21.09.2020
On October 31st the Fall module of the School of Writing "Writing on the Roof" starts. The students will receive peer review of their writing and will be able to experiment in a wide variety of genres under the guidance of professional writers, critics and editors.
“The text grows like a living being. Our task is to trace when the will of the author (which is worthless per se) interferes with the text and when the text wins,” says poet Dmitry Vodennikov. On the first day, October 31, he will hold a seminar "Poetry": the participants will write three-part educational texts in order to "lure out" the real text and understand when inertia begins to rear up and when, on the contrary, the writer can allow himself to go over the top.
“Writing on the Roof” is not just a school; it is a writers' club organized by the literary criticism magazine Voprosy Literatury (VopLi) in cooperation with the National Foundation for the Support of Copyright Holders. Dr. Igor Shaitanov, editor-in-chief of Voprosy Literatury, is the Head of the Center for Contemporary Comparative Studies at RSUH, and for almost half a century the editorial office of the journal has been located on the top floor of the legendary Nirenzee building, associated with the names of many writers and literary figures of the last century.
Lectures, seminars and workshops will be delivered and held by professional linguists, writers, translators, all experts and members of literary award panels and faculty members of the country's leading universities.
Yevgenia Korobkova, a journalist and columnist for the culture department of the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, teaches the seminar on prose: she will show how to find an idea for a work, choose a hero, lure the reader's attention, edit the text and accept criticism.
The seminar "Literary Criticism" will be conducted by literary critic Anna Zhuchkova and Dr. Sergey Cherednichenko, a faculty member at the Gorky Literary Institute. They will talk about how to write reviews, critical and literary articles, and define the term “literary criticism”. The students will practice the techniques of critical polemics, analyze the prose of contemporary authors, complete editing tasks, and write a critical review. The result of the work and the prerequisite for obtaining a diploma will be the publication of a critical article in the literary portal "Texture". The author of the best critical review will have the opportunity to publish it in Voprosy Literatury.
Podcast storytelling will be guided by Ms. Yana Semyoshkina, journalist, blogger and podcast author of “Fabula Rasa” and “VopLi”. She will talk about creating a podcast: how to write the script, set up a recording studio at home, make a jingle without copyright infringement, as well as how to bring a podcast to TOP-iTunes and make money on it.
Ms. Marta Reitses' workshop on drama “How to write a play” will teach how to write a play in 7 days.
There are also free seminars on how to teach contemporary literature and master literary skills for the senior Muscovites. There is an age limit, 65+.
Lectures: Professor Shaitanov will talk about Veselovsky's discovery, why it was belated and what “historical poetics” is. Dr. Gregory Sluzhitel will turn to modernity, which is more and more insistently demanding that the writer comply with new ethical norms and artist's obligations to his era. Dr. Artyom Skvortsov and Dr. Alexey Salomatin will talk about exemplary poems and poetry in general. Dr. Alexey Varlamov will talk about the life and love of the most paradoxical Russian philosopher Vasily Rozanov, as well as about the Russian prose of the new century. Finally, Olga Slavnikova will discuss time as the fourth dimension of the novel.