Workshop 5: Creative Writing
Teaching Staff: Karsten Steinmetz
Karsten Harry Robert Steinmetz was born in 1976 in Magdeburg, Germany. He is poet, writer, cultural organizer, lecturer and translator. He had instructive stages of life in America, Paris, Bombay and the Far East. His literary interest is in the field of tension between the individual and society. He is the author of prose, radio plays and poetry and has already published in magazines and anthologies. He took part in literature festivals in Armenia, China, Kazakhstan, Nicaragua, Taiwan and Italy. He had different scholar ships from the Region Saxony-Anhalt and other institutions. He is member of PEN Germany.
He published a collection of poems called: “Dichten aus der Ferne” in 2019 and poems in prominent German literary magazines, books and poetry websites, like “Tanzende Sprache“ (2020)“, “Die Schreibkräfte” (sience 2014), “Ort der Augen” (2009, 2016), “von Veldecke zwischen Emails und Mittelalter” (2017), „Weil da was passiert. Tamara Gricic. Haare. N.Y.C.” (2008), “Was vom Wein übrig blieb” (2019) and „Die Kunst der Gestaltung“ (2023). His poems have been translated into English, Italian, Spanish and Chinese.
He published the novel “Doppelspiel zu Dritt” in 2015 and completes readings all over Germany and as parts of literature weeks with his short stories. He has performed as part of the group “Die Kilographen” on numerous German Poetry Slam Championships between 2009 and 2017. He was active in writing and producing radio plays like “Traumkäfig” (2006), “Skylines” (2007), “MVB Geschichten für unterwegs” (2008) He organizes his own cultural events, like “Lebenszeichen” (2021), „Kunstfest der Moderne“ (2019), „Opus Aquanett“ (2017), „Sinnlichkeit“ (2015).
More information under www.karstensteinmetz.de, www.Kulturanker.de
Workshop Description
Words constitute our everyday perception of the environment and of our interactions with one another. In this workshop, we invite you to reshape the familiar, to subtly distort what is described, to reassemble it, and to become curious about how language can open up new spaces of meaning. Through free association, experimental writing, poetic condensation, and conscious play with form, sound, and perspective, participants will explore the diversity of linguistic expression.
Whether short text sketches, fleeting thoughts, onomatopoeic poems, fragments of translation, rhythmically spoken words, or narrative miniatures—the focus is on personal experience and the creative engagement with language. The internally experienced discrepancies should, through the process of finding form, enable resonance with the outside world, perhaps unsettling, moving, or stimulating further reflection.
Participants will experiment with rhythm, sound, pauses, repetitions, and body presence, so that writing becomes a social, sonic, and performative practice, not just a silent act. The workshop will also include practice in reading aloud, ensuring participants are well-prepared for their performance at the final presentation. In this way, language (including foreign languages) can become a shared experience, opening up new possibilities for shaping Magdeburg's inclusive and tolerant future.
