A backpack and a bit of luck. Now available in all good bookshops!
"One of the top six writers' festivals in the world" - Harper's Bazaar, UK
STORIES FROM UWRF 2012
Pramoedya Ananta Toer was one of Indonesia’s greatest contemporary writers. While subjected to hard labour, torture and deprivation as a political prisoner on the island prison of Buru in eastern Indonesia, he wrote a story set at the end of Dutch colonial rule. Without pen and paper, Pramoedya didn’t actually write this story. He narrated it to his fellow prisoners, who then spread it to the other prisoners. This was how his story was preserved. Years later when he was granted access to writing materials the story evolved into the epic best selling book, This Earth of Mankind: Bumi Manusia. The title of Pramoedya’s book was used as a theme for this year’s Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in celebration of the enduring power of storytelling.
From 3rd to 7th October, a diverse group of 140 writers from 30 countries came together in Ubud, the cultural centre of Bali, to share their stories.
I arrived at Samhita Garden, a lovely little resort on a quiet lane off the main road, on a Tuesday afternoon, one day before the festival. The familiar sounds of gamelan softly floating in the air, moss covered stone frogs with wide-open mouths shooting thin streams of water into a pond, roosters crowing from a distant village, and a gardener greeting me with a smile and a “Selamat siang”, transported me to a universe far away from the concrete and steel stories of meetings with clients and stressful deadlines. Here, I was about to listen to human stories of adventure and exploration, of joy and sadness, of courage and endurance, stories of the mind and stories of the heart.
The first night’s dinner, for me, is always a little exciting and daunting at the same time. That’s when the writers are picked up from their hotels all over Ubud and brought to their first dinner together. Without the organisers there, one had to find somebody to talk to, a few to mingle with, or suffer the fate of standing in a corner with a drink in one hand and a canapé in another, hoping that someone would come over and start a conversation. A traditional Balinese dance started halfway through cocktails.
“What dance is that?” I heard a lady’s voice with a northern Indian accent.
“It’s a traditional Balinese dance.” Of course it is, I thought. “But I’m not sure exactly what it’s called,” I continued.
She introduced herself as Anuradha Roy.
“Oh! I saw your name in the programme. At first glance I thought it was Arundhati Roy.” As soon as those words flew through my lips, I realised how offensive they were, especially if they were the first words one said to an author as accomplished as Anuradha. I read in the programme that she had won several awards for her books.
“Oh, yes,” she smiled. “In fact, someone wrote in her blog that Arundhati Roy has a new book out!”
I immediately liked Anuradha. Over dinner, I learned that she and her husband live in a cottage in Ranikhet, north India, at the foot of the snow-capped Himalayas. She told me about how they first saw the derelict cottage, at the tip of a slope.
“We had to stand tip-toe because the place was a soggy mess of plastic bags, warped shoes, dented tins and bottles. The cottage had broken windows blinded with sheets of newspaper browned with age. Inside, the floor was a mound of dank mud. Rotted sacking hung from a ruined false ceiling. Beams of wood sagged from it.
And in one corner, stood a dog.” Anuradha’s face lit up. “Its eyes shone in its sooty face. Its peaked ears were the colour of copper, and its fringed tail waved slowly side to side, like a banner.”
Only a few things in life can be pinned to particular moments. And this was one: we knew immediately, my husband and I, that we would live there, in that cottage, on that hill.”
In the same year that they began restoring the cottage they were also struggling to establish their publishing house. Being in a far-out place, with no internet access or mobile phone lines, things naturally happened at a different pace. A tree fell onto a wire and they had no power for several days.
“Days passed,” she said, “weeks.”
The carpenter didn’t turn up because his fruit trees had been ravaged by monkeys. Not long after, the plumber went back to his village to tend to his sick buffalo.
“We waited.”
When he returned, he had nothing to do because the taps had not arrived. A landslide had blocked the road.
“We waited.”
Anuradha began planting lily bulbs and rose cuttings. An elderly lady herding some goats approached her and said, “Everything happens in its own time. Flowers bloom in their own time.”
Anuradha’s first book, An Atlas of Impossible Longing, was rejected 16 times. She continued sending her manuscript. Weeks passed, months. She waited.
