The Palestinian students who participated in the workshops. Below: Some of the aspiring writers with Lesley Thomson
Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP) has concluded the third annual Summer Writing Institute.
The aim of this exercise is to improve writing skills by working with professional writers in a small group setting. In total, 40 aspiring writers participated. Courses included fiction, poetry, and non-fiction writing in both English and Arabic. The instructors included Alma Khasawnih and Lesley Thomson (fiction), Carol Henderson and Farah Ghniem (non-fiction), and Patty Paine (poetry).Arabic fiction instructor Khasawnih said that the participants are now able to develop more mature projects.Vodafone offered scholarships for female writers to participate. Jenny Maher of Vodafone said: “We are proud to support women writers in the Qatar community as part of  The Writer’s World fund and a result of the Vodafone Women in Qatar book.” One of those chosen for the scholarship affirmed that “without this scholarship, I wouldn’t have been able to participate in the programme.”For a second year in a row, BQFP has supported the Palestine Writers’ Workshop and creative writing by students at Bir Zeit University in Palestine. Four students from Palestine participated in the workshops and visited Qatar for the first time. One of the students, Hussam Ghosheh said, “I’m now inspired to start a blog as a cultural platform and a lens to show what life is like under occupation.”BQFP seeks to promote and nourish interest in reading and writing in Qatar and across the region. Through programmes such as the Summer Writing Institute, BQFP has already helped expand a culture of writing in Qatar.BQFP is owned by Qatar Foundation and managed by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Established in October 2008 and headquartered in Doha, BQFP has three main aims.The first is to publish books of excellence and originality in English and Arabic including fiction and non-fiction for adults and for children, educational books for schools, academic books for universities and researchers, and information and reference titles. The second objective is to promote the love of reading and writing, and to help establish a vibrant literary culture in Qatar and the Middle East through reading events, book groups and other initiatives, such as World Book Day. BQFP also wants to cultivate new literary talent especially in Arabic by organising events to support the development of aspiring new literary talent and running creative writing workshops.BQFP’s third aim is to achieve the transfer of publishing and related skills into Qatar through regular internships and secondments in Doha and at Bloomsbury’s headquarters in London, training courses in key areas of publishing, and mentoring of aspiring Qatari publishers. Within this area, BQFP is committed to helping improve standards of translation into and out of Arabic and run the annual BQFP International Translation Conference being held in Doha in partnership with Carnegie-Mellon University in Qatar.