Creative Writing Anthology- Ambiance is the weather of a Restaurant.

On May 13, 2025, Leve 2, Group 6 foundation students at the Preparatory Studies, launched a creative writing anthology titled, Ambiance is the weather of a Restaurant.  B 217, where the launch took place was packed.  In the audience were teachers, former students, friends of the contributors, and Dr. Khalid Salim Al Abri, Deputy of the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.  It was a warm and a happy event, though the reading could have been louder, slower, and a tad crisper. 

The title of the anthology comes from Ahmed Al Kindi, one of the writers.  It was when Group 6 wrote about a restaurant experience in class that I introduced the word “ambiance”.  The group likes charged words: ambiance, chandeliers, arugula.  They enjoy titillation: bitter-better-butter, and the cityscape of Muscat: myna birds, bougainvillea shrubs.  Many enjoy walking in the malls, an urban activity. Theirs is a world of baristas and salons.  To have fun tops their list.  Is their learning compromised? I am not sure.  Group 6, full of ebullience and joie de vivre, is also shrewd, competent and astute.  And they have this shiny, confessional honesty, that I, their teacher, do not wish to muck with.  Whatever they have to figure out as young adults will come with exposure, education and experience.

Our manuscript was a rushed affair.  Many could not get out of the banal: football, village, and vacation topics.  Someone suggested horses.  A whole lot of boys wanted to do joint-writing and be done with.  Of course, it did not fly.  Sitting on tiny Goldilocks-chairs for long hours and groggy from lectures, it was a challenge to trigger their very “ping”, to bring out the raw, the fire in the gut. But when they took off, it was at full throttle.  Ahmed’s title, Ambiance is the weather of a Restaurant, might be idiosyncratic; nevertheless, it has a shabby-chic grit, and conveys the confidence of a group of writers defining their own personal pathway. 

Yasmin Ladha: is a Canadian poet, fiction and non-fiction writer.  Currently, she is working on two projects: 1) creative ESL instruction and material development; 2) a book of personal essays and explorations.