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South China Morning Post

Want to write like an award-winning author? This Moroccan masterclass might help

Sitting back in an armchair between the bookshelves and the log fire, novelist Kamila Shamsie reads out her latest, soon-to-be-published short story. Advertisement The tale, of a Pakistani goddess who takes root in a British garden, is captivating, but there is another layer to our admiration: the writing encapsulates so many of the things we have learned over the past few days – less is more; never underestimate the intelligence of the reader; show, don't tell. As the story comes to its potent conclusion, there is a moment of silence before the room erupts with applause. Participants in the Silk Road Slippers writing masterclass enjoy dinner at the Jnane Tamsna hotel. Photo: Ayman Bardi We finish our cocktails and stream out into the night, the desert garden shimmering with hundreds of candles. We follow the lights to our table, which has been set up on the sand. Flames glimmer from foliage-wrapped candelabras while tea lights in glass lampshades suspended from arches overhead compete with the stars. It is magical – a scene straight from a romance novel. But do not be fooled. Not everything at the Silk Road Slippers writing masterclass is wonder and triumph. Within the bougainvillea-draped, ochre-shaded walls of the Jnane Tamsna boutique hotel just outside Marrakech, in Morocco , there is self-doubt and self-loathing, tears and the proverbial tearing out of hair. Advertisement Not every participant of the five-day writing workshop in November makes it to the end; one of my cohort of 14 budding or already published fiction writers leaves after the first day, when emotions unleashed during the writing process combined with challenges in her personal life make her yearn for the comforts of home and the embrace of her children. Writing, like other creative endeavours, is an exercise in vulnerability.