When An Atlas of Impossible Longing was finally published, a year later, it was translated into 15 languages across the world. Soon after, it was shortlisted for the Crossword Prize, longlisted for the Impac Award, and was named by World Literature Today as one of the 60 most essential books on modern India. Add to that, her second novel, The Folded Earth, was longlisted for the Man Asia Award, and won the Economist Crossword Prize Award for Fiction 2012.
Flowers bloom in their own time.
The festival atmosphere started to gather momentum the following evening when the rest of the writers arrived. Small clumps of people had already gathered on the streets just outside the entrance of the Ubud Palace where the opening festival was held.
An elegant lady dressed in a colourful tropical print halter neck dress sat on the edge of a gazebo. It was Janet Steele. I had met her at UWRF two years before, and was delighted to see her again.
I sat next to her and asked her what she had been up to. After telling me with child-like excitement about the Malaysian claypot egg tofu with fish roe that she experimented with recently, and that it turned out delicious, we moved on to the book on journalism and Islam in the Malay Archipelago that she was working on.
I’ve always wondered what attracted Janet to Asia. Originally from Florida, and now, Associate Professor of Journalism at the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, Janet has lectured on the theory and practice of journalism as a State Department Speaker and Specialist in India, Malaysia, The Philippines, East Timor, Taiwan, Burma, Sudan, Egypt, and Bangladesh.
Currently based in Jakarta, she makes frequent visits to Kuala Lumpur where she works closely with Malaysiakini, Malaysia’s only independent news portal. Her strong Anglo-Saxon looks and colouring – golden hair and blue eyes – often cause a few surprised stares from strangers whenever she speaks Bahasa Indonesia or Bahasa Malaysia. And she speaks them both fluently too.
“I’ve always had an interest in the intersection of news and culture,” Janet said when I asked her why she decided to write a book on journalism and Islam. “I started working on this book after it occurred to me that although the values of good journalism - truth, balance, verification, independence from power - are universal, people the whole world over understand those values through the prisms of local culture.”
“So, what then,” I asked, “in your opinion, is good journalism?”
“Giving the people the information they need in order to make wise decisions in both their public and private lives,” she replied.
“And what could be more noble than that?” I said.
The sound of the gong proclaimed that the festival had officially begun. The afternoon sun that felt like tiny pins on my skin earlier on had let up a little. There was even a cool breeze to announce the approaching evening. We headed towards Casa Luna for dinner.
A muscular man with jovial face and an extremely pleasant personality joined us at our table. His name was Neal Hall. Neal earned his undergraduate degree at Cornell University where he achieved All Ivy, All East Coast, and All American Honors. Named Cornell's Athlete of the Year, he was Gold Medalist in the '78 U.S. National Sport Festival Mini Olympics, was inducted into the Cornell University Athletic Hall of Fame and became an Inductee, Cornell University Quill and Dagger Senior Honorary Society. Neal also has a medical degree from Michigan State University, and obtained his ophthalmology surgical subspecialty training at Harvard University.
In his anthology of poems, there is an introduction that reads -
Christians speak of being born again.
The Buddhist speaks of enlightenment.
Not until I experienced
the Zenist’s satori,
this sudden awakening,
did I come to the realization that
despite all insurmountable obstacles
faced and overcome,
to white America,
I am a Nigger For Life
I asked Dr. Hall if the situation really was that bad.
“As a young boy, I was taught to believe Washington never told a lie, Lincoln freed the slaves, that the American dream was a reality well within the reach of every American,” he answered with a smile. “And that all I needed to do to make this dream a reality was apply self motivation, discipline, hard work and education. After years of academic rigors, freshly minted from a Harvard ophthalmic medical and surgical subspecialty in tow, I discovered, painfully, that despite all my hard work, enthusiasm and drive, America does not deliver equally. Whether I work as an ophthalmologist or poet, my reality is clear-cut. In the eyes of "unspoken America", I am a Nigger For Life.”
The next day I bumped into Neal again at Casa Luna, waiting for a shuttle van. A white couple was sitting at a table near the entrance. We took a table next to theirs. Soon after we sat down, the couple moved to another table. Neal took out his book – Nigger For Life – showed it to them, and with a big smile, pointed at himself. I didn’t turn to see how they responded, but we both chuckled with amusement.
My session, titled “Honest, I’m working”, was a panel session I shared with Don George, author of the best-selling Lonely Planet Guide to Travel Writing and editor of eight literary travel anthologies, including The Kindness of Strangers and Better Than Fiction. Don is also Editor at Large for National Geographic Traveler.
