TEN writers from around the world are in Shanghai for two months to discuss all facets of pencraft and seek inspiration from new experiences.

The 9th Shanghai Writing Program, hosted by the Shanghai Writers’ Association, seeks to add a different perspective to how writers see the world in general and China in particular.

A country where literature has flourished for thousands of years has a lot to offer them.

This year’s writers in residence, from countries including Spain, Denmark, Poland, Russia and the US, have previously turned out pieces ranging over a wide array of topics — from the collapse of a coal town to a murder investigation in Denmark.

The writers come from all walks of life. They are artists corporate manager, teacher and police officer. For most, writing is a sideline passion and, for some, it was their first trip to Asia.

Shanghai Daily asked several of the writers about their experience in Shanghai and what enduring impressions will remain when the program ends in two weeks.

The four writers here have been working on projects related to Shanghai.

Frode Z. Olsen, Denmark

The 66-year-old former Danish police officer retired three years ago, after serving for five years in Beijing as a law enforcement liaison officer between China and the five Nordic countries. He arrived just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It was his first trip to China.

Olsen now speaks Mandarin and returns to China periodically. His most recent book is a non-fiction work about a handful of Danish men who volunteered to help in the defense of Hong Kong against Japanese invaders in 1941.

The book is due to be published in Denmark next month. While in Shanghai, he uncovered more details of the lives of those Danes when they were in Shanghai, including finding the former apartments of two of the families.

“The apartments still stand today, which is quite amazing,” he says, referring to sites on Fuxing Road M. and Lixi Road. “To some extent, the search was similar to my investigatory work as a police officer.”

Olsen started writing when he was about 50. At the time, he says, he was fed up with “ridiculous crime TV shows and novels” that painted a distorted picture of the world.

“Real life is not that bad,” he says. “After 40 years with the police force, I have seen a lot of crime, but I came to realize that there are very few vicious people. Yes, there are lots of evil crimes committed, but I realized the worst crimes are often committed by the mentally ill or by people full of uncontrolled rage.”

He doesn’t like categorizing his works as “crime novels” because he doesn’t want to raise reader expectations.

“I want to show the difficult choices police officers have to make day to day,” he explains. “I want to discuss justice. What is justice; when do we know we have it; and how we know when to stop an investigation.”

In his third year in Beijing, Olsen started writing a novel set in China and Denmark. He came up with a title even before developing the storyline. It’s called “Long Tai Tou,” or “The Dragon Raises Its Head.” The Danish version is being translated and will be published in Chinese next year.

“When I first heard the saying, I knew it would be my title if I ever came to write a story set here,” he says. “The Chinese sees the dragon as good fortune. When the dragon raises its head in early spring, you clean up, everything is refreshed, and birds and animals show their faces again after the long winter. It is very different concept from the Western idea of dragons as evil and scary.”

That frightening image lies in cultural differences and in misunderstandings and stereotypes rooted in media reports and hearsay about China, he says.

“I felt I needed to write a story of China that is more truthful to what I have experienced,” Olsen says. “It’s very different from what we often hear and read back home. In many ways, we are not all that different.”

In “Long Tai Tou,” he tells the story through the eyes of a young Chinese man who returns to Beijing from Copenhagen after receiving an urgent call. As he was flying back, Danish police found the bodies of a married Danish couple. The husband used to be a journalist in China, while his psychologist wife had met the young Chinese man before the murder.

Heidi North-Bailey, New Zealand

After graduation 11 years ago, Heidi North-Bailey visited Shanghai for one week and then taught English in city of Huizhou in Guangdong Province for a year.

“We went to the Bund one night, and there was a sudden rain,” she recalls. “That image was so strong that I created an entire story around it.”

The New Zealand poet, novelist and scriptwriter, while now in Shanghai for the second time, has turned a short story from that image into a novel entitled “In the Shanghai Rain.”

“I needed to come back and see what it looks like today,” she explains. “I needed to find out who this woman is and what she is doing. Many memories I had from my last time in China kept coming back to me, and I wanted to explore them further.”

Her novel tells the story of a woman who returns to Shanghai after being away for 10 years. There is obviously an autobiographical bent to it.

“I was here only for a week the first time, and it is amazing to be here and see it again,” the writer explains. “Some parts are so modern, while other parts are as I remember them.”

Malgorzata Budzynska Dora Hamisson, Poland

Before the Polish writer flew out for her first trip in Asia, she looked up for information on China and Shanghai. She says she found very little written about them in Polish, which inspired her to launch a website introducing the sights and culture of Shanghai in both Polish and Russian.

The Warsaw University graduate and post-doctoral student at the Academy of Arts in Lodz has been recording her experience in Shanghai through photos, videos and her own writing, including poems and memories of interesting encounters with local people.

She speaks fondly of visiting the City God’s Temple, observing women dancing in public plazas, touring Qibao Old Town and seeing how traditional dishes are made.

Back home, she has published many books, especially for young adults, including a 10-volume series about a teenage girl named Ala Makota. In the series, another main character is half-Chinese.

“I made her half-Chinese because she needs to drive the plots forward, and that’s my impression of the Chinese — you work very hard and are very efficient in making things happen,” Hamisson says.

Lisa Teasley, the United States

Hailing from Los Angeles, Lisa Teasley says she had no problem acclimating to Shanghai, even though it’s her first trip here. She was writing the last story in a new book of short stories when she came, and now she has altered that based on what she has seen and experienced in Shanghai.

“I don’t feel disoriented at all,” the novelist says, while sipping Pu’er tea. “Shanghai feels familiar because it is a big city with lots of different cultures, just like Los Angeles.”

The short story collection that may end with a Shanghai-inspired story will be Teasley’s fourth book, after two novels and a short story collection.

“I am fascinated by human nature, the ugly things we do as well as the beautiful, and everything in between,” she says. “And I am very interested in the vulnerability we have when we move from home. Almost all my stories are set in places that are not necessarily home to the main characters.”

Her acclaimed novel “Heat Signature” follows a character named Sam Brown as he goes on a road trip, during which he tries to come to terms with his mother’s murder 15 years earlier.

“It is like a hero’s journey, as he travels in the desert and makes kind of ‘soul appointments’ with people who offer him wisdom,” Teasley explains.

Travel really broadens a writer, she says. “We are almost more ourselves when we are somewhere else,” she says. “When we don’t have our daily routine, then we are actually alive and engaged. We get to know ourselves better. When we are in daily routines, it is easy to ignore the magical moments in life.”

Teasley says she enjoys the serendipity of encounters with strangers while traveling. During her stay in Shanghai, she has recently started some painting to express her feelings outside of writing.

“My work is very character-driven,” she says. “I have the idea of a character, and I won’t know where the character will take me in the end. When I paint, I paint mostly faces. I look for souls in the eyes.”

Faces inspire her to wonder “what makes our hearts sing and what crushes us,” she says.