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  MELISSA WAN

Sozopol Fiction Seminars

24/6/2019

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Fourteen people, a mix of genders and ages, are gathered around two circular tables beneath a large white parasol. Some stand, others sit. Melissa, sitting on the right, is howling with laughter.
Melissa's legs and feet outstretched on a pebbled beach, the edge of the sea just coming into the photograph at the top. She is wearing blue trousers and black Birkenstocks.
Five people are walking in a row away from the camera. In the middle is a man in a suit and hat, and he is surrounded by two women on both sides. All are wearing sandals.
Melissa, a white woman with short dark hair, sits on the left and Joanna, a white woman with long dark hair, sits next to her. She is holding a microphone in one hand and is reading from the sheet of paper she holds in the other.
A white man shows his bicep with a fresh tattoo of a piece of dill, leaking ink under the cellophane. A white woman holds her arm over his to show the same tattoo on her inner left wrist. Beneath their arms is the leg of another woman, who shows the same tattoo on the top of her left foot.
Seven people are dotted around the room on black chairs, most smile at the camera. The woman in the front row is fanning herself with a handheld fan.
In 2019, I was chosen as one of five English-speaking Fellows to take part in the Sozopol Fiction Seminars.

The seminar took place from 13 - 17 June, 2019, in Sozopol, Bulgaria - an intense few days of workshops, one-on-one consultations, panels, lectures and readings - followed by a program of events held in Sofia as part of the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation's eleventh annual edition of CapitaLiterature.

Here you can watch the International Literary Performance in which I read alongside my fellow writers at the Peroto Literary Club in Sofia. In English and Bulgarian.

My story 'San Salvador' is from 15:00 - 18:45.

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I'll Show You Mine: A Sex-Writing Symposium

17/6/2019

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The letters I S Y M in white in front of a hand holding a pink ring doughnut.
A hand around a cup of black coffee, surrounded by conference papers and the book 'Madame Zero' by Sarah Hall.
A white woman with short dark hair, wearing a striped t-shirt, stands and looks down at papers she is holding.
The phrase 'Great Things are Coming' in white capitals in front of a banana on a blue background.
During my time as an MA student at the University of East Anglia, I organised a conference with a fellow student, James Smart, on the subject of writing sex in literature.

'I'll Show You Mine: A Sex-Writing Symposium' came from a desire to interrogate the culture for writing sex in contemporary literature. Do we do it and how? As students of creative writing, we were particularly interested in the technicalities
of writing sex – which words to use, point of view, the use of metaphor, and so on.

The symposium took place at the National Centre for Writing's Dragon Hall in Norwich on Thursday 6 June, 2019.

The speakers included students within the Literature, Drama and Creative Writing department at UEA, alongside contemporary writers engaged with the writing of sex - across literary fiction, poetry, memoir and the romance genre. Speakers included Monique Roffey, Sarah Hall, Pippa Roscoe, Rachel Connor, V.C. Lancaster, Lucy-Anne Holmes and Rachel Long, some of whom also led creative writing seminars on the day.

The day's discussions are available to listen to here, and you can visit our Twitter page here.

The conference was supported by the department of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, the National Centre for Writing and we raised money to pay our speakers via ticket sales on our Crowdfunder.
The words 'I'll Show You Mine: A Sex-Writing Symposium, Thursday June 6th, Dragon Hall, Norwich' against a pink background. On the left a hand holding a deep pink ring doughnut.
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    The brown trousers in this photograph were spotted on a zebra crossing in Manhattan.
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