Drawing Room Project heads to Highgate - Writers' workshop includes community focus

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

This weekend, a group of writers will be in residence at Country Thyme in Highgate, St Mary, for the Drawing Room Project's Writers' Retreat. And while there is a full slate of writing activities led by author Christine Craig (Quadrille For Tigers, Mint Tea and Other Stories), the retreat will also feature extensive interaction with the community.

Millicent Graham, author of The Damp in Things, and collaborator with Joni Jackson on the Drawing Room Project, outlined a three-day schedule of activities from early Friday afternoon to Sunday evening. All six participants will be in residence at Country Thyme, which is branded as a community-based agro tourist cottage.

Nationalities

A number of nationalities will be represented at the workshop. Graham said in addition to Jamaica, writers from Canada, the United States, and Puerto Rico will be involved.

The retreat has been some time in coming, shaped from preceding longer (10-week) and shorter (one-day) workshops. "We started after meeting in a Calabash workshop," Graham said. "I had the idea that we were benefiting so much from these workshops," Graham said. At the time, she was heavily interested in film and had the idea of honing scriptwriting.

"Poetry already had Wayne Brown and Calabash," Graham said.

There were other workshops and retreats for Graham, including trips to Iowa and Vermont in 2009 and 2010, respectively. "It exposed me to another approach to the workshop. When I came back, I started to meet with my old group," she said.

This weekend's retreat is the current stage of the process resulting from that collaboration.

Trustees of the Drawing Room Project are Sonja Harris (who also runs Country Thyme), George Davis, and Hyacinth Hall. In linking the retreat with the community, Shana Johnson (Highgate Agro-Producers Enterprise), Norma Nugent (president, Jamaica Hardanga Heritage Trust), and artist Casey Nicely are among those critical to the integration.

Together, the organisations and
individual will help the community come to Country Thyme, with
exhibitions and demonstrations. Participants in the retreat will go to
the community, as on Sunday they will walk to Miss Gloria's house to see
her prepare chocolate from scratch.

Before that,
though, there is a reading in Country Thyme's garden on Saturday night,
starting at 7:00, with open mic and featuring Christine Craig. Open to
the public, it is where the retreat participants, community members and
those who travel there for the evening (shuttle service from Kingston by
Jamaica Cultural Enterprises is available) will
meet.

Hopes for a link

Graham hopes
for a link between the community and writers, which will go beyond next
weekend. "It is looking at these things in jeopardy of being lost ... .
Our responsibility as writers is to preserve these things by bearing
witness to it in the creative process," she said.

And
there is always the intention of shaping returns from literature,
"recognising Caribbean writing as a real, viable
product".

In doing the retreat, the Drawing Room
Project is also keeping an eye on those who have been there before them,
especially in the parish. "We are not claiming to be doing anything
new. Dr Erna Brodber has Blackspace," Graham
acknowledged.