The Dum Pukht workshop is a two-week, in-residence, creative-writing workshop held annually. This year the workshop will be held at Adishakti's premises in Pondicherry from December 5--18, 2016.
[1] What's with the name? Dum Pukht is the process of transforming meat and vegetables by cooking them in a closed container over a slow fire, so as to preserve natural flavors. Sort of what will happen
, metaphorically speaking, to the workshop's participants.
[2] Basic Structure:
The workshop is best suited for writers with some experience with writing fiction in English. The two-week period (ten working days) is divided into three-day sessions. There is a different instructor for each session. So participants will get a chance to experience several different styles and compare many different points of view.
[3] Who are the instructors? For 2016, the instructors are Anil Menon (Session 1), Pervin Saket (Session 2), Akshat Nigam (Sessions 1 & 2) and X (Session 3).
[3] Daily Routine: The basic template is the Milford/Iowa workshop model. You will bring one of your stories to the workshop, which will be critiqued in the first session. You will write two more stories during the workshop. About half the work-day is spent on critiquing stories (this works out to about 4 critiques per day), and the other half is up to the instructor. So most of your day will be spent either critiquing stories, thinking about stories or writing your story for the next session.
[4] Workshop objectives:
--To get you to think about stories. Really think. We writers tend to be very good readers, but because we immerse easily, the text becomes invisible. One aim of the workshop is to break this spell of text, wake you up from the Matrix, as it were. In short, the workshop will explore the craft aspects of writing fiction.
-- To help you connect text to context. India offers some wonderful possibilities for storytelling. Sometimes we can overlook these possibilities, partly because, as with text, the context has also become very familiar.
--To give you a chance to interact with established and experienced professionals.
-- Have some fun.
