Creative Workshop

Words of Mentors

Saad Adnan Khan
Photos: Saad Adnan Khan

The time has come for the final session of the international creative writing workshop conducted by the literary performance group Brine Pickles. Funded by the American Center, the workshop is an attempt to bring in writers and poets from all over the country to explore and learn from the participanst and some of the leading writers from Bangladesh and USA. The final session will be a three day long workshop from April 5- 7, 2012. The participants have been selected by a rigorous selection process by the coordinators of Brine Pickles. The best works of the participants from the workshop will be compiled in a book, under the very brand of Brine Pickles and The American Center. And finally, some of these works will be chosen for performance on stage, which will be carried out by the members of Brine Pickles.

Dr Niaz Zaman	Dr Kaiser Haq

The final workshop will be conducted by three esteemed writers from Bangladesh and USA- Dr Niaz Zaman, Dr Kaiser Haq and Dr Christopher Merrill. All three are renowned in the fields of academia and writing, and have valuable insights to share with students and writers of the current generation.

Dr Niaz Zaman says that creative writing is looking at ordinary incidents in different ways. She believes that discussions bring out the potentials from students, and that is what she wants to do during the workshop too. She believes that to be a good writer, one needs to look inside of one's self, and also outside. “You need to read as much as possible. If you don't read, you don't know what other people are writing and about the different kinds of writings.” She stresses that grammar and spellings are not important initially, but inspiration. “Mould an experience in a story. Work with it. And then you have to be ruthless and ask yourself whether my reader will understand it or not.” Niaz Zaman is a fiction writer, translator, editor and publisher.

	Dr Christopher Merrill, Photo: Internet

Dr Kaiser Haq believes that writing is not something that is divorced from life. “Young writers need to tap their unconscious minds and get in touch with their subconscious self. Young people should write to add something to culture. For language to remain vital and vibrant one has to examine and emotions have to be expressed in new ways. Language is effective when it is fresh- that freshness will not come automatically. The aim of creative writing is to keep language in a healthy state. It is important to wrestle with language and creative writing workshops can help writers do that.” He also says that creativity is not something that one can control like a motor car. It involves taking chances and playing with language. Dr Kaiser Haq is a poet, translator, essayist, critic and academic.

Dr Christopher Merrill thinks that creative writing seeks to capture some essential and enduring truth about the human condition. He is looking forward to come across open hearts and open minds in the workshop. “I hope to hear many voices, to be introduced to new poetic visions to explore the medium as deeply as possible.” To reach a global reader, he thinks that writers should write as well as they can. Christopher Merrill is a poet, essayist, journalist and translator.

Undoubtedly the participants are in for an interesting learning experience where the participants, who are from different public and private universities, will get an opportunity to share their stories and give tangible forms to them.

DID YOU KNOW?

Richard Adolf Zsigmondy

Chemist and Nobel Laureate, Richard Adolf Zsigmondy was born in Vienna, Austrian Empire to Hungarian parents Irma Szakmáry and Adolf Zsigmondy Sr., on 1 April 1865. The Zsigmondy family, who was Lutheran, can trace back its origin to Johannes Sigmondi included many teachers, priests and Hungarian freedom-fighters. Richard was raised by his mother after his father's early death in 1880, and received a comprehensive education. He enjoyed hobbies such as climbing and mountaineering with his siblings. His brother Karl Zsigmondy became a notable mathematician in Vienna. In high school he developed an interest in natural science, especially in chemistry and physics, and experimented in his home laboratory. His academic career began at the University of Vienna, Medical Faculty, but soon moved on to the Technical University of Vienna and later to the University of Munich in order to study chemistry. In Munich his teacher was Wilhelm von Miller, he started his scientific career by concluding research on indene and receiving his Ph.D. in 1889. Zsigmondy left organic chemistry and joined the physics group of August Kundt at the University of Berlin and finished his habilitation at the University of Graz in 1893. Because of his knowledge about glass and its colouring, in 1897 the Schott Glass factory offered him a job which he accepted. He invented the Jenaer Milchglas and conducted some research on the red Ruby glass.

Information Source: Internet