Ten days ago, on the 28th of Sep, we met via the Zoom program to write and revise our writing pieces together. There were 9 of us and 7 persons shared a piece that they wrote. The writings that we discussed is various including poetry, a novel introduction and a short story, and it included writing in Arabic and in English This fact made it a bit harder to give a professional feedback, because my speciality is English poetry. In other words, I’m more comfortable to give a more practical and useful advices about English poetry and less about prose or a novel. However, the space that I provided for myself and others enabled these ambitious authors to hear what people think or perceive when they read each piece.

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At the end of the 2 hour long workshop, I received their contact info so I can send the writing prompts and the list of books and authors that was formed by the various suggestions in the introduction of the workshop.

Here is the reading list and the writing prompts:

Writing Prompts:

how do you familiarize yourself with something/somewhere/someone?

– try to dramatize the sunset or the sunrise! 

– Explore the liminal space of identity: what are your different identities/boundaries of identities?

– we talked about the airport being this “non-place”, can you think of other places being “non-place”? or places that heighten our sensitivity to a specific part of ourselves?

– how can you look at traffic in a poetic manner? 

– Play on the word “zigzag” in different contexts. 

– what’s the difference between “passive waiting” and “active waiting”?

The reading suggestions:
G. K Chesterton:  
Man who was Thursday
Napoleon of Notting hill
The Ball and the Cross
The Man in the High Castle Philip K. Dick
 Fatherland Robert Harris
 The Great War: American Front: Harry Turtle dove
Musee des Beaux Arts by W H Auden

The Parisian by Isabella Hammad

One Hundred Years of Solitude L’Arabe du Futur (graphic novel)home fire – kamila shamsie