Sneak Peak at Guest Writers for Ubud Festival

Ubud Writers & Readers Festival 5 - 9 October 2011

The program for the 2011 Festival is beginning to take shape with this year's theme Cultivate the Land Within, leading the way. Up to 100 visiting and local writers will fill Ubud's majestic pavilions, cafes and temples during that time, bringing together guests, writers and readers and opening up spaces for charged conversation and exchange of ideas. In 2011, the Festival will present the 1st Bali Emerging Writers Festival (BEWF). Held over two days, the BEWF will spotlight the island's most promising emerging talents and is destined to become the country's largest gathering of young and dynamic writers. New and traditional forms of writing including zines, comics, blogging, screenwriting, poetry, spoken word, hip hop music, journalism, autobiography, comedy, songwriting and prose will be featured. Nightimes will showcase spoken word performances and music by some of the island's hottest performers. BEWF will be held in Denpasar at Serambi Arts Antida in Denpasar from 27 - 29 May. Here is a sneak peak of what you can expect as part of UWRF, 2011. One of our guest writers at this year's festival will be the effervescent English writer, Jill Dawson. The author of seven novels, Jill has also won numerous awards for poetry and screenplays and held many fellowships. Her novel The Great Lover about the poet Rubert Brooke and published in 2008 was a best seller. Her new novel Lucky Bunny which tells the life of Queenie Dove, East End thief and good time girl, will be published by Sceptre in 2011. Internationally renowned author, DBC Pierre, is one of our leading names this year. DBC Pierre burst onto the literary scene with Vernon God Little, a dark satire on America, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2003. He has since published 2 more works and is read in more than 43 territories worldwide. Describing himself as a composer trapped in the body of a cartoonist, Pierre's eclectic background well qualifies him explore the outer edges of humanity and the strange life of societies. He grew up in a mansion where a servant's child was raised for ten years without his parents ever knowing, alongside neighbours who kept Bengal tigers for pets. "Every day in life", he says, "is a roll of the dice" – and every page of his work seems to reflect that in often funny, sometimes dark, always human ways. Heralding from the South Pacific, and probably the best-known author from this region, is Samoan novelist, poet and educator, Albert Wendt, who has promoted creative writing across the Pacific. Although his works are deeply rooted in the heritage of the Oceanic culture, they also reflect the common experience of people everywhere. Among Wendt's major works is Leaves of the Banyan Tree (1979), an epic spanning three generations and a modern classic work of Pacific literature. The program promises to be diverse, enticing and engaging.