Summary:
- Workshop dates: March 05, 2023 – March 19, 2023.
- Location: Adishakti Theatre Complex, Pondicherry.
- Deadline for applications: December 20, 2022.
Fees:
The cost of attending the workshop for two weeks (fourteen nights) is Rs. 35,000. The fee covers lodging, food, wifi, access to the pool, theatre space, coffee breaks, workshop materials and perks (for example, your roomie’s snacks). It also covers the cost of workshop materials. You are not charged for the actual instruction or the facilitators’ remunerations.
The payment is made directly to Adishakti Laboratory For Theatre Arts & Research, our host institution, and we will send you the payment details upon admission. Your payment to Adishakti is tax-deductible and non-refundable.
Finally, we offer two scholarships for promising writers who face financial barriers in attending the workshop. The application form provides an option for specifying whether you would like to be considered for the scholarships.
Staying at Adishakti:
The rooms are double occupancy but not mixed gender. Since the workshop is meant to allow you to intensely and exclusively focus on writing, we generally do not permit significant others, pets, children and other such responsibilities. Exceptions can be made for participants who need help in getting around. Physical disabilities are not hindrance; we will work with you regarding special needs.
The meals are locally-sourced and mostly organic. There are non-vegetarian options but not necessarily on a daily basis. Though we encourage participation in the group meals, you are also welcome to make your own arrangements (for example, if you have food allergies).
Instruction:
The workshop is intended to be an immersive experience. You will get to interact with three facilitators who work in different forms of writing. You will also get a chance to interact with our two Resident writers, recipients of the Kolam Writers’ Residency Awards. They are established writers who are spending a month at Adishakti working on their projects.
The day’s specific activities depends on the facilitator in charge, but you can expect to do a lot of reading and writing. A lot of reading and writing.
You are expected to produce a draft of a substantial new work in your chosen form (plays, poems, fiction, etc.). Your work will be discussed, honestly and with consideration, by your peers and the facilitators (more on that below).
We have observed over the years that all too often it is the writer who gets in the way of their writing. So it doesn’t make sense to focus on the writing alone. There will be one-on-ones to talk about your concerns and aspirations, not just technical feedback on your writing. We are not interested in stamping out MFA cookies. We aim to help you write what only you can write. And we stay in touch long after the workshop is over.
The “Charcha”:
Group critiques have always been an important part of writing workshops. However, over the years, working with dozens of writers, engaging in hundreds of critiques and talking with professional writers and experts, we have discovered a few limitations to the standard critiquing format. One of these is about the ‘author’ity of the author. Most critique groups follow a model where the author is required to remain silent as their peers comment on their writing. While this has its rationale and its advantages, our philosophy is that art exists in the third space between writer and reader. For a story or poem to fully blossom, neither should be silenced. Furthermore, most stories at a workshop are early drafts. It is more important to understand the intentions of the author rather than critique something that is a product of sleeplessness, time pressures and other constraints. The draft work needs to be read not only for promise but also for purpose.
Done right, the conversational experience warms the soul, because the intent is to help make the work better. What counts as “right” however is somewhat culture-dependent. Our experience is that South-Asians love to vigorously engage in conversation, and though their “charcha” can appear alarming for outsiders, there is often a refreshing honesty and generosity in it that’s absent in more courteous displays of interest.
We have therefore developed a critique format that explores that promise inherent in an early draft through informal discussion, examples, exercises, and the occasional gossipy digression (“Jhumpa Lahiri has collected more than 200 autographed head shots of Al Pacino.”). The charcha session is messy, loosely-structured, nurturing, and cuts through the BS that tends to plague the standard writing critique process. The facilitators ensure that the focus remain on the work and the author under consideration. In this way, the critique sessions are fun but also instructive.
Pre-Workshop Preparations:
All participants receive a complete packet with further details about what they may expect at the workshop and the charcha process. One month before the workshop begins, you and your fellow participants will be receive daily curated reading material — stories, poems, essays, interviews, whatever we think might be useful. Why wait until the workshop begins to start the transformation?