Printing at the Writer's Circle

We didn't get a very large crowd this month's MPH Writer's Circle, perhaps because printing is a less sexy topic than how to get into print in the first place! Never mind, it made for a nice informal session with plenty of time for audience questions.

It was good to meet children's author Rebecca Loke. When I was putting the KL Litfest programme together a couple of years back, someone asked me why there was nothing about children's writing. I put together a session at the very last minute, and Rebecca was kind enough to come along and speak. I didn't get a chance to meet her that day because I was tied up elsewhere. So this was my first chance to say thank you, in person!

Rebecca talked about the publication of her Rhythm and Rhymes series, and took us through the things you need to think about when printing children's books e.g page size, the cover, colour vs. black and white illustrations, binding. She also shared with us some of her favourite children's books.

Ivan Tan and Francis Yong from MPH's printing department then talked us through the more technical parts of the process and I found it interesting to know about the part of the book-producing process that's usually invisible to the writer.