PILC’s Budding Authors

We were very lucky recently to have a new member, Elizabeth Gilek, a novelist and screen writer from Sweden, join us for a few months while researching her forthcoming novel.  Whilst she was here, for a few months over the winter, she offered to run a Creative Writing Group for our members, and six of us joined her for the six weekly sessions at North Star Library.

We were all a little apprehensive about what was to come.  The first session was easy enough, as Elizabeth outlined the course’s contents.  Then came the difficult bit – “homework”, as we called it, consisting of a writing exercise to be read and discussed in the following class.  Horror!  I never thought I would be so nervous about speaking in public (I normally never have a problem with that!) but soon found that with Elizabeth’s gentle, thoughtful guidance, and not too much criticism from the rest of the group, it became easier to get through the exercises each week.

It was fascinating to hear the different “voices” from our class.  Elizabeth admitted that although she had not conducted such seminars for over two years, whilst she concentrated on her novel writing, she had never had such a varied, international group before, and she also enjoyed hearing about our experiences.  It was quite a mixture of nationalities – Silvia from Argentina, Lisa from the Netherlands, Supa who is Thai/Indian, Karen from Australia, Rita from Portugal, and me from the good old UK.  Fortunately for me, the common language was of course English, but I take my hat off to Silvia and Lisa who were not able to write in their native language, but who still produced fluent and thought-provoking stories each week.

The course has been one of the most enjoyable experiences I have had whilst in Thailand.  Although I can write “business” English quite easily, I never realized how hard it would be to write fiction, with its development of plot and characters, tension and originality.

Elizabeth has now gone back to Sweden for the summer, but she is due to return to Thailand in October and has promised us that she will run a three day intensive seminar to help us develop some of the ideas that we have already written about.  The rest of the group are going to meet once a month during the summer to “keep in practice” and hone our skills, and I, for one, am looking forward with great anticipation to Elizabeth’s return in the autumn!

Gillian Thom