We were each asked to share with the audience the most touching story from our years of travelling. Numerous stories came to mind. But I had to choose one, so I told the one about the day I truly believed that my life was about to end in the most horrifying way.
“An auto-rickshaw driver took me to his friend’s restaurant for a ‘free and delicious’ dinner. While waiting for the food to arrive, Sunil gave me a glass of Indian gin, which he said was ‘very special’. I tried it, and after a few gulps, I felt dizzy and terribly uncomfortable. The room was spinning. I was close to passing out. I told Sunil to take me back to my hotel, but he insisted that we stayed on. After much insistence from me, he reluctantly agreed. Although I was almost unconscious, I realised that the route we were taking looked nothing like the one we took to get to the restaurant. We were in a jungle, on a narrow dirt path. We were in complete darkness, and all I could hear was the sound of bushes and twigs brushing against the sides of the auto-rickshaw. Even though it was clear to me that my life was fast reaching its end, and that my soul would take the trauma with it into my next existence, I did not panic. I was simply too ill to feel any fear. And besides, we were alone in a dark jungle. Nobody would hear me if I screamed.
Half an hour later, we came to a halt. My eyes were closed, but I heard Sunil talking in Hindi to two men who dragged me out of the auto-rickshaw. Then I saw the lights of my hotel lobby. Sunil told me that he had instructed the men, who were the hotel staff, to take me as far as the door of my room, and that they were not to enter.
The next day, Sunil came to check on me. For the next few days he took me to some magnificent places that hardly anyone knew about, let alone tourists. There was nobody in sight for miles, and I felt perfectly safe with him.”
Don’s story was about a boy that suddenly appeared out of nowhere to help him.
“I was lost in a crowded bazaar in Cairo. After hopelessly trying to get out of the maze-like market, I felt a small hand on mine. Turning round, I saw that it belonged to a little boy. The boy led me through the narrow snake-like lanes until we were out and facing the main road. I felt the boy release his hand. When I turned to look at him, he had disappeared. I’ve met many people like this little boy, who were like angels that suddenly turned up from nowhere when you needed help.”
These are just a few of the stories I heard at the UWRF. Everyone had one to tell. But every success story was preceded by a sad backstory – stories of rejection, horrible contracts, bad distribution, non-existent marketing and publicity, and a list of other miseries that often made them wish they had taken up law or accountancy instead. And yet, it is this struggle that makes them so human, so humble, so wise, so light-hearted, so full of life, and devoid of the feeling of self-importance - traits that all truly good writers seem to have.
And my story? I want to tell something to all those people that assume I lead a glamorous life, people who, after discovering I’m a writer, predictably exclaim “Wow, that’s a dream life you’re living,” or, “You must get a really good ‘advance’, right?” Or, “So, you have a cottage by the sea, or a villa in the highlands that gives you the peace and quiet you need to write?” I want to tell them that for four days in the year (provided I get invited), yes, I do lead a glamorous life.
STORIES FROM UWRF 2012
Pramoedya Ananta Toer was one of Indonesia’s greatest contemporary writers. While subjected to hard labour, torture and deprivation as a political prisoner on the island prison of Buru in eastern Indonesia, he wrote a story set at the end of Dutch colonial rule. Without pen and paper, Pramoedya didn’t actually write this story. He narrated it to his fellow prisoners, who then spread it to the other prisoners. This was how his story was preserved. Years later when he was granted access to writing materials the story evolved into the epic best selling book, This Earth of Mankind: Bumi Manusia. The title of Pramoedya’s book was used as a theme for this year’s Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in celebration of the enduring power of storytelling.
From 3rd to 7th October, a diverse group of 140 writers from 30 countries came together in Ubud, the cultural centre of Bali, to share their stories.
I arrived at Samhita Garden, a lovely little resort on a quiet lane off the main road, on a Tuesday afternoon, one day before the festival. The familiar sounds of gamelan softly floating in the air, moss covered stone frogs with wide-open mouths shooting thin streams of water into a pond, roosters crowing from a distant village, and a gardener greeting me with a smile and a “Selamat siang”, transported me to a universe far away from the concrete and steel stories of meetings with clients and stressful deadlines. Here, I was about to listen to human stories of adventure and exploration, of joy and sadness, of courage and endurance, stories of the mind and stories of the heart.
