Second guest author Susan Abulhawa hosts writing workshop!
Susan\\\'s visit yesterday was a breath of fresh air for the aspiring writers that attended our second guest author workshop.
The importance of creativity and expression is important in every community, and in the testing circumstances of the blockade, a number of talented and engaging writers are emerging, eager to learn more.
Some of Gaza\\\'s young and most prominent bloggers Ola Anan and Rana Baker joined the Al Fakhoora students to meet Susan.
A central concern for these aspiring authors is how best to engage western audiences with Palestinian issues and history and Susan had some useful tips and devices for best negotiating this.
She applauded the young writers for writing in Arabic and reminded them that they are preserving a rich and important language in doing so.
Students also asked her about her source of inspiration, and how to develop the voices of her characters and allow them to grow independently from their own personalities.
The students were inspired by her insistence that they allow themselves to expose their vulnerabilities in their writing, and that this kind of honesty is what makes the reader really engage and enjoy.
She also reassured everyone that there will be plenty of rewriting in any good writing, and that it\\\'s very unlikely that writing is perfect in its first drafts.
Susan later performed a reading at the Student Center in Qatar\\\'s Education City and had discussed with the group how past writers had written on Palestinian struggles.
Although she respected these accounts, mainly written by western sympathisers and orientalists, she felt certain that her account offered an important Palestinian voice.
After visiting Jenin, experiencing life in the refugee camp and being part of the first team of foreigners to enter following the bloody massacre in 2002, her position as part of diaspora, with no access to their homeland, gave her the inspiration to tell the story.
Susan\\\'s inspiring visit concluded with an unforgettable instruction to the students; “You own your story, and you should tell it”.
