The Writing Room

Home
About Us
- About the Instructor
Our Services
Testimonials
Blog
Contact Us

Kids

Like this:

Like Loading...

Instagram

“Outside her breath rises in a fine mist and the snow keeps falling, like a ceaseless repetition of the same infinitesimally small mistake.” 🌸 Normal People (by 28 year old Sally Rooney) is one of those iceberg-novels where a lot is happening under the surface of the words. It is a modern romance and coming-of-age story, as much about love as it is about power and our capacity to hurt those we love. Connell and Marianne go to the same school, but the similarities end there. Connell’s mother works in Marianne’s house as a cleaner. Connell is popular and liked, Marianne is bullied. They start talking when Connell goes to picks his mother up from Marianne’s house, and soon they’re in a relationship. Connell, hyper-conscious of his friends finding out, wants to keep it a secret, to which Marianne agrees. The novel flash-forwards minutes, weeks, and months to different point in their lives in a series of conversations and encounters. It follows them through the last year of school, to college (where their roles reverse – Marianne is the popular one) and graduate school. Their lives weave together, then separate, then come together again, until the tethering is so strong that every movement from one life reverberates through to the other. Connell and Marianne feel very real. They are both extremely intelligent, extremely complicated, and can’t seem to stay apart. They are also sometimes irritating and frustrating, as I suppose we all are. There are lots of delicious details about making tea, washing dishes, wringing dish towels, which I strangely loved. These tiny details, arranged carefully with the dialogue, infuse the smallest gestures with significance. The dialogue is really good. It can hold both the comic and the tragic within the same conversation. I was at times reminded of Jane Austen’s ear for dialogue. Her novels were also love stories about flawed but clever people, dramatised primarily through dialogue that was witty, revealing, and so very layered. Oh, and like Jane Austen’s many novels, it’s being adapted into a series by the BBC. @normalpeoplebbc #bookish #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #readersofinstagram #books #sallyrooney #normalpeople

FINALLY, the Writing Room brings you our annual creative writing summer workshop for young writers in Lahore! 🌈 Dates — Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 15 to 26 July. Time — 12:30 to 1:30pm for ages 7-8 and 2 to 3pm for ages 9-11. Venue — The Writing Room, Gulberg, Lahore. Workshop fee — Rs. 12,000 (includes library access, and siblings get a discount) 🌈 What does a story look like? Where do I get ideas about what to write? How do I organise my ideas and structure my story? How does sharpening my observation skills improve my writing? How will learning to read like a writer improve my stories? How can I make my readers feel what a character is feeling? How can I avoid cliches to make my writing sparkle? How can I write dialogue that makes my characters seem real? 🌈 These are just some of the questions we’ll be answering in class as we read passages from brilliant books, and learn to write like our favourite writers. 🌈 And now, for the first time, students get full access to 📚The Writing Room Library📚! All the books we discuss in class (and more) will be available to borrow and read at their own time and leisure. Fostering a love of reading is something that we strongly believe in, and we are thrilled to be able to give students the opportunity to read a range of curated books that they’ll love. 🌈 To register, please DM me with your child’s name, age and your phone number (spaces are limited to 10 students per class so please don’t wait). You can also e-mail me at mariam.tareen@thewritingroom.co. I look forward to hearing from you! 🌈 #creativewritingclass #creativewriting #creativewritingforkids #creativewritingforchildren #summer #summerworkshop #summerworkshops #lovereading #youngwriters #lahore #pakistan #writersofig #writersofinstagram #summercamp

