What does it take to be a successful writer or poet?

"Commitment, hard work, and plenty of reading," says award-winning Jamaican author and poet Olive Senior, who recently conducted a fiction writers' workshop for the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs.

"I cannot teach anyone to be a writer, my job is to teach the craft – all the elements of the course – and hope that they will learn to apply them to their work so they can become better writers," she says. "My business is to help people understand what it is they are doing – 'What is fiction, non-fiction about?' – and to learn self-criticism.

"You need to be able to stand back from your work and make decisions about it, because you are not going to do one draft, you might do 20, so you have to learn how to evaluate your own work and that of other people. It is hard, and something writers learn over time. What I now know about writing I didn't know when I started out. Writing is a craft like no other. You get better as you go along, and there is a whole learning process involved."

Despite the fact that Ms Senior is an internationally known and respected author, and the recipient of many Fellowships and Awards, who has authored nine books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, she warns that a writer's road to success is not easy but it is rewarding.

"Writing is hard work which requires commitment. If you don't have that you are not going to make it. You have to put in the time and effort that is necessary," she says. "To be a writer is so rewarding – maybe not materially, but in so many other ways."

A case in point, perhaps, is her 'Encyclopaedia of Jamaican Heritage' which took 20 years to complete, even as she continued writing and publishing other works.

To become a good writer also requires being a good reader, Ms Senior stresses. "If you read selectively, and you learn what you are reading, that is a good way to learn to write. If I ask you what you are reading about and you can't tell me, you will never make it. I learned by reading. Read and learn how other writers do it," she says.

Being so skilled at her craft means Ms Senior can write fiction, non-fiction and poetry with equal facility, with no preference for one over the other.

"I think the material just arrives in the form it wants to take," she says. "If you read all of my work you will see that it reflects a world view; it is just that I am writing in different genres."

Growing up in rural Jamaica, the author says that from an early age she became fascinated by Jamaica's oral culture, and influenced by it – something which is apparent in the vividness of her writing.

"Although I had the normal kind of colonial education – Shakespeare, Wordsworth and so on – I was very much influenced by the oral culture through just listening to the people around me, so my writing reflects both the scribal and oral culture."

Today Ms Senior notes that its importance in the region is such that, in addition to the standard English dictionaries, there are also others covering Creole and Caribbean languages. "The Jamaican language is very, very strong. There is also a dictionary of Caribbean English, so a lot of scholarly work is being done on what the linguists call the Creole language."

When it comes to poetry, however, Ms Senior says she doesn't use much Creole, preferring instead to use the cadences and rhythms of the Jamaica language. "I think a lot of Caribbean writers do that, and it is what makes our voice distinctive in the wider world. We are dealing in two different varieties of language, which I feel privileged to be using."

Like so many citizens who see their country undergoing changes wrought by the modern world, often at the expense of its culture and custom, Ms Senior says she was driven to write the 'Encyclopaedia of Jamaican Language' as a way of preserving information for future generations.

"I felt so privileged growing up and being exposed to all of the Jamaican culture, whereas today's children don't have that exposure, and I felt a lot of it was in danger of being lost."

Asked if she ever wove politics into any her writing, she said "no".

"I am not interested in party politics, but I have a political view of the world at large, and I think that comes out in my writing. It is automatic, and not that something I set out to do. If you are a thinking person in our society, it is going to come out in what you do. I would like to think that my writing reflects the realities of the world I live in, especially Caribbean realities because that is still the focus of my work."

Although Ms Senior now makes her home in Toronto, and is constantly on the go, when she manages to carve out time for herself she returns to Jamaica to write. Meanwhile, she says she is always writing in her head.

"Writing doesn't just happen, it comes out of a long period of gestation, so even when I am not writing physically the creative process is taking place."

The author's poetry is more wide-ranging that her fiction – which is all set in Jamaica – and she tends to work around a cultural metaphor because it allows her to explore deeper issues. For example, her latest book, which is due out soon, is entitled 'Shells', which is not confined the seashore objects, but will incorporate word plays, such as 'shell-shock'. Ms Senior teachers at the Humber School for writers in Toronto for 30 weeks of the year, in addition to which she travels extensively to conduct writers' workshops. Of her Bermudian students, she says she was "really impressed by the amount of writing talent here", and "very happy" with the workshops.

Overall, her first visit left her with a very favourable impression of the Island and its people.

"I had no idea what to expect, and I was very pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the Island. The people are so warm and friendly, so I have had a good time and really enjoyed it."

Like so many Bermudians, she noticed the intense amount of construction taking place around the Island, and during a poetry reading evening spoke of her concerns about similar problems in Jamaica – in particular the rampant hotel development.

"I am distressed that so much of our beaches and landscape by the sea is no longer accessible to us because they are taken up by hotels, which are huge," she says. "Bermuda is still so distinctive. People are smiling, charming. It is a shame to lose that. How do you maintain your culture in the face of a global culture? I think it is a problem in small countries everywhere."