Disney in the Desert
A writer’s residency with a difference – by Lauri Kubuitsile
Writers are very prickly beings. I’ve met many writers and I’ve got on well with them but somehow bringing a group of them together in a writers’ residency, where they are chosen by a panel based on some hidden criteria, brings out the thorns at least initially. Upon meeting, there tends to be a lot of peeing on trees to mark out the boundaries of each’s literary territory and you suspect you hear growls behind closed doors.
My experience at El Gouna Writers’ Residency was a bit like that – at least at first. The group was made up of four women and one man. Two in the group were from the United Kingdom, although one of those two lives part of the year in Cape Town, there was one American, an Italian and me, from Botswana. We wrote poetry and prose, memoir and non-fiction, for adults and for children, for the page, the stage and the screen. We ranged in age from forty to fifty-seven, all with many publishing credits trailing behind us, none of us having yet done “the big break-out”, so all suffering from the twin demons of artificial bravado and very real insecurity in varying amounts. So the tree-peeing ensued; luckily for the women it ended quite quickly and we got on with things.
These were some powerful, accomplished writing women with complex brains and interesting lives and a wealth of writing experience. I now had the opportunity to get a clear good look at writers in the process of things. Was I an anomaly? Or just like all the rest?
In the group was Lebanese-American Elmaz Abinador, once mentored by Toni Morrison and now a champion for writers of colour in America and an accomplished memoirist, poet, stage writer and performer. Her books include a poetry collection, In the Country of My Dreams, and the memoir Children of the Roojme: A Family’s Journey from Lebanon.
Italian poet and children’s writer Tiziana Colusso, who is also very active in the Italian and European writing associations, was with us, too. She sits on the board of the European Writers’ Council and is the editor of the international literary magazine, Formafluens.
And the last woman in our tidy quartet each evening was UK-bred but Cape Town-loving Seni Seneviratne, an accomplished poet and performer. Her collection of poetry, Wild Cinnamon and Winter Skin, is recorded on CD and published by Peepal Tree Press.
I applied for the residency on a whim. I saw it on Facebook, posted by my friend Ivor Hartmann. I went to the site and thought what the heck. I had to send a few pages of my writing and I sent the beginning of my work in progress at the time. I needed a couple of references and called a few people, and then I sent everything off, thinking I hadn’t a chance in the world. A few months later I got an email saying that I was accepted. They would pay for everything. I just had to get myself there.
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