A Summer of Science Fiction: Creative Writing Workshops, Lectures, and KSci-Fi Zine

StoryLab, as part of Manifesta 14 Prishtina, invites you to apply for a 7-week series of creative writing workshops and lectures with a special focus on science fiction, by the end of which participants will have one piece of peer-reviewed writing ready for publication in the upcoming KSci-Fi zine.

If you are passionate about cyberpunk, space opera, environmental sci-fi, speculative fiction, fantasy, criticism, personal essays about sci-fi, or some hybrid experiment that mixes them all — then KSci-Fi – Kosovo Science Fiction Foundation is the space (and time) for you.

Even though writing science fiction is not very common in Kosovo, we at StoryLab believe that it is essential. In a young democracy like Kosovo, it may sometimes be easier to comment on and explore the societal developments through a “filter” of literary texts that feature robots, space ships, hackers, environmental apocalypse, multiverses and alternate realities, utopias and dystopias, explorations into the potential of the mind, and ruminations on space and time.

Time and Place:

This 7-week program will feature creative writing workshops, lectures, and group discussions. Workshops and lectures will be held in person at the Centre for Narrative Practice, a new permanent interdisciplinary institution and a Manifesta 14 Prishtina venue on the premises of the former Hivzi Sylejmani Library.

For the convenience of our international participants, we will also provide an option to follow the workshops online.

The program is expected to start in late July 2022 and end in early September 2022.

Format:

The creative writing workshop will be led by Artrit Bytyçi, M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the New School in New York City.

The workshop will span over seven sessions, with around 10-14 participants, and will meet once a week. Each week, 2-3 students will submit their texts in advance, which will be workshopped by their peers. Each session will also feature discussions and lectures on the craft of writing, exploration of various authors and methods they use, as well as comments, suggestions, and constructive critiques. For each class, participants will also be assigned readings, and short assignments.

Submitted texts can be in Albanian and/or English.

StoryLab will also organize a lecture series alongside the workshops, where we will cover topics related to science fiction and how it intersects with society, the environment, feminism, arts, film, architecture, music, etc.

The texts from the workshop will be collected and published in the inaugural issue of KSci-Fi zine.

Application:

Please make sure you apply before our deadline: June 27, 2022. The deadline is extended to July 5, 2022.

Click here to fill in the Application.

This program is free for the participants.

If you have any questions please write to us at KosovoStoryLab@gmail.com