Powerful Times

Cairo, as ever, brings forth strong changes.

The last few weeks have been full expansion and in the last few days alone I have had many business successes with a fully booked new writing course at Darb 17 18, a request by Diwan (national bookstore) to run courses in their stores and to develop a children's course, a post as 'writers' recruiter' and PR for a new venture in Minya; The New Hermopolis (more on that soon and of course the performance at Darb that took place on Saturday and an interview with a daily newspaper that will be following and invitation to perform at a large venue at a later date. And all this as well as the weekly private writing courses!!!

However, on a personal level.. 'mon amour' is no longer.. the wheel has turned again and hurtled from being one way to another within a time frame of one week.

Right now it is 8.26am and I have had 4 hours sleep and got up at 7am as the new guests will be arriving anytime now (and could have been from 7.30am). This is horrendously early for Cairo and as soon as I have gone through the basic introductions to the quirks of the flat I will be going back to bed for most of the day.

This evening I shall be attending the Indian Embassy and eating some very nice food with some very nice friends :-)

Full Moon

The full moon looks so sublime; even in the city's skies; it transcends the urbanity.

Today I start the new writing course at Darb 17 18 and it is fully booked so that is wonderful!

Tomorrow I will meet with Diwan bookstore who are interested in me delivering writing classes from their stores and I am also working on a project to deliver to the British Council which will be working with emerging female Egyptian writers towards live literature and printed material.

This Friday sees the arrival of a family of four from Cornwall; Adam Roberts is on a round the world gap year with his sister and their parents will join them here at ARC for just over two weeks. So it will be a busy household!!

The Show

Sooooooo.. last night was the show at Darb 17 18 and it was great to be on stage in Cairo and also to be doing my Cairo track here!!! I hope to get hold of some of the photos taken of my show last night and I will post some up. The exhibition itself at Darb is great and I will go back to see it properly later this week; ohhh actually I will be there Wednesday as I start tutoring the new Creative Writing course that will be taking place there each week. After the show I had some vodkas and then went on to party at Cairo Jazz Club with a big bunch of friends and artists. I got to bed about 3.30am and then had to get up before my usual early afternoon as I had some things to attend to and Azumi was leaving :-(( She has been an absolute adorable resident and we had some lovely times. She wrote in the guest book that she now feels inspired to work on her novel; so Cairo has given her some fire. My flat is filled with red roses; a 'good luck for the show' from some dear friends. Today should have been class but one student needed to cancel so I will go instead to see a friend and then tonight I will go to a stage play version of 'Death and the Maiden' being put on by a writer/director friend of mine Muhammad Marros at the Rawabet Theatre, Downtown. Later this week I have my Tuesday class, then begin the new course at Darb on Wednesday, I need to work on the project outline for the British Council and then on Friday the next four residents arrive for a stay of 16 nights!

New Writing Courses

I am now collecting registrations for people interested in joining 3 new courses. Please note that the Creative Writing Course (the 1st one listed) will be held on Mondays at 12noon and start in early May, so please register for this one as soon as possible:

Creative Writing Course

The 10 week Creative Writing course will look at various techniques and exercises to open up & improve writing writing skills, work with metaphor and imagery, create texts and narratives to given themes and word counts as well as free writing. The end goal will be to write a 1000 word short story. One session a week for 10 weeks. Maximum 10 people per class.

Monologue and Short Plays in Various Formats

We look at the format of writing monologue and plays for stage, screen and radio and how to capture a character's authentic voice, find the central message of the text and prepare it for presentation.


Live Presentation of Written Word

For bringing developed pieces of text to performance level; working on voice, rhythm, projection, stance and movement, character, direction, subsequent re-writes and edits from further developing the pieces.

Private Study

Working one to one with individuals on their personal goals and creative writing projects eg: novel, short story, poetry, plays.

If interested in any of the above courses please email me on: lindawildfire@hotmail.com

Plant Life

I had a lovely stroll with mon amour in Orman park yesterday; a short walk from my home. The fresh, breath of the plants and trees was a joy and we saw wild parrots and walked over a lily pond; albeit a lily pad and trash pond :-) I bought some new plants for the flat and they are giving a new sense of bounty to the environment. In Orman park one can forget the traffic and craziness for a while and simply be dreamed into the green lushness.

