Fantasy Laboratory

Workshop Mentor

The workshop mentor is Zoran Krušvar, a psychologist, journalist, well-known and award-winning Croatian writer, translated abroad, and the manager of various multimedia projects. He is the author of three collections of short stories, two novels for children, two novels for adults and picture book for children. He is a member of the writing collective “Fluminati” and the informal literary group “Ri Lit”. His works have been translated into English, Polish, Romanian and French. 

Workshop methods

Each workshop will cover some of the basic elements of writing a literary text, such as opening and closing a story, plot, characters, narration, etc. Each meeting will include a theoretical part, examples from practice, specific tasks, as well as mutual reading and mutual constructive criticism. written assignments. Some workshops will be attended by guest mentors, well-known local writers.

Publication of produced material

The second part of the activities that will be carried out in the project, is the collection and editing of produced materials with the aim of publishing a collection of the best works of participants. The collection will be published in electronic form and available to the public for download in digital form. The program is completed when the efforts of the participants are rewarded by publishing their works.

Significance for the development of Rijeka culture 

In addition to the development of literature, this program is an investment in the cultural future of Rijeka. On several levels, it contributes to the development of writing culture and laying the foundations of the future young literary scene. Also, in addition to developing writing skills, the Fiction Laboratory provides a model of enjoyable and rewarding activity that productively fills the free time of children and youth. The city of Rijeka thus gets not only a generation of future writers, but also a generation of healthy and creative children and youth, actively involved in the cultural life of the community.

About the project

The project has been held several times and has spawned several published, award-winning and successful writers. In the period from 2008-2012. The workshops were attended by more than 20 young people, and the then participants are active and published writers: Antonija Mežnarić, Tamara Crnko and others. The laboratory is based on the interests of students for fiction and general content of speculative fiction (SF, Fantasy, Horror, etc.), and through a series of educational workshops under the mentorship of the leader and guest workshops under the mentorship of recognized local writers, teaches students various tools and methods of creative expression written medium. The focus of the project is to encourage the creativity and imagination of the participants and to create literary content. 

This program is an extremely valuable non-institutional supplement to the activities intended for young people of secondary school age, which are implemented within the City Library of Rijeka. In addition, the program promotes the development of literacy and literary creativity of young people, and especially the culture of reading, which enriches their upbringing and education. Furthermore, by creating new generations of young authors, she contributes in the long run to the development of the Rijeka cultural scene and the literary-publishing and library activities.