I’m very happy to share that I have been invited by Shyam Selvadurai, festival curator for the Galle Literary Festival (and author of ‘Funny Boy’), to attend and offer a workshop in the main programme of 5th annual festival in Sri Lanka, which takes place from January 26th-30th 2011. Established in 2006, the event is now a regular fixture on the literary calendar. This year speakers include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Damon Galgut, Kiran Desai, Lawrence Hill and Orhan Pamuk.

I will be offering a talk for new and unpublished writers on how to move from being an unpublished (fiction/poetry) writer to a published one, particularly in literary magazines and using new media (audio publishing and mobile publishing).

I am particularly excited about attending the Galle Literary Festival because the novel I am presently working on is set in Sri Lanka (inspired by events that occurred when I was there in the early 80s). I was fortunate to receive a Canada Council grant in 2010 to develop this work from novella length to novel, and to undertake a research trip this year, which I did in August/September 2010. It was an extraordinary trip in many ways. However, I was not able to visit a small town just south of Galle where several scenes occur, so I will be able to do this in January.

This will be my first literary festival as an invited participant. I hope I don’t get stage fright! At the very least I’m sure I’ll feel quite overwhelmed meeting so many extraordinary writers.

My author page on the Festival website is here.

If you are thinking about a holiday, I can highly recommend Sri Lanka, and what better holiday than a literary holiday? Come and join me!