Jupiter

I'm a Sagittarian and as such am ruled by the most venerable and expansive planet Jupiter. Today I woke up feeling LUCKY. Whether such feelings are deluded or not is not important. Good things are happening NOW!!! Many shorter term goals are coming together and longer term projects are looking like they can find a fertile soil. I took a gamble coming here, or did I? I followed a compulsion and this is generally all I know to do; if I feel something strongly then I'll do it. My life here can be seen as precarious or a risk assessed step to the future I want. Whatever, I'm doing it. It is too early to write the longer term project ideas down as I am just beginning negotiation with organisations about them and it is also too early to document the next possible residents.. but should all the current negotiations manifest into reality then I can say that expansion for ArtHome at ARC and for myself personally (and the two are inter-twined) is happily moving forward. And if it is not the things I am aware of now, or as well as the those things, I believe it will be other growth and success. YES. The word is YES.

Azumi is here and Thank you to Saturday group

Azumi arrived yesterday and last night we went out downtown, saw a good Romanian film at the French Institute, ate fuul and tameya, and later drank Omar Khayyam and discussed literature and life until 4am. I finally found out the correct way to pronounce one of my favourite writer's names; Haruki Murakami but have only now half remembered. Other news is that I will be having several interesting meetings this week.. more news later.. but let's say I hope they lead to expansion for ARC. Ohhhh and don't forget my show at Darb 17 18 on Saturday 24th!!!

Saturday 17th saw an end of course get together for the Saturday writing group and Nadia and Sondos bought me some excellent books; shokran geddann!!!! I will miss my Saturday class but we will set up a Facebook page and blog and continue to meet once a month hopefully.

I will also be printing out a booklet of the groups' work and distributing it in local arts venues.

Busy Bee Creative Bee

My day started with a giant bee coming in through the open windows! A lovely and hopeful sign :-)

ARC is looking forward to receiving Azumi Hasegawa, a Japanese writer, on Saturday for her stay of one week. Her arrival will be into a flurry of activity; as there will be a small party happening for the students who have just completed the 10 week writing course.

Over the next three days I am devoting my time to memorising my set for my performance at Darb 17 18. I will happen to go see a few films though also :-) This time it is Italian cinema over at the Italian Institute.

The next few weeks will be busy; not just with residents and the show but also setting up several new writing courses; privately and also one that will take place at Darb 17 18 on Wednesday evenings and a meeting with the British Council and getting links and support for some longer term projects that I am setting up to work with emerging Egyptian female writers.

Inshallah!!!! :-)

Now to work!!!

Flowers

I am having a cup of peppermint tea before the last class for the Saturday group. It is our 10th session today and we will also have a get together next week to share and say goodbye; or not... as hopefully some of my Saturday students may choose to start another course with me and Nadia will be back from her travels and tell us all about them :-)

The group have been a delight; it has been wonderful to get to know them and build friendships and to see their writing expand and soar.

I am taking this opportunity to thank each and every student.

This week I have been going over to the Opera House, conveniently just by my building, and watching some Moroccan cinema; the films have been good and it is fantastic to be able to walk 5 minutes and sit down in a good cinema and all for free!! I love this aspect of Cairo!

My flat is filled with flowers as early in the week I went to the Orman Gardens, another short walk from my building, where there is a flower show and I got some plants. Then mon amour came back!!! :-)) And brought me a huge basket of roses and carnations. So.. it has been a GOOD week!!! :-))

I am working on my upcoming show for Darb 17 18; as it will be in 14 days and I will be doing a 25 minute set. I am also recruiting new writing students and have been downtown putting posters up and need to do some new Internet advertising. So.. all creative stations go!!!!

Performance at DARB 17 18

Hello everyone

Well, wow, things change ALL the time in this place.

Sooooooo.. Theopisti and Sheridan left yesterday after 11 days; it was a pleasure having them here and Theopisti accomplished a lot during her time. Azumi doesn't arrive until 17th, so the interim time is going to be busy with organising new writing classes and NEW NEWS FRESH OFF THE PRESS... I have a performance at Darb 17 18 on the 24th April for the opening party of SPLIT; the new show at Darb. I will be performing some existing work and writing new pieces and have to find a guitarist to work with on few numbers. It will be an exciting night! The opening parties at Darb are always fantastic and busy. Then at the end of April I will be running writing classes from Darb twice weekly; Mondays and Wednesday evenings.

My mood has been difficult however; the changes with mon amour take me to wild thoughts and some of those have included feeling like leaving the country; also it is hard to hold on to absolute positivity when I don't know properly how much money I will have coming in or when it will come.

Anyway.. I have a private student in a few hours and have to read through her work and then I have class tonight and need to prepare the lesson. Tomorrow I will go to Darb and talk about the performance and then go over to Artellewa and see what that's all about!

Bye for now!!!!