The Writing Workshop Heads to Suzhou!

​This last Wednesday on October 21st, the Shanghai Writing Workshop teamed up with Dulwich International High School in Suzhou for a cross cultural literary festival. For one day, high school students learned from some of the exceptional writers in the writing workshop. In short, one hour seminars, students learned about a range of topics to help them develop their writing skills.

Ryan Thorpe lectured on fantasy writing and talked to students about some of the freedoms and perils of writing about distant worlds. Students got a chance to think about how to make magic happen in another world, and then they imagined a few new worlds for themselves.

Lily Wu lectured on brainstorming and conflict and students were encouraged to start working on their own stories by brainstorming out from images and creating real conflict for their stories.

Tamara Kaup taught about creative nonfiction and encouraged students to use their lives as a spring board for developing their own stories. By considering what makes writing engaging, she was able to get students to think about their work on both a topic and style level.

Many of the other exceptional teachers at Dulwich International High School as well as other Suzhou writers gave presentations at the literary festival in both Chinese and English on a range of topics. Presentors discussed the intersections of Eastern and Western literature, how it felt to publish their first novels, and different texts that they love. Students also got to explore their more artistic sides with classes in Iranian calligraphy and a chance to design their own book covers.

I know that I can speak for the workshop when I say that we all greatly enjoyed visiting Suzhou, and we thank Dulwich International High School for their invitation to speak at their campus. Each of us found the students engaged and interested in the world of creative writing. With each brainstorm, we were all impressed by what the students there were able to do. We hope that this is just the start of more literary discussions in the future.