This workshop is open to writers of all genres and all levels of experiences – non-native English speakers are very welcome. Places are limited.
Email hello@thereaderberlin.com to sign up.
Thinking is best done in dialogue. While novels are written alone, the feedback, discussions and safe space of a group can help you to propel your draft along, and give you enough momentum to push beyond that hopeful beginning. This workshop is designed to inspire you to finally start developing those long-harbored ideas into a novel. By allowing for innovative and unexpected storytelling techniques, you will discover new ways to make your writing voice stand out. Through a series of exercises and discussions, you will gain insights into the diverse possibilities of narrative structures, plot, process, characterization, and revision. We will read and discuss first novels by Toni Morrison, Zadie Smith, Percival Everett, Olga Ravn, Carmen Maria Machado, Italo Calvino, Sandra Cisneros, and others. We’ll try to strike up unexpected connections and look at visual arts, performance, theatre, film, nature, and food for inspiration. Alongside readings, discussion, craft exercises and peer workshops, we’ll make space for individual feedback sessions. Whether you’ve got a full draft, an outline, or just an idea for a novel, this workshop will help you on your way. Over six weeks, this class will offer a unique and broad toolbox to enhance your craft, get your novel started, and share helpful insights into the publishing industry.
Celina Baljeet Basra is a writer, curator, and art historian, based in Berlin. She published her debut novel HAPPY with Astra House, New York, in 2023 (New York Times Editor’s Pick). Celina has graduated in Art History in a Global Context, and has since worked as the curator of the art space Galerie im Turm, at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, and with Berlin Biennale. She is a founder of the curatorial collective The Department of Love, who recently commissioned the text-based Love Letter series inviting Sheena Patel, Priya Jay and Quinn Latimer, amongst others. Celina has been awarded residencies with the Shanghai Biennale and Kochi Biennale, and she has received both curatorial and literary research stipends of the Berlin senate. She is part of several juries for public art funding, and appointed member of the Berlin Atelierbeirat. She is currently working with Talking Objects Lab and Spore Initiative, amongst others, and is working on her second novel.