Our friendly bookshop owner, Mr. Raman, was interviewed in yesterday's Star by Martin Vengadesan.Raman has two books out this month. First of all, there's the next volume in the Silverfish New Writing series. No.5, edited by professor Ronald D. Klein of Japan’s Hiroshima Jogakuin University, is launched next Saturday.
Raman seems to be a little unwhelmed by the quality of some of the stories Klein has chosen :
“Well, you can’t expect all of them to be of equal quality, but I would say that almost all of them have their moments. I am particularly impressed with The Geology of Malaysia by Christopher Yin, and A Wedding and a Funeral by Matthew Thomas. I really love The Geology of Malaysia. Of course, there are one or two that make me think, ‘Hmm, how did that get in there?’ But I’m adamant about leaving the decision to the editor.”
Three things of interest for me about this collection:1) Raman has sponsorship for this volume from HSBC. Well done!
2) Apparently, Singaporean and Australian authors feature prominently in this volume. Again! Where the bloody hell are our local writers and why aren't they keeping pace? So quit moaning if you're a writer who says no-one give you a chance because how many of you accepted this challenge?
3) One of the stories I rejected (not telling which or why) for my anthology Collateral Damage made it into this volume. It may well have been completely revised, or it may just be that different editors see things differently. Both possibilities should be seen as encouragement for those of you who have had work rejected along the way.
The second new release is of course Raman's own collection
The Wedgwood Ladies Football Club and Other Stories which I told you about the other day. Raman has this to say about his first book:“I must say that this has been a terrifying experience ... I don’t even consider it a book, just a collection of stories. It was a fun project, done during my free time, and I never had any intention to publish it. I just showed it to a few friends, who said I should take it further.”Raman did not show the book to me before it was published. (I'm probably the "inner critic" of his worst nightmares!) But I'm glad he found friends to give him useful feedback.
I've dipped into the book. Of course I had to read the essay he wrote about his troubled friendship with Bernie Tan who wrote Firefly, published by Silverfish in 2000. “I just felt I had to say these things. I didn’t go to her funeral, and this is a sort of obituary. Most obituaries lie, painting a rosy picture of a person even if he or she was awful. That’s not how I intended this to be. I knew her, she was very different, and I had to say something. I have absolutely no regrets about publishing it.”I found it a very honest piece and I'm glad he included it. Just as I'm glad I know the rest of the story. Firefly was an interesting read, but poorly edited and full of grammar errors. Now I think I know why - Raman had more or less washed his hands of Bernie after a huge-blowup with her. But then, should you put anything out on your own imprint which is less than perfect?
I have only read one of the stories in the book so far, so jury is still out for the moment.
Oh ... by the way, a little poke in the eye for all those who decry the Silverfish New Writing series as a pathetic bit of vanity publishing: one writer launched by the series is now following in Tash Aw's footsteps (and Ishiguro's and Toby Litt's and Ian MEwan's and ...) and attending the M.A. in Creative Writing at University of East Anglia.
What was that that Raman said about Silverfish writers being lazy?
By the way, Mr. Raman said "Hurrrrmmmmmmmpppphhhhhh" to this particular piece of gossip "It doesn't mean she'll get published."
You show him, girl! I sincerely wish you all the best ...
Postscript:
Entries are being accepted for Silverfish New Writing 6. Details here.
8 comments:
Yup, UEA's the place to go for creative writing. And film studies. And women's studies.
BTW, one of the Singaporean writers featured in New Writing 5 is also a UEA grad, altho not specifically from the Creative Writing school.
Ugh. I was so excited to find the silverfish series last year. I've read 2 of them - both severely underwhelmed. Uninteresting, self-aware writing, peppered with poor grammer and clumsy sentences.
Well, I suppose it can only get better.
Who is she??? My guess is the younger one... Tiffany Tsao or Sharanya Manivannnan,right? You say it's a SHE,right?
Who is who, Amira? I'm being deliberately mysterious though.
"Ugh. I was so excited to find the silverfish series last year. I've read 2 of them - both severely underwhelmed. Uninteresting, self-aware writing, peppered with poor grammer and clumsy sentences."
Well, you are one to talk, how many spelling and grammar mistakes were there in that short passage alone ? :) but then again I guess you never claimed to be a writer :)
I've not seen the anthology anywhere so I can't say much about it. I'd love to get my hands on a copy though.
Hi Porty, welcome back. Would you mind naming yourself rather than being anonymous??
The latest anthology is out now, and you can buy from Silverfish.
Well, it hardly makes a difference, and it's more trouble for me to enter the name every time. Since I tend to have a distinctive style of writing anyway, you can always tell it's me. So if you don't mind, I'll just be lazy and click on "Anonymous" instead of actually typing anything in the box.. saves time and doesn't make a difference. I already have to type the verification word in, and ruth be told, I hate typing
the same thing over and over again.
I usually like to have a look inside a book before I buy it.. is it available in a bookstore somewhere ?
Yes, Silverfish.
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