ABOUT YOUNG WRITERS LAB
Young Writers Lab is an international experimental collaboration for writers and students. It is a project run by a community of writing practioners/facilitators connected with Coracle Europe and Kultivera. Following two successful years of delivering introductions to imaginative and creative writing in Holavadsgymnasiet, Tranås, writers are set to continue the work in exploratory and collaborative ways.
The writing practitioners who are from Portugal and Wales use familiar dramatic and prompt activities to stimulate written, improvised and performed poetry and stories prose. They are working with students from different classes including, English, Swedish, Drama, Business Studies, Economics/Social Sciences, and Swedish as a Second Language. By establishing relationships with key teachers in the school the practitioners will be extending their contact by offering on-line and virtual sessions to groups of young students in Holavadsgymnasiet until they can visit again in 2017. The practitioners have complimentary styles and literary interests across poetry, short stories, novella, visual writings, installations and spoken word performance.
The international writers work in English and believe that their work can open new opportunities and perspectives in language arts to support their teachers and the formal curriculum. However, the workshops and session between writers & students crosses several languages since writers come from different cultures and countries and students too. Swedish, English, Portuguese, Arabic and other languages/dialects are a tool for sharing culture, writings and ideas. In this project languages are not a barrier it is rather a creative tool of understanding the importance of language and writing.
TWICT -Together to write international class of Tranås 2016/17
TWICT is a group of young students with the average age of 17 years old, from class A2c2. The students have been in Sweden for about a year or less, and the class is part of the ”introductional program”. TWICT is a group of young writers from different countries such as Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan.
The Portuguese writer Inês Lampreia has been developing collaborative work with TWICT group since September 2016. Their main project is to create Autobiographical notebooks.
10th CIRCLE
Inferno is the first part of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. Following the Divine Comedy literature structure of Inferno, which has nine circles, the group of young writers gave themselves the name of 10th Circle. Is a group of students from class SA15A from Holavedsgymnasiet school of Tranås.
Their collaboration with Inês Lampreia has been done mostly by skype meetings. The students follow writings exercises and share their writings. From creative writing around Dante’s Hell to experimenting collective writing, the 10th Circle has been developing a consistent work with the Portuguese writer. Meanwhile, among the writing exercises emerged the idea of a collective book, written by the entire group with individual characters development. The young writers use Swedish and English in the project.
The Unknown
In September 2016 Mel visited Anna Larsson’s Drama class at Holavedsgymnasiet. In three sub-groups the students improvised mimed poems based upon their emotional responses to everyday domestic objects. As a result of this session a group of six third grade students, who are interested in developing their imaginative writing agreed to carry on meeting.
The group have named themselves The Unknown.
Leaving & Departures
The group agreed that it would be easiest to write to a prompt, and chose the theme of Leaving or Departure.
I’ll miss you by Didrik Florhed
Corrupted Lungs by Edita Pinjagic
And suddenly breathing was so hard because you had left me there with corrupted lungs. Stains on my skin, memories left by you, like ink on paper or fire on wood, permanent. The smell of your skin lingering on my fingertips leaving me unsteady.
Abused, tormented and abandoned like an innocent animal left I was.
Fragile I am, gentle you were not.
You lusted after me so much you decided to hunt me down.
You had me long before that.
I craved you.
You had left me there at nowhere. Nowhere a place where I questioned how someone I had never met before could have touched me so deeply.
Leaving by Daniel Lätthe
Leaving can be very emotional and sad, but it can also open new doors for yourself. If your life partner leaves you, it's usually a huge tragedy, but who knows eventually you'll maybe find someone else who's even more of a soulmate than your last partner, so as I said, leaving can open doors. When someone you love who also loves you passes away, they leave you in a certain way, but they will always be with you, in your heart and in your memories. Everyone goes through some sort of departure in their lives, everyone has to leave their family eventually to start a new life, and mostly everyone loses beloved ones, and literally everyone goes through the biggest departure of all… Death.
My Departure by Felix Hammarskjöld
It's easy.
I can now say goodbye,
is it finally time for my flame to die?
The leaving is near,
I don't want to you to be the first one to hear!
From all the damage I've taken,
it feels like my world has been shaken!
It's a core that was made when you walked away,
and I now know I can't live like I do today!
Seeing all of their happiness just is bad,
I wish that I could experience something that rad.
