The creative writing project was launched in 2020 as a non-academic writing extension of the EAC project to cultivate confidence in self-expression, build personal creative spaces and foster a dynamic writing culture on campus. It consists of a series of four interactive writing workshops and a campus-wide creative writing competition.

Dr Antony Huen’s poetry workshop, held on 6 March, 2020, was the first to start this series. In response to the COVD-19 outbreak, the workshop was conducted via Zoom to ensure the health and safety of students and staff.

While poetry may seem intimidating to new writers, the student attendance reflected the significantly high interest rate in the genre. Dr Huen, an ELTU lecturer and published poet, shared his expertise in the genre through a casual, discussion-based workshop, which covered poetry prompts and brief analyses of popular and lesser known poems. The spirited and thought-provoking one-hour session left both experienced and new writers with inspiration and confidence to write more poetry. Participants included undergraduates, graduates and teaching and research staff from various faculties. As a complement to the workshop, the participants were later given the opportunity to submit their pieces for individual comments from the team. The feedback afterwards was very positive and the activities were incredibly well-received. To contribute to the ever-present creative writing community on campus, the EAC project team looks forward to offering more sessions in the future.