Walberberg Seminar on Creative Writing

The Walberberg Seminar is the largest and longest running annual Literature seminar held overseas. The next seminar will run from 29 January – 1 February 2004 and will be held, as it always has, in the Walberberg Dominican cloister in Germany. The seminar will be chaired by Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate and is on the theme of ‘The World and the Study', focusing on writers who are involved in another area of activity as well as writing. Writers to take part are Jonathan Coe (novelist), David Edgar (dramatist), Jo Shapcott (poet) Helen Simpson (short story writer) and George Szirtes (poet and translator). The seminar is attended by approximately 45 participants from Germany, including a broad mix of academic critics, professors of English (with many from the younger generation), publishers, journalists and translators.

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The Walberberg Seminar was founded by Malcolm Bradbury, who chaired the first seminar, in 1986. Since then the Seminar has been held every year and has introduced a large number of contemporary British writers to a German audience. Chairs of the seminar, in succession to Malcolm Bradbury, have been A S Byatt, Valentine Cunningham, Christopher Hope, Paul Muldoon, Caryl Phillips, Michele Roberts and Marina Warner. In its early years the seminar took the generic theme of Contemporary British Writing, but more recently it has focused on specific themes connected with contemporary literature such as Translation and Contemporary Writing. The seminar has been especially important in recent years in introducing new ideas into the teaching of Creative Writing in Germany.

Writers who have appeared over the years are: John Agard, Simon Armitage, Paul Bailey, Angela Carter, Amit Chaudhuri, David Constantine, Jim Crace, Louis de Bernieres, Marina Carr, Fred D'Aguiar, Anne Devlin, Jenny Diski, Maura Dooley, Margaret Drabble, Douglas Dunn, Geoff Dyer, David Edgar, Bernardine Evaristo, Alison Fell, James Fenton, Tibor Fischer, John Fuller, Maggie Gee, Lavinia Greenlaw, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Wilson Harris, Philip Hensher, Michael Hofmann, Alan Hollinghurst, Richard Holmes, Robert Irwin, Kazuo Ishiguro, Kathleen Jamie, Amryl Johnson, Jackie Kay, Penelope Lively, Liz Lochhead, Moy McCrory, Ian McEwan, Bernard McLaverty, Glyn Maxwell, Pauline Melville, Livi Michael, Timothy Mo, Blake Morrison, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, Lawrence Norfolk, Kathy Page, Tim Parks, Don Paterson, Glenn Patterson, Jonathan Raban, Craig Raine, Jane Rogers, Bernice Rubens, Salman Rushdie, Graham Swift, Anthony Thwaite, Rose Tremain, Jenny Uglow, Michelene Wandor, Fay Weldon, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Nigel Williams.