Caferati’s 2009 Celebrating Shakti Bhatt Workshops

Caferati’s 2009 Celebrating Shakti Bhatt Workshops will be a part of the Celebrate Bandra Festival this year. The workshops are (links are to Facebook event pages):Tomorrow’s Authors, Scripted and PENtathlon (Note: the Facebook pages are to help spread the word. To register, you must pay up in advance at The Hub office.)

Please join the Celebrate Bandra Festival - Literature on Facebook to get updates on other events as well.

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Caferati’s 2009 Celebrating Shakti Bhatt Workshops

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About Shakti Bhatt:
Shakti Bhatt was a writer, a publisher, and a friend to Caferati. She was a constant support through many of our endeavours and gave generously of her time, her presence and her advice for the little time we knew her. Sadly, she died in March 2007.
In her memory, Caferati runs an annual workshop to help writers hone their craft, to grow, and to test fresh literary waters.

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Here are the details.

Workshop costs: Rs 300 per participant per workshop (Rs 150 per participant for the kids' workshop)

The workshop are over two days, 11am to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday.

Participants will be served a light lunch.

For queries,
Email: bombay.hub@unltdindia.org, editors@caferati.com
Phone number: 022 3222 0475 (The Hub)

To register, you must pay up in advance, at The Hub office.
The Hub
UnLtd India, 4th Floor, Candelar Building, 26 St John Baptist Road, Near Mount Mary Steps, Bandra (W), Mumbai 400 050, India.

Participants must bring their own writing materials.

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Tomorrow’s Authors

A writing workshop for kids (10 - 16 years - maximum 20 participants) led by Anshumani Ruddra.

Saturday, 14 November 2009 11:00 - 16:00
Sunday, 15 November 2009 11:00 - 16:00

This workshop will look into the act of writing: structuring, editing, plotting and characterisation. Though the focus will be on short fiction the lessons learnt will be applicable towards other forms of writing - long fiction, poetry and narrative non-fiction.

Each individual will work on one piece during the two day period of the workshop and the group as a whole will be responsible for critiquing each other's work. The workshop's aim is to develop young writers who can look objectively at their own work as well as the work of others.
Traditional and modern forms and structures of a story will be discussed and then promptly forgotten to enable discovery of new ones. This will lead to a set of exercises that introduces writing as an improvisational and group activity. The group as a whole will be responsible for generating ideas, working and reworking them and finally committing them to paper - always evolving the story as they go along.

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About Anshumani Ruddra
Anshumani Ruddra is an author and screenwriter based in Mumbai. He predominantly writes in the speculative fiction genre. His short stories have appeared in various anthologies and he is currently putting finishing touches to his first novel for adults. He also conducts workshops for children and college students in the areas of writing, speculative fiction, scriptwriting and comic books. Visit http://ruddra.net

for more details. The Enemy of My Enemy is the first in a series of interactive gamebooks for children written by him. It has been published by Scholastic. Banana Republic, its sequel, is expected to come out in January 2010. His short stories have appeared in the following collections by Scholastic: Seven Science Fiction Stories, The Moustache Maharishi and Other Unlikely Stories, Superhero, Spooky Stories

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PENtathlon

Five Exercises for Fiction Writers (beginners, 17 years +, maximum 20 participants) by Annie Zaidi and Manisha LakheAn intense workshop targeted at kick-starting the writing process for those who want to try their hand at fiction, or those who have tried already but want to find a way around that object of ill repute: writer’s block.

Saturday, 21 November 2009 11:00 - 16:00
Sunday, 22 November 2009 11:00 - 16:00

There will be a set of five exercises, in an ideate-and-discuss format, which will take you through the whole process of putting together a short story or even a novella, if you work really, really hard. One the first say, the workshop leaders will tell you how to build characters, find appropriate settings, how to make the narrative move from one point to another. Participants will be well into their story by the end of the first day and will be expected to come up with more ideas or a fleshier story when they return the next morning.
Workshop leaders will help you find resolutions, in case you have not found them already, and share some basic techniques for cracking the walls you come up against.

