Literature and Lies: Writing, Writers, and Wastebaskets

It's final: The French salon and English pub-themed writing and writers’ tete-a-tete is at Prima City in Dumangas, Iloilo from 1 to 5 May.

Prima City is a three-storey commercial building with a pool that’s owned by the transgressive Ilonggo writer, Peter Solis Nery. Nery is now based in Los Angeles, California.

This is not your run-of-the-mill workshop where participants’ works are discussed by a dogmatic panel. We reverse the process: When you come to the workshop you come ready with your own writing method. You talk about how this method applies to your own writing experience. For proof, you site your pieces (poetry, essay, play, blog, art work, etc) as examples. We react to your pieces using our own writing process so we learn from one another. We don’t believe nor subscribe to any school of writing.

We have invited two English language specialists to take up issues on usage: Randolph Graydon, from Baltimore, USA, and Brian Daily, a British- Canadian. Their job is to react to how you work with the English language and offer points for improvement. If you write in Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a and Filipino, we have other invited writers to help you with that: Mel F Turao, Roger B Rueda, amongst others.

Prospect attendees are college students, fresh graduates, young professionals, bloggers, musicians, artists, book worms, nerds, mad scientists, couch potatoes, movie junkies, journalists and English/literature teachers, who want to have a hands-on experience with how writing is produced by writers themselves. The discussions aren’t strictly academic as there are readings and performances in between the sessions. Wine, beer, and cocktails will be served.

To join, send your softcopy originals as MS Word attachment (poetry, essay/blog entry, short story, play, and a combination of these) in Arial 14, doublespaced to archprankster@yahoo.com. Please include a 4-paragraph bio. We accept applications until 19 April.

Your works will be pre-screened. Discounts will be given to applicants whose works show promise.

Admission fee is Php 600 for students and Php 1000 for fresh graduates and professionals. Your fee covers drinks, food and reading materials.

For more details, email Mel at archprankster@yahoo.com or follow baconbriefs on Twitter.