The enthusiastic secondary school students produced wonderful work and the teachers accompanying them, as well as the organisers, praised the sessions as well. Shreya is a writer-in-residence for leading British writing charity First Story.
Image from First Story
Working with a large number of diverse, individual, secondary school students in Nottingham, UK, and the rhythms and words that speak to them, Shreya guided the youngsters in creating striking lyrics about their everyday and yet very important worlds.
Please click here to read the article in full, and for the first part, which has been posted before, please click here to read it once more.
“I’m with Oscar when he posits, “the truth is rarely pure and never simple.” Wilde! Not at all how a lot of folk, including famous philosophers, view truth – as the single unimpeachable edict on which we must build our world. Yet, the witty Irishman was, as always, spot on. The multiplicity of our planet makes undiluted, uncomplicated truth impossible, begging the terribly modern question of “whose truth?” There’s never just one side to a story, you see, though one of the numerous versions taking wing might brush closest to its empirical moorings…”
Please click here to read the essay in full
“…It was unfortunate, therefore, that on the one night recently that some couples-time was scrounged, the only cinema show we found to watch was The Materialists. Whilst this isn’t a review, because I won’t add to the glut, I feel obligated to warn my readers to stay away from this snoozefest, rendered more ridiculous by its somnambulating lead, Dakota Johnson.
But its premise isn’t as pointless — that modern men and women are kept apart by the demands they make of their dates. Not the occasion as with Hubby and I — entertaining would have sufficed — but the person they hope to engage. What essential qualities must peeps possess to interest the partner-seekers of this age?”
Please click here to read the article in full
“But the battle isn’t irredeemably lost. If spearheading isn’t your gig, there are still people worth supporting, from climate activist Greta Thunberg to New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, to grassroots leaders of progressive, sustainable living across this distressed planet. Liking them as people shouldn’t be prerequisites, as it’s their urgent causes we need to rally around…”
Please click here to read in full
“Why do we celebrate our birthday when there’s little we did that day that deserves congratulations? I tossed and turned in my mother’s womb with such impatience that I got the umbilical cord wound around my neck, nearly strangling myself. Saved by a caesarian, my bumpy ride into our world ensured I approached it forever more with irreverence. What it didn’t make me, however, was the hero of my birth. That is always the long-suffering mom, and sometimes the support act…”
Please click here to read the article in full
“…Amidst all this, there’s never a good time to unwind and reset, but don’t we ALL need a break? WH Davies said it best, “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?” I rather plenty of shut-eye instead but the principle stands. Yet, what really is a break?”
Please click here to read the column in full
About elections — Indian, British and American — the climate crisis, and embracing change, this article has appeared in more than one widely circulated newspaper (as with all of Shreya’s monthly columns), and has been received with much praise, please click here to read it in full
Please click here to read the first of her two articles for Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature on her series of 19 creative, entertaining, multidisciplinary workshops for British secondary schools in the last six months.
Featuring in Scroll’s popular books section, Shreya’s article on Joseph Conrad and Krakow is also an Editor’s Pick (“The best of Scroll”). Please click here to read.
Shreya Sen-Handley 