A six week, two-hour virtual generative writing workshop to propel your novel along. Each week we will cover a different aspect of how to build a novel. Students will discuss different forms and techniques, and will be given writing prompts. We will workshop weekly submissions, work on the anatomy of your novel and write together. Open to any writer working on a novel, whichever stage. Non-native English speakers are very welcome.
Email hello@thereaderberlin.com to sign up.
We will read Zadie Smith, Olga Ravn, Carmen Maria Machado, Italo Calvino, Sandra Cisneros, Toni Morrison, George Perec, Ibtisam Azem, and others, and look beyond literature for inspiration too, with excursions into film, art, architecture, music and nature. Bring your draft and let it soar.
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.
TESTIMONIALS:
Celina has an uncanny ability to create a welcoming space for each of us to feel heard. Her insightful feedback, and the warm community she creates, moved my work forward in important ways.
— Ruth Sergel
Celina’s course offers a brilliant opportunity to explore the essential elements of writing a novel and take a dive deep into your own writing. While analysing the mechanics of successful first novels, writers investigate their own work in progress and elements of their book’s structure, characters, plot and tone. Celina is a thoughtful teacher, her feedback is insightful and encouraging, and the workshopping portion helps build a precious community of peers that can stay with you as you develop on your writing journey.