Kampala — UGANDAN writers last Saturday disagreed about the exact nature of a baby ghost. They also spent time arguing over whether there is any age difference between identical twins.

This was at the Uganda Female Writers Association (Femrite) workshop at the Grand Imperial Hotel as part of the Book Week.

British author, Maggie Gee, was the workshop resource person. The baby ghost issue came about after Macmillan African Prize for Literature 2006 winner Glaydah Namukasa, a Mpigi local government midwife, read a piece about the ghost in her new piece entitled The Crying Baby.

In the piece, twin sisters compete with each other to discuss the ghost, with the one who first came out of their mother's womb claiming seniority in knowledge on account of the few minutes age difference. Whether the writers found the story credible is what sparked off the debate.

Julius Caesar Sseremba's excerpt entitled The Return also caused great excitement. Sseremba sets his piece in a prison, into which a famous fine artist sneaks on a weekly basis to paint portraits of female prisoners. He also offers sexual favours to one of the prisoners.

Letter from Karungi, which was read by its author Lilian Tindyebwa, is from a daughter to her mother, outlining the many things her mother always cautioned her about while growing up. The girl regrets that she never listened till it was too late.

Lilian Linda, a lecturer at the Mountains of the Moon University in Fort Portal, presented her excerpt entitled Counselling Sessions, probably the least controversial in the set.

Then Maggie Gee asked the writers: Why do you write at all?

According to Jackie Batanda, a British Council official, people write because of the need for self-expression. Others said they write in order to leave behind an immortal message.

But one writer said he writes to vent off frustration. Some participants lamented that theatre and film were killing literature. But Maggie Gee assured them that dramatists cannot act on stage what has not yet been written. She said film is a secondary use of literature and that they should welcome it.

Maggie Gee's latest novel, My Cleaner (2005), was partly set in Uganda. It was described by The Times as 'superb... elegant, humourous and surprising'.

The White Family, her novel about racism in Britain, was short-listed for the 2003 Orange Prize and the International Impact award, while The Flood (2004), a satire set on an imaginary western state sleep-walking into war against a country rather like Iraq, was also short-listed for the Orange Prize.

Maggie Gee reviews books for the Telegraph, Sunday Times and Independent newspapers and is the first female chair of the Royal Society of Literature.

Her 11th published book, The Blue, is a collection of short stories, some of them about Uganda.

On behalf of Femrite, Hilda Twongeirwe said Uganda was proud to be a beneficiary of such great talent.