THE LAUNCH OF TALK - THE ANTHONIAN LITERARY CLUB BULLETIN

February 29- The Anthonian Literary Club launched their maiden bulletin appropriately named TALK in a formal ceremony in the school hall. The Bulletin was inaugurated by Ms. Richa Wahi, an eminent personality in the field of creative writing. A writer of short stories for children and grown ups, Ms. Wahi holds a Masters Degree in creative writing from Cardiff University, UK. A teacher at Heritage School, Kolkata, she conducts several creative writing courses in association with The British Council. She also runs a center called Word Munchers where she teaches vocabulary building and creative writing. 

The programme began with a formal welcome accorded to Ms. Wahi by the student members of the Literary Club and its teachers. She then lit the ceremonial lamp. The Headmaster addressed the students present on the occasion about the new step the Literary Club had taken by starting a bulletin in addition to the blog, which has already been in operation since April last year. Then Ms. Wahi took over and gave the students a pep talk on various aspects of creative writing. She encouraged the students to exercise their creative writing skills through fun activities. She stressed the importance the writers feel by playing god as they create a world out of their imagination. She also appreciated the endeavour of the literary club especially with regard to the publication of the bulletin TALK. 

The TALK Editorial

The name might amuse those who feel that conventionally students are encouraged to do just the opposite in class. But since no literary platform worth its salt can function without freedom of self expression we could find nothing but appropriateness in the nomenclature. Added to that was the tongue in cheek manner in which the name just turned out to be the initials of The Anthonian Literary Club, with a convenient alteration of spelling that isn’t an aberration, but rather our way of exploring the paradigms of a language that  lends itself so gracefully to the process of evolution.

 

The birth of the bulletin “TALK” was the logical step upwards in the growth of The Anthonian Literary Club.  The blog had taken shape last year and was given a face-lift earlier this year. Consequently more activity was registered, but the creative thing was not happening in the way we had envisaged. The excuse of writer’s block was not made as the concept is alien to our budding scribes. So, with fingers clandestinely crossed behind stiff backs, we decided to give the students another, more conventional platform to express their creative selves. So wary were we at the outset of opening the floodgates of unoriginal writing and plagiarized stuff that at first we did not give our fledgling enterprise wide publicity, but rather solicited the help of a few students, proficient in the language, to provide us with matter to publish in the first volume of the bulletin. As it turned out they had been at some times in the past inspired by the muse and were consequently in possession of ready compositions. We were not looking for commissioned pieces and as these original compositions possessed some merit they underwent basic editing and were deemed printable.  Only a few of those pieces have found their way into the first issue owing only to constraints of space. I fervently hope they lay the standard for the issues to be published in the forthcoming months.  In addition the next issues will have columns in the vernacular languages taught at the school.

 

This enterprise would have never progressed beyond the conceptual stage had it not been for the encouragement and support of the Headmaster, Fr. Devraj Fernandes. An indefatigable worker and a true visionary he has brought about that change in the school which is just what the proverbial doctor ordered.  We thank him for all that he has made possible and for being such a wonderful person to work with.

Before signing off I would like to request you to be kind in your criticism of our maiden venture. We will appreciate any suggestion that could help this bulletin become the true voice of the Anthonian. Keep TALKing.

Steve Menezes

(Coordinator, TALK)