Award-winning Canadian author to teach at U of T Mississauga (September 03, 2008)

Award-winning Canadian author Shyam Selvadurai will be sharing his knowledge of the craft of fiction with budding writers at U of T Mississauga this fall. The well-known novelist is teaching the Writing Short Fiction: An Introduction course offered through the U of T School of Continuing Studies.

“Selvadurai is an internationally acclaimed storyteller, so it’s exciting to have him at U of T Mississauga,” says Lee Gowan, head of the Creative Writing Program within the School of Continuing Studies.

Author Shyam Selvadurai

Selvadurai’s debut novel Funny Boy, published in 1994, became a national bestseller. A coming-of-age story about a boy in Sri Lanka, the author’s birthplace, it won the W.H. Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Lambda Literary Award for gay and lesbian literature in the United States, and was nominated for the prestigious Giller Prize in Canada. His second novel, Cinnamon Gardens, a romance set in Ceylon in the 1920s has been translated into six languages and his novel for young people, Swimming in the Monsoon Sea, garnered the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year Award. In addition, Selvadurai is the editor of the anthology Story-wallah! A Celebration of South Asian Fiction.

In the class at U of T Mississauga, Selvadurai says he will be focusing on “the building blocks of fiction: the different points of view—the lenses through which one enters the fiction as a writer—the voice, and why certain ones are better for certain pieces of fiction.” Other topics to be covered include character, plot, what makes a short story work, and how it is different than a novel.

Selvadurai says he enjoys teaching adult learners. “They are keen and bring a lot to the class because many of them are very well read. I am looking forward to the informed exchange that occurs in such a class between the instructor and students.” “I’m also hoping that there will be a diversity of students in terms of cultural background as that always makes a class extremely interesting,” he says.

“Selvadurai is an experienced teacher, and success hasn't gone to his head. He is very approachable and easy to work with, and that is necessary in a workshop process,” says Gowan. “Sharing your creative work can be frightening. Like any good writing teacher, he knows how to create a safe place for all the writers in the class.”

For more information about the Creative Writing program and other School of Continuing Education Programs offered at U of T Mississauga this fall, visit:
learn.utoronto.ca/utm/all/mississauga.htm