2023-2024 Residency
In 2023-2024, Beit Telmissany hosted nine writers from Egypt and the Arab world under the age of 40. The residency program was organized by Dar Sefsafa (Cairo) thanks to a generous grant from the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC). Six Egyptian writers were housed at the Beit and three Arab writers were housed in downtown Cairo, in February and March 2024. The writers were granted the opportunity to publish their books in Sefsafa following the retreat at the Beit. These writers are (in alphabetical order):
Leila Al-Hashimi, Attempts to Fix the World (Novel)
Taysir Al-Najjar, That distant taste (Short stories)
Ahmed Ayed, I don’t see things as they are (Poetry)
Rosie Jaddi, The announced secret history of Adam and Eve (Short stories)
Mohammed Kasbar, Al-Mi’asa and Al-Miqdad (Theatre)
YohannaWilliam, About the Experiment (Novel)
The residency program covered the costs of travel from Egyptian cities or from outside Egypt to Cairo, travel from Cairo to Beit, accommodation, meals, and participation in writing workshops held at the Beit during the residency period. A stipend was granted to all participants, as well as access to the Cairo Literary Festival.
2022 Writing and Fashion Workshop
The workshop’s topic is creative writing in the fields of short stories and short film scripts, with a focus on the phenomenon of fashion from aesthetic, social, historical, and anthropological perspectives. The workshop explores the history of clothing, fabrics, colors, and aesthetic values related to elegance, the transformations of personal and public taste, attempts to express oneself through clothing, and the social values associated with fashion, and the impact of all this on character development in creative works such as stories and scripts.
The workshop’s objectives were:
– to develop creative writing skills in the field of short stories and short film scripts;
– to learn how to build characters in short stories and short films and how to develop their psychological and social traits through clothing, appearance, and physical and kinetic expression;
– to develop skills in choosing clothing and the taste associated with grooming and elegance through practical experience (viewing, purchasing, and forming an aesthetic taste related to written or illustrated characters);
– to meet with experts and specialists in this field, to enhance the young writers experience in several fields;
– and to cultivate the skill of writing about oneself from the perspective of material culture and understanding others from the same perspective.
Following the workshop, Telmissany edited a short story collection “Even my Dresses,” published by the Beit partner Dar Al-Maraya Publishing, Cairo. Nine writers contributed short stories to this volume: Asmaa Gamal Abdel Nasser, Enas El-Hindi, Wafaa El Saeed, Mariam Hussein, Dany Nagy, Nour Haloum, Noura Nagi, May Telmissany, and Shaimaa Yasser.