It was a heartwarming start to a Monday seeing a very large group of young writers acknowledged and rewarded for their work. Yesterday was the prize-giving ceremony for the MPH Search for Young Malaysian Writers 2006 held at 1 Utama.Adibah Amin was guest of honour and Lim Soon Heng as chief judge gave a very down-to-earth speech about how judging a winner is of course subjective. (I was one of the judges last year and can confirm that it is a tough job.)
The kids (some of whom are pictured above) came up on stage for their prizes and many left staggering under the weight of books and enormous mock cheques. The prizes were incredibly generous. (First prize winners in each category got RM2,000 in cash, RM2,500 in book vouchers and more!)
The great thing though is that the contest provided the encouragment for young people all over the country to write stories. (A whopping 2,000 entries were received!)
My congrats to all the winners, and I hope that you continue to write fiction ... even though the financial incentives are usually a great deal less!
Update
Andrew Loh Zhu An, one of the runners-up in Category B points of that many of the successful young writers are also bloggers. Interesting.
5 comments:
$2500 in book vouvers? plus cash... Wah, I want to be young again, so can try to win money to buy books. Hahahaha.
Good that kids are writing and hopefully more such openings and opportunities are made available.
Hello Sharon - It's great to know that there are so many talents out there. Alas, many good writers tend to give up writing once they have to confront bread-and-butter issues and the business of living. It is important that we encourage these writers that besides pursuing the business of living they can also nurture their interests and talents.
When I first saw the poster I was all excited. Should have realized there was an age limit when I read the word 'young'. You knowla, sometimes we don't realize we are not *ahem* still young anymore Heheh
MPH, Why are there no writing prizes for older people? Ageism?
Hi Sharon, the full results are up here: http://www.mph.com.my/promotions/mphsearch_result06.cfm
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