Source: School of Foreign Languages
Written by: Wang Zhongliang
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

The Sun Yat-sen University Center for English-language Creative Writing welcomed writers from Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines for three workshops on April 12, 2016. The international writers were visiting China as part of WrICE (Writers Immersion and Cultural Exchange), a program fostering collaboration and exchange through writers and writing initiated by Australia’s RMIT University non/fictionLab Research Group.

Australian award-winning writer Alice Pung and Michele Lee, Asian-Australian playwright and author, gave the first workshop. Alice Pung designed an activity as the lead-in part. In this activity, participants were asked to write a paragraph about the situation when they were born. Unlike other common writing tasks, there were three rules: ‘1. You are not allowed to write about the city where you were born. 2. You are not allowed to write about the year when you were born 3. You need to write from another person's perspective.’ This approach was new to the participants. They stretched their minds, thought about how to describe the situation, and then scrambled to share their stories. After that, Michele Lee led the participants to brainstorm the elements of story -- characters, plot, setting, theme, stake, metaphor, transformation, voice, genre, stage direction and so on. Then, she showed a photo of four people and took one of the women, Rachel, as an example. Participants were asked to spend five minutes writing down some character notes. Participants could run with their imagination and make everything up. What decisions would Rachel make in the given situations? In the participants' writings, Rachel became a single mother who is decisive when faced with love and sex, a police officer of principle who also cherishes friendship and wants to help her best friend, etc. In the end, Alice Pung made participants work in pairs and interview each other. When they finished, participants volunteered to retell their partner's story. After this Alice Pung asked the interviewee why he/she chose to share his/her story with the interviewer. This was a great way to teach how to carry out an effective interview.

The second workshop was given by Indonesian writer, journalist and translator Maggie Tiojakin and Indonesian writer Eliza Vitri Handayani. Eliza Vitri Handayani shared how she built theme, characters and plot by analyzing her own work. Maggie Tiojakin employed some examples to show that "what if...?" questions play a very significant part in creating a fantastic story. She also compared and contrasted several paintings to show the participants that in a story, language can be beautiful, the picture can be colorful, but that is not enough. There should be movement. In the end, Maggie Tiojakin and Eliza Vitri Handayani let participants create a story and share it with the class.

In the third workshop, the floor was given to Philippine poet and essayist Larry Ypil and Melbourne-based writer and editor Ara Sarafian. They read their work and shared with the participants how they practised creative writing. Then, they assigned the participants several tasks. 1. Write one to two paragraphs about a place. 2. Write one to two paragraphs about one memory or one person. 3. Make connections between the first and the second task. Larry Ypil emphasized that the beginning of an essay is about making connections. 4. Write another paragraph, paying attention to scenes, voice and characters. Although it was really challenging, participants were strongly involved in the task and they enjoyed it very much.

The workshops were organized by Professor Dai Fan, Head of Department of English, School of Foreign Languages and Director of the Center, in partnership with WrICE. Dai Fan was one of the writers invited to take part in this year’s WrICE program, which is funded by Australia’s Copyright Agency Cultural Fund. Students from Sun Yat-sen University and other interested members of the community attended the workshops.