Author Xu Xi offers Hong Kong public tips on writing at CityU workshops

City University's department of English is holding creative writing workshops open to the public next month.

The first will be held on January 17 at the Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre from 2pm to 3.30pm. It will look at the blood, sweat and tears of fiction.

Artist in residence and renowned author Xu Xi will be sharing her experience of writing four published novels. There will be handouts on the art of fiction writing and a brief exercise.

On January 24 a workshop on memoir writing will run from 11am to 12.30pm. Xu will talk about writing creative non-fiction.

Canada took in a record number of foreign students this year, according to its minister of citizenship and immigration, Chris Alexander. It issued 103,999 study permits from January to September, an 11 per cent increase from the same period in 2013, and a 26 per cent increase from the same period in 2012.