Creating new channels

“If literature isn’t everywhere, it’s not worth a single hour of someone’s trouble.” - Jean-Paul Sartre.

This is the quotation found on the home page of the English Writers’ Cooperative website. EWC was set up in 1989, initiated by Anne Ranasinghe, Maureen Seneviratne and Rajiva Wijesinha, as a voluntary organization to promote creative writing in English and encourage new writers. The EWC magazine ‘Channels’ invites creative fiction, short stories, poems, plays and translations from Sri Lankan writers. They are now on-line at www.ewcchannels.com, as the First Web Journal in Sri Lanka for literature, where we can read all the issues on-line.

Channels issues no. 17 and 18 have come out in one volume covering the years 2011 and 2012. This volume has the writings of the winners of the short story and poetry competitions held in 2011 and 2012, and also the entries by those who won second and third places. There are also other selected entries and contributions from EWC members.

Membership is by invitation, based on achievement in writing either locally or internationally, and the publication in Channels “where quality has been the only criterion”, wrote Anne Ranasinghe. “Scratch the surface of a great creative writer and you find beneath a committed, almost compulsive reader.” wrote Lilamani Ebel. Channels is for such compulsive readers and for their creative works.

The editorial in the 1990 issue had highlighted the preponderance of women writers in the English Literary World in Sri Lanka. It was noticed in the 23 Channels issues from 1989 to 2001, where 19 issues had been edited by women, and the trend has continued. Faith Rathnayake wrote in the editorial 2010, “Most entries were from women, young and old”. The trend continues with 33 entries by women, and only 13 males in the latest issue (No. 17 & 18).

It is an interesting fact that the Sri Lankan literature has been dominated by women, as we see the membership of the EWC. This phenomenon extends to the Sinhala literary scene too, as we find that since 2009, women had won the Swarna Pusthaka Award for the best Sinhala novel.

1992 issue touched on the contributions from the North, “..a picture of a separate world, mythic and surrealistic.” It is still a separate world for most of us, and we do not get much opportunity to read their creative works.

Rajiva Wijesinha has discussed the mechanics of writing, “which are no longer treated with respect...that given the present decline in standards it is vital to insist that the very first requirement for aspiring writers in English is a thorough knowledge of the grammar and syntax of the English Language.” This statement is more important today, than when it would have been written a few years ago, as grammar and syntax are no longer considered as important.

Ransiri Menike Silva (2001) had mentioned “a paucity of literary bodies that can offer advice and encourage aspiring writers at grassroot level.” The English Writers’ Cooperative alone cannot achieve this unless they receive the backing and the support of the academics and other organizations who could also support them financially, as at present all the members work voluntarily, putting aside their own literary works.

Perhaps more than the financial support, what is needed is the support from the teachers, in the schools and the universities, to encourage them to read and appreciate poetry and fiction. An encouraging sign is the new courses for creative writing started by our universities, but we are yet to see any new authors emerging through such courses. It is probably because even the students following such creative writing courses do not read the creative works of other writers, like our poets do not read the poetry written by others.

Sahitya Pravarthaka Co-operative Society claims to be Asia’s first co-operative for writers. It had been founded in 1945 by a group of 12 Malayalam writers. In the same year they published Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai’s short stories titled, Thakazhiyude Kathakal, and since then published 14,000 titles.

There are journals and anthologies, published by universities, by university academics, by literary organizations and by publishers and the quality and the standards maintained also varies from one publication to another. Some of them would be biased, some would try to promote certain issues, literary, political or religious, while a few would be published purely for pecuniary gain. Channels stands out as a real cooperative effort by writers.

The publication of too many journals could be a reason for the lack of interest of the readers for literary journals in our countries. It is like the interest in poetry. We have so many poets among us, writing in all three languages, and cross language translations, yet very few buyers for the poetry books published. Publishers are not interested, unless the poet pays the cost of publishing.

We in Sri Lanka have a long way to go. We have to admire the EWC members and the editors for continuing to publish Channels and keeping all the literary activities going. They need all the courage and all the support from the English reading public in our country. As the first step let us read Channels, and then try to submit our own creative writings for the competition. Let us also appeal to all those who submit their writings to Channels to purchase a copy, even if their submission was not accepted, to encourage EWC to continue their service to sustain English writing in Sri Lanka.

As the name suggest, let ‘Channels’ unite all Sri Lankan Writers in their literary endeavours.

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