UFR LLASICLanguage, literature, performing arts, information and communication, journalism

You've never read Love Story in Bourg-du-Bost d'Esodyte, I feed on sick crows by Jean Rage, the Scarlet Palace by Diakovina Mikhaelaina or The Central Park Frog by Myrtille Lafigue? Don't panic: you haven't missed your life, you've just missed the writing workshop led by Pierre Senges.

In the manner of Jean-Benoît Puech, Borges, Bolano, Nabokov or Manganelli, who in turn created alter ego and commented on works that didn't exist, participants imagined writers' names, titles of their works, back covers, biographical notes, prefaces, glossaries and tables of contents, even inventing the critical reception surrounding these fake books. Over the course of three days, the writer guided the students in bringing these paper creatures to life in the flesh.

The aim was to progressively flesh out these imaginary works from the void, eventually writing a few pages of these novels, plays and poetry collections: at the end of the workshop, we discovered the hallucinatory verses of Green water du Léthé by Arthur Gonzalez, the prologue to Salt people by Anatole Barka, or the opening scene of Foulques en furie by Andrée Foulc. Through these fun exercisesThe students were able to grasp, through practice, the range of texts that contribute to a writer's existence, a discourse whose codes they appropriated through pastiche or playful detour.

More broadly, the writing workshop is also an opportunity to welcome advice from a writer. The various stages of the workshop each open up a unique experience, with individual writing phases, group feedback and reading sessions during which the author unpacks his or her library. Writing in the company of a writer is also a way of finding out more about this profession and those who work in it: by talking to the author about his or her relationship with literature, you can discover his or her practical day-to-day writing practices, as well as the relationship with his or her publisher, from working on the manuscript to designing the book object.