‘There is no way to teach creative writing, but people aspiring to write can be helped.’

That was the opinion of the four resource persons who conducted the seminar on poetry and short story writing organized by the English Writers Cooperative recently. Much was imparted to the 25 or so participants who were immersed in creative writing of others and then at the practical session, of their own. Most significant was that they thoroughly enjoyed themselves while imbibing much.

Could it be anything but assured enjoyment, enthrallment and benefit when the resource persons were Prof. Yasmine Gooneratne, Prof Ashley Halpe, Prof. Neloufer de Mel and Lal Medawattegedera?

Professors Gooneratne and Halpe led the participants through poetry: she on poetry in general and her own, and he dealing with poems by Patrick Fernando and Lakdasa Wickremasinghe, with narration of little known anecdotes of the two poets’ lives – they tragically died young. New insights were laid bare and greater appreciation of known poems invoked. Neloufer de Mel had the participants read a short story – Carys Davies’ "Hwang." If I had skimmed through it as a leisure time read I would have missed so much that we were made to discern under her tutelage. Subtleties were recognized, insights dredged. And from that, she guided us in short story writing insisting the first paragraph was of the greatest importance. She knows this full well, having gone through an immense amount of creative writing within three months, being a judge in the Commonwealth short story competition.

Lal Medawattegedera took us along a writing exercise which we thoroughly enjoyed with no stolen forty winks after a good lunch. We had to create a character, give him/her features, a name and then superimpose him/her on a sentence written by another. It was fun; it was instructive.

Consensus of opinion was that more such seminars and workshops should be conducted, even though the burdensome task falls on the few office bearers in the English Writers Cooperative. So its over to you, Anne Ranasinghe, Vijita Fernando and Sherine Senadhira.

There certainly is a surge in creative writing in the country, especially in English, which a couple of decades ago was so scarce. This needs encouragement from any and every avenue/angle.