The first night’s dinner, for me, is always a little exciting and daunting at the same time. That’s when the writers are picked up from their hotels all over Ubud and brought to their first dinner together. Without the organisers there, one had to find somebody to talk to, a few to mingle with, or suffer the fate of standing in a corner with a drink in one hand and a canapé in another, hoping that someone would come over and start a conversation. A traditional Balinese dance started halfway through cocktails.
“What dance is that?” I heard a lady’s voice with a northern Indian accent.
“It’s a traditional Balinese dance.” Of course it is, I thought. “But I’m not sure exactly what it’s called,” I continued.
She introduced herself as Anuradha Roy.
“Oh! I saw your name in the programme. At first glance I thought it was Arundhati Roy.” As soon as those words flew through my lips, I realised how offensive they were, especially if they were the first words one said to an author as accomplished as Anuradha. I read in the programme that she had won several awards for her books.
“Oh, yes,” she smiled. “In fact, someone wrote in her blog that Arundhati Roy has a new book out!”
I immediately liked Anuradha. Over dinner, I learned that she and her husband live in a cottage in Ranikhet, north India, at the foot of the snow-capped Himalayas. She told me about how they first saw the derelict cottage, at the tip of a slope.
“We had to stand tip-toe because the place was a soggy mess of plastic bags, warped shoes, dented tins and bottles. The cottage had broken windows blinded with sheets of newspaper browned with age. Inside, the floor was a mound of dank mud. Rotted sacking hung from a ruined false ceiling. Beams of wood sagged from it.
And in one corner, stood a dog.” Anuradha’s face lit up. “Its eyes shone in its sooty face. Its peaked ears were the colour of copper, and its fringed tail waved slowly side to side, like a banner.”
Only a few things in life can be pinned to particular moments. And this was one: we knew immediately, my husband and I, that we would live there, in that cottage, on that hill.”
In the same year that they began restoring the cottage they were also struggling to establish their publishing house. Being in a far-out place, with no internet access or mobile phone lines, things naturally happened at a different pace. A tree fell onto a wire and they had no power for several days.
“Days passed,” she said, “weeks.”
The carpenter didn’t turn up because his fruit trees had been ravaged by monkeys. Not long after, the plumber went back to his village to tend to his sick buffalo.
“We waited.”
When he returned, he had nothing to do because the taps had not arrived. A landslide had blocked the road.
“We waited.”
Anuradha began planting lily bulbs and rose cuttings. An elderly lady herding some goats approached her and said, “Everything happens in its own time. Flowers bloom in their own time.”
Anuradha’s first book, An Atlas of Impossible Longing, was rejected 16 times. She continued sending her manuscript. Weeks passed, months. She waited.
When An Atlas of Impossible Longing was finally published, a year later, it was translated into 15 languages across the world. Soon after, it was shortlisted for the Crossword Prize, longlisted for the Impac Award, and was named by World Literature Today as one of the 60 most essential books on modern India. Add to that, her second novel, The Folded Earth, was longlisted for the Man Asia Award, and won the Economist Crossword Prize Award for Fiction 2012.
Flowers bloom in their own time.
The festival atmosphere started to gather momentum the following evening when the rest of the writers arrived. Small clumps of people had already gathered on the streets just outside the entrance of the Ubud Palace where the opening festival was held.
An elegant lady dressed in a colourful tropical print halter neck dress sat on the edge of a gazebo. It was Janet Steele. I had met her at UWRF two years before, and was delighted to see her again.
I sat next to her and asked her what she had been up to. After telling me with child-like excitement about the Malaysian claypot egg tofu with fish roe that she experimented with recently, and that it turned out delicious, we moved on to the book on journalism and Islam in the Malay Archipelago that she was working on.
I’ve always wondered what attracted Janet to Asia. Originally from Florida, and now, Associate Professor of Journalism at the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, Janet has lectured on the theory and practice of journalism as a State Department Speaker and Specialist in India, Malaysia, The Philippines, East Timor, Taiwan, Burma, Sudan, Egypt, and Bangladesh.
Currently based in Jakarta, she makes frequent visits to Kuala Lumpur where she works closely with Malaysiakini, Malaysia’s only independent news portal. Her strong Anglo-Saxon looks and colouring – golden hair and blue eyes – often cause a few surprised stares from strangers whenever she speaks Bahasa Indonesia or Bahasa Malaysia. And she speaks them both fluently too.