“Would it be all right? Would it be all right to go ahead and feel? Go ahead and count on something?” . Yesterday was #Juneteenth, a commemoration of the end of slavery in America as the Civil War ended in 1865. Incidentally, I finished Toni Morrison’s Beloved earlier this month, on a flight to the US. Part of my travels were in Nashville, where I was visiting an old friend. I asked her if we could visit a plantation and she sent me a link to a popular one open to tourists. I hadn’t thought much about it, but I was expecting some kind of reckoning of the past, an acknowledgment of the shame of slavery. But when I opened the website, I found something different; wine tastings, mansion and garden tours, a chance to experience “everything beautiful about the South.” This came as such a shock to me, especially after being shaken by Beloved. Beloved is a powerful story about slavery and racism, unflinching even in its darkest moments. Every character has gone through their own versions of hell, has endured suffering beyond belief, but every character is so complex, surprising, and more than their tales of survival. The story begins in the 1870s with Sethe, living with her daughter Denver in a house the neighbours avoid because it is haunted. One day, Paul D, Sethe’s fellow slave on her former plantation drops by. And then, just as the three are settling in, a mysterious woman arrives, calling herself “Beloved”. It takes a while to get into the novel, the first pages seem confusing (I suspect because Morrison doesn’t want to give us any illusion of order, instead we feel we’re just happening on these lives) but when you do get into it, the novel seeps in deep. The voices of its protagonists are so charged, layered, and human. They recall their enslaved lives, the experience of being someone’s property, and what that does to the soul. The novel explores the meaning of freedom, and whether it is possible to be free, to escape your history. In light of what is happening in America today (watch Ta-Nehisi Coates’ case for reparations), novels like Beloved are more important than ever. #bookstagram #bookish #tonimorrison #booksofinstagram #books #readersofinstagram

I haven’t read like this on the grass since I was in university. I forgot the weight of the sun on my eyes, taking a while to find a comfortable position, and slowly getting lost in the story as the insects and outdoor sounds fade away into the background. When I stopped and got up to head home, I almost felt like I had woken up from a dream. I remembered this feeling so well — a little languid, satisfied, and my arm or neck or shoulder slightly strained for having been leaned on to read. (Special thanks to my toddler for napping in her pram for an hour.) 📖🌤☘️🍀🍃🌿🌸 #sallyrooney #booksofinstagram #bookstagrammer #readersofig #readersofinstagram #reading #summer #summerreading #books #amreading #summereads #bibliophile #bookish #bookworm #booksandnature #booksandcoffee #readers #readerslife

Crossed something off my bucket list today! Founded in 1953, City Lights Books is a literary landmark in San Francisco’s North Beach neighbourhood. Its founder — Lawrence Ferlinghetti — published Allen Ginsberg’s controversial (at the time) poem Howl in 1955, and propelled the Beat Movement (and its authors, like Jack Kerouac) to international fame. The store became a literary meeting place for the “Beatniks” and influenced a generation of young people with its nonconformist culture through literature. Almost 70 years later, it remains a prolific independent publisher and an “epicentre for progressive thought,” hosting poetry readings and book launches, and it continues to sell meaningful diverse literature. Little wooden stools sit near every shelf and you can sit and read for as long as you want. I love bookstores steeped in history and politics, and it was a real treat to finally visit @citylightsbooks today. #citylightsbookstore #sanfrancisco #bookstores #bookstoresofinstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagram #bookish #bookishbucketlist #books #instabook #instabookshop #instabookstore #bookstore #independentbookstore #bookishtravel #indiebookstore #literarylandmarks #literaryplaces #literarybucketlist #citylightsbooks

One of the best things about travelling is the books you take along with you. On the flight over, I was reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved (and sobbing). Clearly, I don’t believe in holiday “beach reads”. I’m so excited to read this set of books over the next few weeks of long flights, good weather, and delicious treats, starting with @tishanidoshi’s Small Days and Nights, then, depending on my mood — either Tommy Orange’s There There or Andrew Sean Geer’s @asgreer Less. I’ve read so much praise about all three books in the #bookstagram world. And finally, Sally Rooney’s Normal People (which I’ve read mixed reviews about.. people seem to either love it or abandon it). Have you read any of these books? . . . #bookstagrammer #books #tbrpost #tbr #readersofinstagram #readersofig #reading #bibliophile #bookish #booksbooksbooks #instaread #booksandtea #booksandnature #amreading #bookworm #bookphotography #bookishpost #booksofinstagram #pakistanibookstagram #tishanidoshi #sallyrooney #tommyorange #andrewseangreer

Facebook

Facebook

Blog at WordPress.com.

%d bloggers like this:

Share this:

Like this: