The written word

You may be pursuing a degree in finance, or bracing yourself for those five years in college to earn a righteous title of General Practitioner. Some of you may be aiming for the moon, majoring in Astronomy. But there are times when you can feel that literary spark in you and can’t help but succumb to the urge to write – perhaps a poem, a short story or even a bestselling novel.

Writing is making sense of life, writer and Nobel Prize Laureate Nadine Gordimer once said. For the young, writing may start as a pastime, but many find that expressing their emotions using the written word can help them cope with life and discover themselves along the way.

Budding young writers are emerging throughout the country. With ink and paper – or keyboard strokes and RAM – at their fingertips, these fervent youngsters are determined to put their works out there, one way or another.