Janet Tay on PopTV

Janet Tay talks to Fahmi Fadzil of MPH talks about editing Urban Odysseys :

Things to Look Forward To

There I really enjoyed in the ReadsMonthly supplement of Starmag today was the piece written by Abby Wong of Kinokuniya looking forward to some good reads in 2009 after a "barren" 2008. Among the novels she's looking forward to - Tash Aw's Map of the Invisible World, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's The Thing Around Your Neck (out April) and Yiyun Li's The Vagrants which has already been spotted on the shelves of Kino and is worth a journey into town!

(I must add here that I miss Abby now she has moved to Sydney.)

And among the reviews is Janet Tay's take on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald which is a must-read, as do the two stories that are published with it. (And I so want to see the film ... will it get an Oscar tomorrow?)

And again, there are tasty vouchers to clip giving substantial discounts!!

My MPH Friends - Toonified!

I picked up the current issue of Quill magazine while I was at MPH yesterday, and was delighted to see my friends who run the magazine immortalised in cartoon form by E. Yu who recently an illustrated biography of the former Prime Minister (very nicely reviewed by Amir).

In the background you can see Datuk Ng Tieh Chuan, the CEO of MPH, with (in blue shirt) Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhari (whose company Jalinan Inspirasi Sdn Bhd bought over the bookstore chain), while in the foreground is E. Yu (in a red check shirt) the editorial team of MPH. Janet Tay (in purple jacket), May Lee (in green) and finally Eric Forbes, set a trap to lure readers into the trap of reading a nice thick book! Really a nice picture.

(I put link to those guys' mugshots, so that if you don't know them you can see how close the likeness is. I think Janet and Eric are spot on!)

The picture above was intended to be the magazine cover (and do click up to full size so you can appreciate it fully) although in the end the ex-PM was featured instead.

Here are the same guys, spotting E. Yu's face in his cartoons ...

E. Yu actually runs food outlets in several food courts around the city ...

and here he is interviewed by Bissme S. in The Sun.

Urban Odysseys Launch

We imagine the city to be a glamorous and seductive place, the forefront of excitement and adventure, the pulse or nerve centre of the nation. Bright lights in a big city that never sleeps, the café culture, the theatres, clubs, orchestral concerts, expensive restaurants and shopping in pristine malls: all enticements for the young and wide-eyed, or appeasement for seasoned, ambivalent city-dwellers. ... Yet how often do we choose to overlook the dirt and decay that exist within every urbanised community, or inadvertently neglect to notice that beneath the glossy exterior of consumerism and excessive consumption lie forgotten, invisible people steeped in poverty, and apathy that allows new building developments to flourish beside slum dwellings? ... Urban Odysseys: KL Stories is a rich compendium of stories and creative nonfiction set against the landscape of the Malaysian capital.

Tomorrow is a very big day for my friends Janet Tay and Eric Forbes of MPH, because it sees the delivery of a much awaited baby. Their first anthology of local short fiction, Urban Odysseys, will be launched by actor Mano Maniam at MPH Megastore One Utama at 2 p.m.

There was a desperate need for a platform to encourage new (I've just avoided the "young" word, Yusof!) writers after Raman of Silverfish decided to discontinue the New Writing series and congrats to MPH for picking up the gauntlet and producing a collection that does them - and those writers they feature - credit. There's some sterling stuff by writers I already know and respect ... and some exciting new voices.

Yes, I have read the book already - sort of - because I was one of the proofreaders. (So go on, blame me for the bloopers I didn't spot.) I will be reading a second time - for pleasure.

More about the book later, but meanwhile read Eric's full introduction here.

Robert's Guidelines

Ideally a story should linger, even haunt you in some way (not in a scary way, but bother you, perhaps; at least make you think about life) so that even a year later, you’re still thinking about that story. Also, I’ll be looking at character motivation, development and change (no change, no story!). Are there conflicts on more than one level? Are the characters memorable? Settings clearly defined? An opening that hooks the reader? Any tension that’s pulls the reader from the beginning to the end? An ending that I didn’t see coming or that resonates in a way that I wasn’t expecting?

Robert Raymer, who is (along with Eric Forbes and myself - okay so now you know!) one of the judges in the MPH-Alliance National Short Story Prize 2009 has blogged some excellent advice for anyone planning to submit an entry.

Lucky Sarawakians who get to attend his workshop in Kucing - wish we could have him over here!

(Photo by Georgette Tan.)

