Asian Books Blog is based in
Singapore. Our regular column Lion City Lit explores in-depth what’s going on
in the City-State, lit-wise. Here Raelee
Chapman talks to Marion Kleinschmidt.
Marion a native of Bavaria, but now dividing her time between the USA and Singapore, is the founder of Coill.net which provides dynamic, bootcamp-style online courses to help writers of all levels to lift their game. She here discusses her upcoming Singapore-based hands-on writing retreat, and the writing scene in Singapore in general. Marion has worked for the
last 12 years as freelance copywriter, editor, translator and creative writing
coach. A prolific member of Singapore Writers Group, she has published short fiction in Germany and Singapore. She started to
run highly successful writing retreats in Bintan and Batam last year.
So over to
Marion…
So far, I’ve found South East Asia the most exciting place to share and
coach creative writing. The sheer diversity of voices is mind-boggling and
expands our sense of what literature can do. Having said that, I also very much
enjoyed teaching fiction and poetry with the Open University in Ireland: the
Irish really are natural storytellers! It was during this period, in 2010, that
I founded Coill, a series of online creative writing workshops for writers of
all levels of experience. It turned out to be the perfect vehicle for me to
explore the writing scene in Singapore.
Pestowrimo is the most popular Coill online
format so far, a writing gym where you post 500 words of fiction or 10 lines of
poetry every day for a month - great for anyone like me who writes zilch
without a deadline. Some of the Irish students from my Open University days
take part, sharing work with Singapore peers and it’s inspiring to witness
these literary encounters between Europe and Asia. Most of my participants have
very demanding schedules - juggling work and family commitments - and I love
that my workshops enable them to put out work they otherwise wouldn’t.
However, nothing beats the magic of sharing a room with like minds. I
look forward to hosting the hands on retreat on 8 and 9 June 2016, a Singapore staycation,
where writers can escape for a day or two into that rarefied world of
creativity. My goal is to facilitate highly interactive workshops, where
participants get to do much more than listening: trying out new techniques and
discussing results straight away. After all, writers learn most by doing. They
also learn by reading and thanks to my Master of Arts in Comparative
Literature, I have a well-stocked larder of spectacular works (now easily
transported on my Kindle) for us to analyse.
For now, I divide my time between Asia and Denver, where my partner and
my cat hold the fort. I look forward to autumn in Singapore, when more Coill
retreats are scheduled to take place on Batam and Bintan. Writers will be able
to create their ideal retreat, choosing between a selection of carefully
prepared workshops or a writing-only experience. Joint dinners bring everyone
together again in an atmosphere of camaraderie. The endorphin levels at these
retreats tend to be pretty high!
It was a thrill to see a short-story of mine included within the Tales of Two Cities Anthology, published
in 2015 by Ethos and I hope to be around to launch another anthology that holds
a short piece of mine: Singapore Love
Stories, to be published by Monsoon and edited by the wonderful Verena Tay.
Next winter, you’ll find me snow-boarding in the Rocky Mountains and focussing
more fully on my own writing projects: mainly short stories and poetry. My
favourite poetry form is the haiku: you can complete one in the time it takes
the ski lift to carry you to the top of the slope, leaving plenty of time to
share them online and stay in touch with my writing pals around the world.
