The Department of Literatures in English, University of the West Indies, Mona will hold the second in a series of Writers’ Workshops on Saturday, December 17, 2011 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the UWI, Mona Campus. Prize-winning Jamaican writer, Olive Senior, will conduct a workshop, entitled “The Art of Disguise in Poetry,” on developing poetic techniques for dealing with complicated, controversial, difficult or painful subject matter.
 
 
Senior is on the faculty of the Humber School for Writers, Toronto, and she is a highly sought after teacher of creative writing and lecturer in Caribbean literature and culture who has taught in the writing programmes at University of Toronto, St Lawrence University, and Barnard College, Columbia University, New York. She has also led writing workshops at various institutions in the Caribbean, North America and Europe. She has been Writer-in-residence at the University of Adelaide, Australia, in Canada at the University of Alberta and Banff International Writing Studio, at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica and Trinidad. She has been an Arts Council of England Visiting International Writer, a Hawthornden Fellow in Scotland, and Dana Distinguished International Writer at St Lawrence University.
 
Olive Senior is a versatile and highly talented writer of poetry, prose fiction, and non-fiction. Her four poetry collections include Talking of Trees (1985), Gardening in the Tropics (1994) which won the F.J. Bressani Literary Prize, Over the Roofs of the World (2005) and Shell (2007). Her short story collections include Summer Lightning, which won the inaugural Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1987, Arrival of the Snake-Woman (1986) and Discerner of Hearts (1995). Her first novel, Dancing Lessons (2011), will be launched by the Department of Literatures in English on Sunday, December 11, 2011 at 11.00 A.M in the Neville Hall Lecture Theatre (N1), Faculty of Humanities and Education, UWI, Mona.
 
Summer Lightning and Discerner of Hearts have been on the Caribbean Examinations Council literature syllabi and Gardening in the Tropics is currently one of the set texts for CAPE Literatures in English.  In addition to her literary output, Senior has authored non-fiction works on Caribbean culture that include the A-Z of Jamaican Heritage (1984), Working Miracles: Women's Lives in the English-Speaking Caribbean (1991) and The Encyclopedia of Jamaican Heritage (2003). 
 
The Writers’ Workshop series is part of the Department’s initiative to generate interest and develop writing skills in various genres. Workshops will be held primarily in creative writing, including poetry, prose fiction, television and screen writing, and writing for the stage. However, attention will also be paid to other forms of writing, such as writing for business, essay writing, and technical writing. Through the Writers’ Workshops Series, the Department will seek to facilitate greater interaction and exchange between members of the public interested in developing their skills in writing and accomplished writers from around the region. The Workshops will also form part of a larger drive to establish the Department of Literatures in English as a centre of excellence in creative writing.
 
Persons interested in attending the Olive Senior Writers’ Workshop,” The Art of Disguise in Poetry,” should contact the Department for information on costs and registration, by calling 927-2217 or emailing litsengmona@gmail.com.