03 July 2013, 9:40 p.m. – NEVER stop writing, no matter what.
This was what New York Writers Workshop co-founder Tim Tomlinson told an eager crowd of students and teachers during the 3rd Ophelia Alcantara-Dimalanta lecture series at the Thomas Aquinas Research Center auditorium this afternoon.
Tomlinson described Filipino writers and their style of writing as “sincere,” but said that they still needed to be pushed to express themselves more openly and creatively.
“There isn’t much difference between [New York writers] and Filipinos. Filipinos are very sincere, but they are also very reserved and need to be coaxed on,” he said.
The New York-based writer shared some writing tips, saying that what makes a good plot is by “creating a routine, then breaking it.”
Tomlinson, who believes there can be fun in poetry, encouraged active audience participation in his workshop. Arts and Letters professors Ferdinand Lopez and Nerisa Guevarra shared their works with the crowd of literary enthusiasts.
Tomlinson is an editor of the web magazine Ducts and a co-author of the book “The Portable MFA in Writing.”
The event was sponsored by the UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies, in cooperation with the Thomasian Writers Guild and the Literary Society. Sarah Mae Jenna A. Ramos