From Refugee Baby to Award-Winning Author

Vietnamese-Australian author Nam Le has won the international Dylan Thomas Prize for young writers for his first collection of short stories. The award, worth £60,000 recognises the best young writer in the English-speaking world and ensures that the inspirational nature of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas' writing will live on.

Le arrived Australia as a baby with his refugee parents . He grew up in Melbourne and studied law at Melbourne University. At 25 he joined the famous Iowa Writers Workshop where he wrote the stories in The Boat. He now works in New York, where he is the fiction editor of the Harvard Review, and will take up the David T.K. Wong fellowship at the University of East Anglia next year to work on his second book.

The Sydney Morning Herald quotes Peter Florence, chairman of the judges, as saying of Le's work that it demonstrated :

... a rare brilliance that is breathtaking both in the scope of its subject matter and the quality of its writing. Nam tackles his own background and circumstances as well as that of others with a clear eye, focused intelligence and wonderful use of words.

While Ben Ball at Penguin Australia, commended the impressive shortlist for the prize, but remarked :

But Nam has another gear that takes him further into unexpected geographical or emotional territory. He has said that every sentence is an opportunity to lose a reader, so he can't let a semi-dud one by.

(I bolded that bit because I think that every writer who wants to suceed should engrave that on his/her heart!)

Here's Nam Le's website for The Boat, where you can read an extract and reviews, as well as more about the author.

Janet Tay reviewed the book some time back in Starmag. (The unedited version is here.) Eric blogged an email interview with the author here. Eric also wrote about the other shortlisted books.

Congrats to the author, and let's give a big cheer for the short story (which folks predicted was dying, not so long ago, but which just doesn't lie down and give up that easily!)

I've not yet read the book (I stared at it, it stared back at me in Kinokuniya when I was making tough choices) but hope to soon.

Callused Heart

Congrats to Janet Tay who has had her story, Callus, accepted by Oxford University Press for its World Stories collection of short stories called Cries from the Heart. The series is aimed at learners of English and is intended to give them a taste of writing from around the world in different Englishes.

You can listen to an introduction to the story on the site and there's an interview with Janet here.

Here's where the storycame from :

The Young Ones

There's a nice piece in StarTwo's Youth 2 section today about young Malaysian authors. Sharmila Nair and Ian Yee interview Lim May Zhee, Ruzaina Fikri and Muhamad Syrafuddin ... valiant souls all. (And may they continue the good fight as they grow older.)

And in a side piece, MPH's Janet Tay talks about how to realise the dream of getting published, tempering encouragment with a dose of realism. And of course the most important piece of advice :

Read, read, read. I can’t emphasise that enough. I think we do encounter a fair bit of writers who want to write but don’t pick up books themselves “ it’s like a chef who doesn’t know how to eat or taste his food.

National Day Books

Malaysia is enjoying a long weekend for the 51st National Day, so Sunday's newspapers are, predictably, full of talk of nation building. It was a lovely surprise to see my friend and erstwhile writing group buddy Soo Choon on the pages of the Star, talking about her cross-cultural marriage.

In a very packed-with-good-stuff ReadsMonthly section the Starmag team journalists compile a list of their 51 best reads esp for Merdeka.

Daphne Lee interviews Bernice Chauly about her work (You can find the full interview on Daphne's blog.) :

Chauly’s poems are deeply personal. They may or may not be autobiographical in detail, but the stories they tell feel like they were shaped by real emotions and memories.

They are Chauly’s emotions, memories and stories, but they also speak to and for women the world over. They are familiar tales, but filtered through the voice of an individual, they defy the cliches of everyday experience and become significant, compelling and unique.

and Ahnaf reviews her collection of poetry The Book of Sins.

There's a write up by Rouwen Lin about the Read While Waiting flashmob event of last weekend.

Janet Tay review Nam Le's collection of short fiction The Boat (and there's a 25% off token!), and KayKay enjoys David Sedaris' When You Are englulfed by Flames.

Vernon Adrian Emaung crossed the causeway for Kee Thuan Chye's The Swordfish, Then the Concubine, which sounds as if it was beautifully staged :

Set in minimalist staging that featured a serambi or open platform for village gatherings, 15 Singaporean actors tackled a story that called for a cast of thousands across two generations – you couldn’t get more epic than that, right? Especially so when you have a gamelan orchestra providing for the peaks and troughs of human drama, the deafening clamour of war, and the crescendo of divine retribution. Music composer Joyce Teo and the Gamelan Asmarada group delivered proficiently on that aspect. The underlying political commentary linked current issues to these ancient myths quite commendably in the writing. Similarly, it was truly fascinating to watch the production draw stylistically from bangsawan (Malay opera), dikir barat, and silat to facilitate and vibrantly colour the storytelling.

