Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan

In ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, the in­au­gur­al Cari­b­Lit Res­i­den­tial Writ­ing Pro­gramme will kick off in Grande Riv­iere, Trinidad. The work­shop will be mod­er­at­ed by two mem­bers of the Cari­b­Lit ini­tia­tive, the writ­ers Monique Rof­fey and Kei Miller. It will com­prise 15 par­tic­i­pat­ing writ­ers, each of whom is seek­ing pub­li­ca­tion in ei­ther prose or fic­tion form. Some of the par­tic­i­pants have been pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished, by im­prints such as Peepal Tree Press.Monique Rof­fey won the 2013 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Caribbean Lit­er­a­ture, for her nov­el Arch­i­pel­ago, pub­lished by Si­mon & Schus­ter. Her pre­vi­ous books in­clude Sun Dog; the Or­ange Prize-short­list­ed The White Woman on the Green Bi­cy­cle; and the mem­oir With the Kiss­es of His Mouth.

Kei Miller writes both fic­tion and po­et­ry. His 2006 col­lec­tion, Fear of Stones, was short­list­ed for a 2007 Com­mon­wealth Writ­ers' Prize. He is the re­cip­i­ent of the 2013 Rex Net­tle­ford Fel­low­ship in Cul­tur­al Stud­ies.Al­most any­one with more than a fleet­ing in­ter­est in hon­ing her craft as a writer in Trinidad, and the re­gion, will know that work­shop op­por­tu­ni­ties are thin on the ground. The Crop­per Foun­da­tion Res­i­den­tial Writ­ers' Work­shop oc­curs once every two years, and is an ho­n­oured test­ing are­na for nascent lit­er­ary tal­ent in the Caribbean. The Wadadli Youth Pen Prize (An­tigua and Bar­bu­da) and the Allen Prize for Young Writ­ers (T&T) both in­cor­po­rate work­shop ses­sions in­to their or­gan­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture, re­sult­ing in rich div­i­dends for fledg­ling youth scribes.Still, it's easy enough for adult cre­ative writ­ers to feel that they're suf­fer­ing for their art, with­out ac­ces­si­ble men­tor­ship to be had, ex­cept at pro­hib­i­tive costs.

Ad­mirably, Cari­b­Lit's first res­i­den­tial pro­gramme for cre­ative writ­ers is to be ad­min­is­tered with a waived cost for tu­ition; par­tic­i­pants are to pay for room and board on­ly.As one of the 15 par­tic­i­pants, I'm mind­ful that work­shops–par­tic­u­lar­ly those geared to­ward non-be­gin­ning writ­ers–are not for the faint of heart. I'm ex­pect­ing to have my work dis­sect­ed, flayed, solid­ly in­ter­ro­gat­ed and plucked apart in­to more pieces than com­forts my spir­it, and that's all fine. Rig­or­ous self-ex­am­i­na­tion is the blis­ter­ing, won­der­ful core of why these work­shops work: they prompt the writer to own up to her weak­ness­es, to eval­u­ate the mer­it of each sen­tence, each art­ful metaphor and wit­ty verse. They aren't for­mat­ted to fluff one's ego; they're struc­tured for max­i­mum en­gage­ment with raw ma­te­r­i­al, crit­i­cal per­cep­tion and con­struc­tive feed­back.

A writ­ing work­shop, above all, isn't a va­ca­tion, though it may pro­vide sooth­ing mo­ments of respite: a stroll along a sandy beach, or an in­tense ram­bling con­ver­sa­tion with a fel­low work­shop par­tic­i­pant. These up­com­ing four days will be a cru­cible, of sorts: a gaunt­let that is al­so a lux­u­ry. We live in a world where we still sub­ject each oth­er to chem­i­cal war­fare over am­bigu­ous goals, so to be able to re­treat in­to writ­ing is a boon, in no un­cer­tain terms.If I have any reign­ing hope for my im­pend­ing time at the Cari­b­Lit Res­i­den­tial Writ­ing Pro­gramme, it is for the deep­en­ing of my hu­mil­i­ty. A writ­ing life takes time, and en­er­gy. It sig­ni­fies work–work that, at its best, is plea­sur­able, trans­for­ma­tive and char­ac­ter-defin­ing. Work­shops are won­drous for the things they teach you about your­self, and they leave last­ing im­pres­sions when you ap­ply those truths to both your art and your life, in­so­far as the two are di­vis­i­ble states of be­ing.