“I’ve always had an interest in the intersection of news and culture,” Janet said when I asked her why she decided to write a book on journalism and Islam. “I started working on this book after it occurred to me that although the values of good journalism - truth, balance, verification, independence from power - are universal, people the whole world over understand those values through the prisms of local culture.”
“So, what then,” I asked, “in your opinion, is good journalism?”
“Giving the people the information they need in order to make wise decisions in both their public and private lives,” she replied.
“And what could be more noble than that?” I said.
The sound of the gong proclaimed that the festival had officially begun. The afternoon sun that felt like tiny pins on my skin earlier on had let up a little. There was even a cool breeze to announce the approaching evening. We headed towards Casa Luna for dinner.
A muscular man with jovial face and an extremely pleasant personality joined us at our table. His name was Neal Hall. Neal earned his undergraduate degree at Cornell University where he achieved All Ivy, All East Coast, and All American Honors. Named Cornell's Athlete of the Year, he was Gold Medalist in the '78 U.S. National Sport Festival Mini Olympics, was inducted into the Cornell University Athletic Hall of Fame and became an Inductee, Cornell University Quill and Dagger Senior Honorary Society. Neal also has a medical degree from Michigan State University, and obtained his ophthalmology surgical subspecialty training at Harvard University.
In his anthology of poems, there is an introduction that reads -
Christians speak of being born again.
The Buddhist speaks of enlightenment.
Not until I experienced
the Zenist’s satori,
this sudden awakening,
did I come to the realization that
despite all insurmountable obstacles
faced and overcome,
to white America,
I am a Nigger For Life
I asked Dr. Hall if the situation really was that bad.
“As a young boy, I was taught to believe Washington never told a lie, Lincoln freed the slaves, that the American dream was a reality well within the reach of every American,” he answered with a smile. “And that all I needed to do to make this dream a reality was apply self motivation, discipline, hard work and education. After years of academic rigors, freshly minted from a Harvard ophthalmic medical and surgical subspecialty in tow, I discovered, painfully, that despite all my hard work, enthusiasm and drive, America does not deliver equally. Whether I work as an ophthalmologist or poet, my reality is clear-cut. In the eyes of "unspoken America", I am a Nigger For Life.”
The next day I bumped into Neal again at Casa Luna, waiting for a shuttle van. A white couple was sitting at a table near the entrance. We took a table next to theirs. Soon after we sat down, the couple moved to another table. Neal took out his book – Nigger For Life – showed it to them, and with a big smile, pointed at himself. I didn’t turn to see how they responded, but we both chuckled with amusement.
My session, titled “Honest, I’m working”, was a panel session I shared with Don George, author of the best-selling Lonely Planet Guide to Travel Writing and editor of eight literary travel anthologies, including The Kindness of Strangers and Better Than Fiction. Don is also Editor at Large for National Geographic Traveler.
We were each asked to share with the audience the most touching story from our years of travelling. Numerous stories came to mind. But I had to choose one, so I told the one about the day I truly believed that my life was about to end in the most horrifying way.
“An auto-rickshaw driver took me to his friend’s restaurant for a ‘free and delicious’ dinner. While waiting for the food to arrive, Sunil gave me a glass of Indian gin, which he said was ‘very special’. I tried it, and after a few gulps, I felt dizzy and terribly uncomfortable. The room was spinning. I was close to passing out. I told Sunil to take me back to my hotel, but he insisted that we stayed on. After much insistence from me, he reluctantly agreed. Although I was almost unconscious, I realised that the route we were taking looked nothing like the one we took to get to the restaurant. We were in a jungle, on a narrow dirt path. We were in complete darkness, and all I could hear was the sound of bushes and twigs brushing against the sides of the auto-rickshaw. Even though it was clear to me that my life was fast reaching its end, and that my soul would take the trauma with it into my next existence, I did not panic. I was simply too ill to feel any fear. And besides, we were alone in a dark jungle. Nobody would hear me if I screamed.
Half an hour later, we came to a halt. My eyes were closed, but I heard Sunil talking in Hindi to two men who dragged me out of the auto-rickshaw. Then I saw the lights of my hotel lobby. Sunil told me that he had instructed the men, who were the hotel staff, to take me as far as the door of my room, and that they were not to enter.