But my life only consist of things that hurt me,
and the happiness of someone staying is just a feeling that in my life can only flee!
The tears are to heavy to bear,
I wish that I could learn how to care.
Why couldn't the problems in my life be just as light as ”hey”,
I wish that once in a while one person just could stay...
Standing at the station
people walking, trains running
Recorded voice ringing
I’ll miss you
Wordless nights, felt bliss
Knowing tomorrow, we would kiss
“Farewell, see you soon!”
I’ll miss you
Standing in the park
parents walking, children running
Sound of bird chirping
I’ll miss you
It will not be long
but it definitely seems
like it is forever.
Run by Malin Andersson
Run, run, run
A tight grip like the hardest steel
Masked in the finest silk
Hidden away
Forgotten
Slowly breaks down, piece by piece
In the finest silk
Two. Two small drops
It overflows
Fight in the most difficult of storms
Go a step further it's storm
In the finest silk
The leaves is everywhere, scream
Until you don't hear anything else
shut down the other voices, hide,
The lights will never come
Find it outside stormy seas,
The finest silk
Doors
The group wrote in response to photographs, and the poem "The Door" by Miroslav Holub.
Doors by Didrik Florhed
“When one door closes, another one opens”
as Alexander Bell Graham said.
A door that is opened leads to another opportunity,
lead to another experience.
A door that is closed is a finished chapter,
could or could not be opened again.
You could be afraid to open any doors,
or to close any doors
You never know what is waiting
on the other side
In the end you should find out
what could be behind that door
In the end you should also
take the risk of not knowing
The White Doorframe by Daniel Lätth
When I look at this picture I feel lonely, it feels like I'm in a rich person home who's lonely and sad. Because happines doesn't necessarily have to be money because sometimes the richest and the most succesful people in the world doesn't have a family and are awfully lonely.
There are no pictures on the walls wich makes me feel kind of depressed, there are barely no colors in this picture, mostly black and white, I don't feel hopefull at all. But who knows what's up that staircase, maybe it's something more cheerful, or maybe just more emptiness, but we'll never really know.
It starts here?
by Felix Hammarskjöld
Change by Edi Pinjagic
I’ve always been wondering. How do you do that? How do you keep on going without coming to a stop? Isn’t only logical to reach an end after going so far? These doors that you’re passing by, you’re not even attempting to open them. Why is that? Are you afraid… of what lies behind them? Of what will happen once you choose to open one?
Or maybe, you’ve come to realize that it’s all just an illusion. There are no doors. There is are no other paths for you. It’s almost like a loop. You’re moving, but suddenly it’s like you didn’t even move at all. Everything is exactly the same. Exactly how you last saw it. Exactly how you last remember it. Exactly how you last left it. So please, tell me. Because I’ve been wandering for a while now… I’m getting really tired.
The doors of our lives are now burning,
maybe wood wasn't the best but this is for our learning.
We learn to function through the chaos and pain,
but we must all know that for our mistakes only we stand for the blame!
We walk out and in,
but I think that not everybody get the real thing!
What is truly an exit and an opening,
it's a thing that we all can be joking and looking!
It can be places in different places or floors,
but when you get there you know you chose the right set of doors!
In the door that we enter may not be the one we go out to,
and just because we choose another path our choice isn't always number two.
We see them every day and all the time,
but the right door isn't always the one who shine!
Dark ways is sometimes better for the outcome and us,
but choosing this isn't as easy as enter the train or bus.
Mine and everyone's paths may not ever be clear,
but i swear!
My goal is there somewhere and it's mine,
And me and everyone will get there in time!
But the will maybe change during the way and then we must take action,
because the will and goal is morphed so both need to go well to get the satisfaction!
My time to go out is soon here,
but I got so many ways to go so it will take time to get there!
But for me half the goal is the way,
and with help is find it or what do you say?
Words over Water
Words over Water is an international group featuring two young people from Tranås in Sweden and two from the Welsh town of Carmarthen. The group have met and connected through their Facebook group and written in response to creative prompts from Mel. The group will meet through skype to continue their writing and to share their experiences of life in Sweden and Wales. After a few weeks of having no name the group chose "Words over Water" because their countries' names both include "W" and their words will cross the North and Baltic seas.
A Kultivera project with the support of
Region Jönköpings Län, Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse and The Swedish Arts Council.
© 2018 Young Writers Lab