Bali Interlude

Ah yes. Sorry. Forgot to tell you that I have defected to Bali for a few days to attend the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival which starts on Thursday. Blogging will be a bit intermittant as I tend to get caught up in things, but I will be reporting about it all here and posting my photos. There are plenty of Malaysians on the programme this year (Preeta Samarasan, Chiew Siah-Tei, Faisal Tehrani, Bernice Chauly, Shamini Flint) and now I hear that Amir Muhammad (much-banned filmmaker, columnist and publisher as well as much else) will be here too. (He's been roped in for the "Carnival Street Party" which sounds like fun.) Sharanya Mannivanan, Indian poet, who says in her bio that she has lived "elsewhere" is also on the programme and if anyone is taking bets on the outcome of The Better Read than Dead Poetry Slam, my money would be on her. (She just has to fix the audience with those langourous eyes and give 'em the poem about everything wanting to make love to her!) it will be great to catch up with her again. There is so much good stuff on the programme though with sessions running in two venues concurrently, am having to make some tough (heartbreaking!) choices about what to attend. Am anticipating melting into a little pool of goo on the floor when I meet Vikram Seth, one of my all time most loved authors. If that happens I may not be blogging at all. Okay. Got to go and get my chakras balanced. Ubud is that sort of place.