best selling work. In December 2000, Channer produced another best-seller with I’M STILL WAITING (not a sequel) that gained him the credit of yet another US bestseller. As noted by many, his critical and commercial success is partly credited to his use of reggae as a literary model, resulting in wide academic interest in his work.
In addition, his short stories and other works have become required reading at many tertiary institutions, including the University of the West Indies, New York University and the University of Maryland. In fact, Channer was recently selected writer-in-residence at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus.
Prize-winning poet and literary critic, Kwame Dawes, described Channer as Caribbean in origin but global in vision. “Channer is Bob Marley with a pen instead of a Gibson guitar. In Channer’s work we see an enviable and unusual achievement in the best of writers, that delicate balance between poetic elegance, narrative momentum and intellectual grace,” Dawes noted.
Participants in the Guyana Workshop are expected to come away with information such as how to find a story, the keys to building memorable characters, powerful ways to begin a story, what to do when you are stuck, and how to look for agents and publishers.
The workshop will begin at 4:30 PM on both days and run until 8:00 PM. All persons with an interest in literary craft are invited.
