Creative Writing Workshop in Cebu, April 27-May 8, 2009

Calling all creative writing enthusiasts! This summer, Little Boy Productions will be offering a workshop to be led by Palanca award-winning writer Lawrence Ypil. This workshop is designed to introduce students and interested professionals to the art of creative writing. Through writing exercises, mini-lecture seminars, and on-site writing projects, the workshop aims to dispel the notion that writing is a difficult, serious endeavor, and to approach writing in a fun and imaginative way.

The workshop leads the participants through the different stages in creative writing: from the elusive art of finding a topic, to the challenge of choosing an appropriate literary form, to undergoing the delicate process of revision and publication. It hopes to also introduce participants to the primary literary genres: poetry, fiction, and the essay. While it is encouraged that participants have experience in creative writing, this workshop encourages beginning writers and interested students who have had no previous experience. In fact, it is especially open to those who have always wanted to write a poem or a story but has not had the chance to do so.

Patterned after the popular workshops for painting and drawing, the workshop for creative writing is built on the premise that the art of writing is a skill that can be discovered, developed, and mastered. We usually like to think that the gift of writing is reserved for those special few-- that one is either born a writer or one is not. The writing workshop, however, runs on the belief that the writer is made, not born. That writing, especially imaginative writing, is a skill that we all have, and that all that we need to do is develop and nurture this hidden skill.

The writing workshop will be led by poet and essayist Lawrence Ypil. First Prize Winner in the Poetry Category of the 2006 Palanca Awards, his poems and essays have been published in various publications both here and abroad. He teaches creative writing at the Ateneo de Manila University and is a regular panelist in many notable writing workshops. He keeps a regular column at Sun Star Weekend called "Dog-ears in the Wrong Notebook," and his first book, "Highest Hiding-Place," will be published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press later this year.

The Creative Writing Workshop will run for two weeks from April 27 to May 8, 2009. The class will meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 2 to 5 pm at the old campus of Sacred Heart School - Jesuit on Mango Avenue . Students, aspiring writers, young professionals, 13 years old and above, are encouraged to join. Workshop fee is 2,500 pesos. For more information, please call 254-9320, 233-0452 or 0922-820-8298 or visit Little Boy Productions at Exams Advantage, 3rd Floor Manros Plaza , across Fooda, on Mango Avenue.