Maya Kucherskaya and Marina Stepnova Hold Creative Writing Workshops in Kazan
Meetings took place on the 10th and 11th of March that were dedicated to the history of Creative Writing in Russia and to the techniques of creating fictional heroes.
Writer and philologist, Maya Kucherskaya, gave a lecture entitled ‘Priest and Broom: towards a History of Literary Education in Russia’ at the center for modern culture ‘Smena’. She explained how the teaching of creative writing in Great Britain and the United States began. The emergence of creative writing in Russia was given special attention. Maya Kucherskaya focused on the history of the Literary Institute and explained the phenomenon of the emergence of creative writing schools in recent years.
Marina Stepnova, a writer and a professor of Creative Writing, conducted a master class entitled ‘The Human Factor. How to create a living character?’ at the Kazan House-Museum of Vasily Aksenov. The listeners were of all ages – university students, members of the local literary club, and members of the general public who wanted to learn how to write better. Despite the difficult tasks (not everyone is able to write a fiction text on a given topic in five minutes and then read it aloud), the master class was engaging and fun. Kazan writers – both current and future – demonstrated their skills and passed all the ‘tests’ with flying colours.
The administrative team of the Master’s programme Creative Writing thanks Professor Liya Buskanets of Kazan Federal University for organizing the events.