It was quite an honour to have a Malaysian play kick off a Singaporean Theatre Festival. How sad I am I missed it. But I do hope it is staged here soon.

Believing in Your Story Collections

One of the things that Kunal Basu said to me the other day which really struck home. :

I'd like to debunk once and for all the notion that short stories don't sell. All publishers need to do is believe in their short story collections. If you start out saying I don’t believe this book will sell, then it won’t. But if you believe in it passionately, then you can convey that passion to readers.

I got news today that made my day! Eric Forbes sent me an SMS to say that Wena Poon's Lions in Winter has been nominated for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize, the world's richest award for short fiction. (Other nominated authors include Anne Enright and Jhumpa Lahiri.)

The book is there because Eric and Janet Tay* of MPH believed in the book, not only enough to publish it, but also enough to promote it overseas. (This could be the first time that a work of fiction published by a local publisher has been listed for an international award.)

Update :

More on this year's Frank O'Connor prize at the Guardian.

*How nice if those guys could start their on literary imprint with MPH!

My Celeb Day

A couple of pictures taken today.

This is on the set of Venus at NTV 7 after the interview with Tan Twan Eng, show host Aishah Sinclair (the lady in red), and the other folks behind the show Grace Liew (next to her), and the producer, Wan Sariah Wan Jaafar.

The NTV7 interview turned out to be a lot of fun. Aishah called me "a celebrity blogger" which made me smile and want to say "Aiyoh, no lah". She was so relaxed and warm and made the whole thing go really easily.

Tan Twan Eng joined us on the sofa after the first segment to talk about his book, and other things we touched on were whether really Malaysians aren't readers, about the British Council Library closing and the work BC does in Malaysia, about a FIRSTWoRKS workshop she had a picture of, how I'd enjoyed being the first reader in Malaysia of The Gift of Rain and what I'd thought of the book.

After that I drove to PJ and went searching for The Seapark Brickhouse, which turned out to bein a not-terribly-glam area. But the moment you step inside this beautifully renovated single-storey terraced house you feel as if you have entered another world.

The simplicity and airiness and sense of outside-brought-inside reminded me of Seksan's gallery, and his firm have apparently been involved in the project. I loved the monochrome unclutteredness. Never mind the bed and breakfast it is supposed to be, I would like to live in this house.

I posed around for photos, striking some pretty strange poses - one or two in the bathroom which was my favourite room with frangipani trees (for heaven's sake) growing up through the centre of it and no ceiling but the sky.

You will see the results in the next copy of Quill.

A whole gang of friends was there, Eric, Janet and May Lee from MPH, Daphne, Twan, and Adeline Loh who has a book about her travels in Zambia called Peeing in the Bush coming out.

We ate chicken rice, drank teh-ice, talked books and authors, and laughed a lot. A perfect afternoon.

The Slippery Eel of Literary Fiction

Daphne Lee in today's Starmag wrestles valiantly with the term "literary fiction" which if it is an animal at all, I think is a very slippery eel.

But I love this definition that she takes from David Lubar :

If you’re ever in doubt about whether a story is literary, there’s a simple test. Look in a mirror immediately after reading the last sentence. If your eyebrows are closer together than normal, the answer is yes.

She says that she herself does not much care for the label:

Personally, I dislike the term literary as I feel it’s much too broad and doesn’t do justice to the variety of voices involved in telling the stories that fall into the category. Those who say they enjoy books that are literary will agree that they are distinguished by their high quality of writing – writing that is evocative and provocative, original and daring. It is certainly not formulaic. And this means that it’s virtually impossible to predict the kind of story told by an author who is dubbed literary.

It's really just a term of convenience, isn't it? Herding buffaloes into a pen and books onto an appropriate shelf in the shop. And as someone pointed out long ago on this blog, there is far less segregation of books in American publishing. (I think we Brits like to hold on to our various snobberies for as long as possible. Class distinctions don't hold true anymore, so let's transfer our sniffiness to books.)

For me it’s a question of a satisfying read. I can no longer enjoy something simple and formulaic. I want to be both entertained and surprised. I want to read something that touches my heart so much that I can never forget the experience. I want to be in the company of someone more intelligent than I am, who can show me new things about the world and make me see things in a different way. I want to believe fully in the characters I read about, care about them, and enter into their world. I want to be delighted by the language to the extent that I find myself rereading passages for pure pleasure.

