The White City Wordsmiths is a creative writing workshop initiated by English Language Fellow Nathan William Meyer and is primarily comprised of young, talented writers from the University of Belgrade. Meyer initiated this project after observing a lack of extracurricular activities, as well as an increased demand from students to find an outlet to express themselves and improve their command of English. This project was structured to produce a finished product, an anthology of prose and poetry in both paper and electronic copies that demonstrates the students’ development as creative thinkers and writers in English. The electronic version of the book can be downloaded here.
All roles and responsibilities of publishing the book were taken on by workshop participants. These roles included generating media coverage, graphic design of the book, participating in an editing committee, sourcing and working with printers, and coordinating a highly successful public reading and reception to be attended by distinguished guests from the U.S. Embassy and University of Belgrade. These roles gave students real responsibilities and professional exposure, in addition helping them hone their English language skills.
The public reading was held at Belgrade’s American Corner and up to nine students recited their poems or read excerpts of prose before a packed audience. At the conclusion of the event, Meyers expressed the group’s unified desire to continue the project during the following academic year in an effort to expand franchise creative writing projects throughout Serbia, and to promote post-conflict artistic collaborations by establishing new partnerships to facilitate future cultural artistic exchanges.
A video of the reading was recorded and can be viewed here.