The next day, Sunil came to check on me. For the next few days he took me to some magnificent places that hardly anyone knew about, let alone tourists. There was nobody in sight for miles, and I felt perfectly safe with him.”
Don’s story was about a boy that suddenly appeared out of nowhere to help him.
“I was lost in a crowded bazaar in Cairo. After hopelessly trying to get out of the maze-like market, I felt a small hand on mine. Turning round, I saw that it belonged to a little boy. The boy led me through the narrow snake-like lanes until we were out and facing the main road. I felt the boy release his hand. When I turned to look at him, he had disappeared. I’ve met many people like this little boy, who were like angels that suddenly turned up from nowhere when you needed help.”
These are just a few of the stories I heard at the UWRF. Everyone had one to tell. But every success story was preceded by a sad backstory – stories of rejection, horrible contracts, bad distribution, non-existent marketing and publicity, and a list of other miseries that often made them wish they had taken up law or accountancy instead. And yet, it is this struggle that makes them so human, so humble, so wise, so light-hearted, so full of life, and devoid of the feeling of self-importance - traits that all truly good writers seem to have.
And my story? I want to tell something to all those people that assume I lead a glamorous life, people who, after discovering I’m a writer, predictably exclaim “Wow, that’s a dream life you’re living,” or, “You must get a really good ‘advance’, right?” Or, “So, you have a cottage by the sea, or a villa in the highlands that gives you the peace and quiet you need to write?” I want to tell them that for four days in the year (provided I get invited), yes, I do lead a glamorous life.
Samhita Gardens
Villa Semana
My amiable and diligent frog at the
Villa Semana
Dinner at Valentine Willie's house
Ma Thanegi, on the right
Ma Thanegi was at one time the PA to Aung San Suu Kyi. We had an interesting chat about the situation in Burma and how she is confident that it is heading towards the Burma that Aung San Suu Kyi had always dreamed of.
Travel Narrative Workshop at Taksu Spa
Every writers dream - to be surrounded by beauty, the clicking of geckos, crowing of roosters, chirping of birds and the sound of the breeze weaving through the padi stalks, "Sssrrr... ssrrrr ..." only to bring the fragrance of frangipani flowers (and the occasional whiff of cow dung, but that's nice too).
The travel writing workshop was sold out!
The path towards the hanging gazebo for lunch at the Taksu Spa was a smooth one
Closing ceremony at the Antonio Blanco Gallery
Ubud Writers & Readers Festival 2010
Opening ceremony
Panel of travel writers
Panel session with Janet Steele, Professor or Journalism, George Washington University.
Travel writing workshop for JIS
Students from the Jakarta International School. No, they did stick gum under the tables or smoke at the back of the classroom.
A letter from their teacher:
3 November 2010
In October, ten Jakarta international Students and I travelled to the Ubud Readers and Writers Festival in Ubud, Bali. My goals for the students were to introduce them to a community of writers, encourage their creativity, and to provide them with opportunities to practice and enhance their craft.
As part of this experience, we attended a private workshop with Zhang Su Li, a travel writer, who I hoped would help the students learn the guidelines of travel writing and spark their imaginations. With Su Li, we got so much more than we were hoping for.
Su Li had a great rapport with the students, and it took her only minutes to get their creative juices flowing. Most of them were already good writers, but her cues and activities helped them to “think outside the box” and to craft their sentences even more. Her prompts for avoiding clichés and creating details were both fun and thought-provoking and the students responded both in their writing and verbally—happily sharing their writing and criticism with the rest of the group.
I especially appreciated the ease with which Su Li was able to make the students feel comfortable with sharing their work and comments. She has a great way of avoiding self-deprecating comments which I have started to use in my classroom to great effect.
I also passed along some of her activities and worksheets to the ninth grade English teachers at JIS, and they have incorporated these activities into their Travel Writing unit. So everyone at JIS has benefited greatly from the two-hour’s time we spent with Su Li in Ubud.
One of my students, who has been going to the Festival for three years proclaimed Su Li’s workshop as “the best one ever!”, and I have to agree. In my four years of accompanying kids to Ubud, Su Li’s workshop was the most active, creative and student-centered one we have attended.
Thanks, Su Li, for everything!
Sincerely,
Wendy Grant
HS English Teacher, Jakarta International School.
With Janet DeNeefe
Farewell lunch at Casa Luna with Janet DeNeefe, founder of the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival.
Bye-bye Ubud. See you soon ...
