The Literary Committee has worked hard to put together a unique program this year. For the first time in the history of American Literary associations we use skype technology to enable experts from Kerala to join the conference live: Prof. M.M. Basheer (Retired Professor of Malayalam, Calicut University and well known literary critic and author) and Prof. Chandrika Balan (Retired Reader in English, All Saint's College TVM, Research Scholar and short story writer "Chandramathi") from Thiruvananthapuram will answer our questions about the "Stream of Consciousness", an important concept in creative writing. Their presentations have been pre-recorded for your convenience. Please watch on your PC, Mac, iPad or smartphone the pre-recorded presentations ahead of the conference. The same video will also be screened in the Mackinack Ballroom from 12pm to 1pm on Friday the 13th, immediately after the CME and until the interactive Q&A skype session starts at 1pm sharp.

Here are the details of the Literary Session:

Stream of Consciousness

Date: Friday, 13 July, 2012. Time: 12 noon - 4pm. Venue: Mackinack Ballroom

1 pm to 1:30pm: Questions & Answers with the Professors via skype. Dr. M.V. Pillai will moderate the skype session. After watching the video online you may email your questions intended for the two professors to drmvpillai@gmail.com or hand over your questions on site to Dr. Pillai.

1:35 to 2pm: Dr. N.S. Xavier, a psychiatrist from Birmingham, Alabama and the author of "Fulfillment Using real Conscience ". His presentation focuses on how our choices are based on needs and guided by conscience, superego or both. He illustrates the point using "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (R.L. Stevenson), "Les Miserables" (Victor Hugo) and "The Chinese Pilot" (Tolstoy). Dr. Roy Thomas will introduce the speaker.

2pm to 2:25pm: Kamala Nair, a young novelist from the AKMG family and the author of the critically acclaimed bestseller novel "The Girl in the Garden" (2011) will give a brief introduction about what inspired her to write the novel, followed by a short plot description to contextualize the excerpt, and then read a passage from the novel. Dr. Shakuntala Rajagopal will introduce Kamala Nair.

2:25pm to 3pm: Dr. K.A. Kumar was previously Head, Psychiatry department, Trivandrum Medical College; Director of Medical Education, Kerala State and President, Indian Psychiatric Society. He is a writer and orator. His presentation on "Literature and Medicine" would draw from/refer to works by Abraham Verghese, Tharasankar Banerjee, M.T. Vasudevan Nair, O.V. Vijayan, K. Radhakrishnan, Nitya Chaithanya Yathi and Dr. Kumar himself. Dr. K.C. Joseph, President of AKMG will introduce Dr. Kumar.

3pm to 4pm: Poetry Session: Five to six creations by the poets of AKMG will be recited after brief introductions of the poets. Dr. M.P. Raveendranathan will introduce the authors of the English poems and Dr. Jaya Chandrachoodan will introduce the authors of the Malayalam poems.

There will be a Q&A session lasting five minutes each after the presentations by Dr. Xavier, Kamala Nair and Dr. Kumar. Please have the questions written on index cards during the presentation. These will be collected towards the end of each presentation and handed to the speaker. This method will maximize the time available to answer your questions.

Your enthusiastic participation is requested to make this unique event a grand success. We look forward to meeting you at the Literary session on Friday, 13 July at noon.

Literary Committee