So What Have You Been Reading?

I'm off to the Publishing Symposium at the Singapore Writers festival and most probably away from this blog till Friday. Expect some updates after that of stuff I hope will be particularly relevant to local writers.

So while I'm gone, this is your space. What have you read recently? Any good?

Non-fiction and short stories are still my reads of choice at the moment. I finished Madness : A Bipolar Life by Marya Hornbacher very moving memoir of life with the illness - very well written, often harrowing but ultimately hopeful. A must-read if you know people who are bipolar and a book to put beside Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind. (I found my very cheap copy at Big Bookshop, and you can read excerpts from the book here.)

I read most of Gerrie Lim's In Lust We Trust : Adventures in Adult Cinema, at the hairdressers yesterday. Quite an eye-popping read (How does a nice Singaporean boy get mixed up in this? What actually goes on behind the scenes at the filming of porno movies - well aren't you also curious?), insightful and intelligent. (Bought by copy from Times bookstore.)

And now I'm toying with what to put in my bag to take to Singapore. Might give Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book a chance since it's almost halloween.

A Publishing Ecosystem?

Philip Tatham of Monsoon Books sent me an interesting snippet from last Saturday's Straits Times (which I can't link to because it is already behind subscription which pisses me off no end!*). In an article about the Singaporean publishing scene in 2005, one of Philip's authors caused a stir:

Gerrie Lim is not one to shy away from taboo topics or mince his words. Which is why the 46-year-old pop culture critic, who writes on topics ranging from porn to rock music, is a publisher's dream.

His book about sex escorts in Asia, Invisible Trade, has shifted nearly 18,000 copies since it hit the shelves last year. He is planning a sex industry sequel next year.

This year, he launched Idol To Icon, which examines how celebrities such as Tom Cruise and Jennifer Lopez become mega brands. It was published by UK's Cyan Books.

The iconoclast says his independent-minded, questioning streak is a result of his disgust for the repressive environment he grew up in during the 1970s. 'The school system here sucked. If you asked a question that was not part of what the teacher put on the board, she would say: 'It's not in the syllabus, you don't need to know.' How stupid is that?' he vents.

In 1980, the former St Joseph's Institution and Catholic Junior College student went to Perth to study political philosophy at the University of Western Australia.

'I didn't really want to do a degree here. I just couldn't see myself fitting into NUS. Yuck! You can quote me on that!' he says.

The eldest of three children of middle-class Catholic parents, Mr Lim went on to attend journalism school at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. His brother is a bank executive and his sister is a school teacher in Canada.

It was in the City of Angels, capital of pop culture, that he felt at home for the first time. He spent close to 15 years there, writing features and music reviews for magazines like Billboard, LA Weekly and Playboy from a Santa Monica rental flat, earning 'enough to get by'.

His first book, Inside The Outsider, featuring a series of interviews with rock stars like David Bowie and Patti Smith, was published here by Big O in 1997. It sold just 500 copies.

In 2001, he moved back to Singapore to be with his family and Chinese Singaporean girlfriend. He is now part of a rare species in Singapore - the full-time writer. 'I'm famous but not rich,' quips the writer, who lives off his royalties, in a condominium in Holland Village with his girlfriend.

Quoting an Elvis Costello song, (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes, he says: 'I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused. ... Singapore is basically a country that likes to think of itself as a First World country. But it's not. It's really a Third World country that pretends to be a First World country.'

This Third World mentality, he charges, also permeates the publishing industry. Many publishers are queasy about what can or cannot be published.

'Even expats have told me: 'I'm surprised that your book can be published.' But why? Doesn't it say something?' he asks. 'Creativity doesn't grow on trees. How are you going to create an ecosystem of publishers and authors when everything seems to be done by government edict?'

He is scornful that publishers here churn out cheap-looking books for the local market, 'underestimating the intelligence of local readers'. Part of the problem is that few publishers here are prepared to pay advances to authors, unlike in the US and Britain. He received undisclosed advances for his two books.

'It's very Third World thinking. How are you going to foster a publishing culture if you are going to treat writers like that?' he rants.

* Philip also forwarded the link to another article from the Strait's Times, reproduced here. It makes terribly depressing reading. It also makes the publishing situation in Malaysia seems not quite so bad after all!

Dream Ink at The Singapore Writer's Festival

A combination of circumstances conspiring against me (deadlines, the reading) and the kind of inertia that makes me angry with myself (particularly as I'm reading myself perfect in the loo every morning. Canfield in the can, haha!) meant that I did not manage to get down to the Singapore Writers Festival.

Fortunately, thanks to Zafar I was able to attend the sessions vicariously at least. Bruce Sterling, the well-known American science fiction writer, gave his take on Writing Sci Fi and painted a bleak picture of the world of the future.

Another session focused on crime writing, more specifically Women and Crime. Among questions raised:

Why is there so much of crime writing in the West? And why is there so little of crime writing in the East?

I find Nuri Vittachi's comment about writing in this part of the world in general very interesting:

Vittachi said that it was not just about the crime writers published internationally from the East but in general about writers in English from the East. He said that the simple reason was that there was no machinery to promote writers from this region: no literary agents, no publishers, no editors. But there was hope, he said. Two literary agents are now setting up office in Asia: one in China and another in Hong Kong.

Great to know!

There was a panel discussion Sexuality and Desire in Asian Writing consisting of writers Gerrie Lim (Invisible Trade), Wei Hui (Shanghai Baby; Marrying Buddha), and Isa Kamari (Kiswah). I'd have loved to have seen Wei Hui especially, having enjoyed her Shanghai Baby.

Then there was Tarun Tejpal, "India's ace journalist, editor, publisher" talking about his novel: The Alchemy of Desire.

and Colleen Doran

talking about graphic novels which are becoming increasingly popular in Singapore, and probably in Malaysia too. (Booksnobs like me haven't taken them seriously - after reading Zafar's entry I think I should begin to!)

Anyway, do go read the whole thing on Zafar's blog - this is very good stuff and the next best thing to being there yourself. I applaud the festival organisers for catering to a very wide variety of literary tastes. I think our own Litfest got a bit too snobby-elistist with almost no concession made to genre fiction. A narrow view indeed of what literature is.)

(By the way, did you know that one of Mills and Boon's top romance novelists lives in Cheras and is a HE writing under a female pseudonym?! Buy me a long-island iced tea for the rest of the story.)

Meanwhile, check out the Singapore Writers' Festival Blog for more stories and photos of other sessions. I'm jealous!!

DZ sent me this link to the excellent Kitaab website with plenty of Asian literary news.