Press Release

HKBU International Writers’ Workshop features ten renowned writers at Literary Festival

Thursday, 09 March 2023

The International Writers’ Workshop (IWW) of Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) will host its annual Literary Festival from 13 to 16 March on campus.

This year’s Festival, with the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong & Macau and Peel Street Poetry as partners, will feature two 2023 Writers-in-Residence and eight other international writers who are making their Post-Programme Visits. Under the theme “Turbulence · Tranquility · Transdisciplinary Writing”, the Festival will explore the negotiation of turbulent times, tranquil moments, and the nature of transdisciplinary writing in our community.

The two Writers-in-Residence this year are both fiction writers, namely Yan Ge from mainland China and Violet Kupersmith from the United States. They will engage with ChatGPT at the Opening Conversation on 13 March. The conversation will focus on the relationship between human creativity and artificial intelligence as a key driver of literary writing in the present and future. Additional Festival events include a fiction writing workshop, panel discussions, and a literary reading. Please refer to the attachment for the biographies of the two writers.

This year’s IWW will also feature eight writers at the Festival, namely Gili Haimovich, a poet from Israel; Gabriel Payares, a fiction writer from Venezuela; Vladimir Poleganov, a fiction writer from Bulgaria; Cristina Sánchez -Andrade, a fiction writer from Spain; Anna Tolkacheva, a media-artist and poet from Russia; Catalina Lobo-Guerrero, a journalist from Colombia; Marta Dzido, a writer and filmmaker from Poland; and Matilde Søes Rasmussen, a Danish-Swedish writer and artist. They were IWW’s Writers-in-Residence in 2021 and 2022, but their scheduled visits to Hong Kong were postponed due to the pandemic. They will share their work at a public Literary Reading on 15 March.

All events are open to the public. Further details of the Festival can be found on the webpage of the Faculty of Arts and the Facebook page of the IWW. Those who are interested in joining can register online. 

About the IWW

Founded in 2004, the IWW remains one of the signature programmes of the Faculty of Arts at HKBU. For nearly twenty years, the IWW has hosted nearly 150 writers from more than 53 different countries, and it remains one of the few writers-in-residence programmes in Asia. A self-funded, non-profit initiative, the IWW has promoted world-leading cultural and educational activities throughout its history, and it remains a reliable stakeholder championing HKBU’s commitment to the literary arts in Hong Kong, the nation, the region, and the world. Please visit our website or Facebook page for further information.

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