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About Annie Zaidi and Manisha Lakhe
Annie Zaidi writes poetry, fiction, non-fiction, drama, blog posts, reports, reviews and (in a dark, distant past) recipes she never actually tried.
If gun laws weren't so strict, Manisha Lakhe would be out there shooting at every dangling participle and lynching incorrect users of grammar. Alas, she is reduced to venting poetry on unsuspecting audience and writing reviews of movies, books and other kinds of fiction.

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Scripted

A workshop for beginners on writing for stage and screen (beginners, 17 years +, maximum 20 participants) by Anuvab Pal

Saturday, 28 November 2009 11:00 - 16:00
Sunday, 29 November 2009 11:00 - 16:00

They say writing for the stage or writing drama is the oldest profession in the world, beating even prostitution.
Have you ever wanted to write a play? Have you ever written a play and abandoned it? If you've ever wondered what it would be like to make a live audience react to things you've got to say, you probably want to join politics or write for the stage. This workshop is for the latter.
Writing for the stage in Bandra is the same as writing for the stage anywhere else, so we'll go through the basics of plot, structure, characters, conflict, intentions and ideas.
And then together, we'll try to tell some stories that for reasons you'll discover and tell us about, is best told on a stage.

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About Anuvab Pal:
Anuvab Pal is a playwright and screenwriter. His plays include The President Is Coming, Chaos Theory and 1-888-Dial-India. His movies include Loins of Punjab Presents (co-written) and The President Is Coming.

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Bandra Slam - a poetry performance contest

Caferati is organsing some of the literature events at the Celebrate Bandra fesstival this year. There are workshops and contests, amongst them, our own spin on a slam.

Contest description:

Hosted by Mocha Mojo. Organised by Caferati. Prizes courtesy Mocha Mojo.

* Theme for performers:

2 poems on Bandra, 2 on the environment, the theme of this year's festival. Performers can interpret these themes in any way they choose. The poems must be written by the performers. Each poem must take not more than two minutes to perform. Poems can be in English, Hindi or Marathi. Or Bambaiya.

* To sign up:

You must send in one poem, on either theme, to *editors at caferati dot com* with the subject line "Celebrate Bandra Poetry Slam."
Deadline: 18th 20th November, midnight.

If there are more than 15 contestants, Caferati's editors will use the submitted poem as a criteria for selecting the top 15.

The top 15 poets will be invited to the slam by email. They must respond to the invitation latest by 20th November, midnight.

* On the contest day.

- Poets must come prepared with four original poems, two on each of the themes.
- You must register with the organisers by 19.30
- There will be four rounds, by theme of poem. In each round, poets will be called up in random order, and will perform one poem each. They will have a time limit: not more than two minutes each. A buzzer or bell will sound at the end of two minutes. There will be NO time extensions allowed.
- As each performer ends, they will be rated by a jury. This jury will be three invited city poets (the experts), and three randomly selected members of the audience (whose role it will be to vote on behalf of the audience) who will change with each round.
- Poets will be judged on both the quality of the poetry and the performance.
- At the end of the round, we will take a break to tally scores. Performers and audience can get themselves refreshments.
- Scoring will be cumulative. (Those who survive each round will carry their points with them. Elimination in each round will be based on total scores up to that point.)
- The lowest scoring poets --- six in the first round, three each in subsequent rounds --- will be eliminated, and the next round will start.
- The top three at the end of four rounds will win prizes.

* Prizes (Vouchers from Mocha Mojo)

1st Prize Rs 3000
2nd Prize Rs 2000
3rd Prize Rs 1000

* Conditions

- The poems must be your own work. By entering the Slam, you are guaranteeing that this is true.
- Participants selected for the Slam can, on stage, read from a sheet of paper or electronic device or recite from memor.
- No costumes (and no nudity), no musical instruments, no visual aids
- Your poems and your performance remain your intellectual property. However, you give Celebrate Bandra, Fountainhead and Caferati permission to record your performance on audio or video or photographs and share them on their websites with correctly attributed copyright information.