Call that what you like.

Anyway, the wisest and most wonderful people in the Malaysian literary universe (including - ahem - myself) come up with lists of favourite literary books.

And always there's the compulsion to compare your own reading against the lists of others.

Mine looks more low-brow than the others.

Damn.

Should have nicked a few titles from Preeta's list - I love Midnight's Children and think it changed the landscape for many later authors, Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient is a novel I really love too and have read twice with a hunger now to read it again. And Preeta shares my love for Peter Carey - great!

Spot on, the way Tan Twan Eng describes Ian McEwan's writing:

... his diamond-hard prose buffed to a shine. Like swallowing a cold drink too quickly and feeling the pain hit the centre of your forehead.

Oh yes. (I'm reading Atonement at the moment and it is so beautifully evocative that I feel sad at leaving one page behind to move onto the next. But I have the sicky feeling of dread as I always do with McEwan, knowing as always in his books that the unthinkable is just about to happen ...)

I'd go with Janet Tay's enthusiasm for Coetzee (but - note to self - need to do some urgent catching up on his more recent titles), and Bernice's choice of Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, and Jennifer Gabriel's love of Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex. (I knew there had to be a real serious bookaholic in charge of Kinokuniya's excellent literature section!)

Amir's list reminds me that it's time to reread Nabokov's Lolita, as well as catch up on some of his short stories, and that belatedly I'd better start reading Flaubert and James Baldwin.

Too many books. Too little time. Whatever label you want to stick on 'em, why not go just for the best?

Tales FromThe Other Side

If there was one theme running through "Readings" this Saturday it was of folks who are usually on one side of the literary fence (as student, reviewer, editor, avid reader, illustrator), now skipping over to reveal themselves as writers, one or two of them coming out of the closet for the first time!


Janet Tay (below) was a litigation lawyer in a previous incarnation and says that she decided to leave the fast-paced life of waiting in courtrooms and long breakfasts at court canteens to indulge in her first loves - books and writing. She now puts on a literary editor's hat and works for a publishing house. She's also working towards a Masters degree in Literature at Universiti Malaya.

Her short story, Callus, was highly commended in the 2004 Commonwealth Broadcasting Association Short Story competition and has also been adapted for the Oxford Bookworms World Stories collection which will be published in 2008. Another short story, Transience, appeared in the August edition of Off The Edge.

She read from a short story set in an airport lounge and told from two different viewpoints. It was self-assured writing and very well observed.

Catalina Rembuyan works in the English Department at Universiti Malaya and is also doing her M.A. She says that she started dabbling in writing and reading poetry thanks to events and workshops held by the British Council.

She showed us the city waking up in 4.30 a.m. a very effective listing poem, and then read us Like a Sparrow in prayer form. This was followed by several others including a poem about darkness after a generator fails, a comical sonnet Observe the Ant on the Toilet Floor, and a piece she has read in readings before, Moving On. It seems to me that Catalina is growing in self-assurance - both in her writing and in her delivery of her work. Hope that she now looks at getting some of her work published.

I'd been asking Shahril Nizam to read ever since I learned that he writes verse to accompany his illustrations. He used to say that he was too shy, but I'm really happy that with the launch of his book If Only, he is feeling more confident. He chose several of my favourite pieces from the book including KingKat, My Aunt Rose, Creature (Dis)comforts and Rumination.

I had asked him if he would bring some of the original illustrations along with him and he brought a portfolio of pictures from the book and others I hadn't seen before. Here's Erna Mahyuni and Irene Kiew going through them.

Daphne Lee is probably best known as a journalist, writing about books for Starmag where she has a Sunday column. She also has a blog dedicated to children's writing. She recently made her debut as an author with a series of children's picture books.

Today though she read a series of untitled poems telling the story of a relationship which:

starts - flourishes - fails

Very moving and accessible, as with Catalina's pieces, it would be lovely to see them in print now the appetite is whetted.

Shamala S. Palaniappan is a book-addicted friend of mine who also writes. She's a marine scientist by training with post-graduate qualifications in genetics and statistics, and is most interested in communicating science in writing. She's now a full-time medical writer but working on more personal pieces in her spare time. She read two pieces for us Trails and Oasis, the first, inspired by a conference on global warming, drew on a beguiling blend of physics and philosophy to talk about the trails of energy we leave behind us. It felt rather Kundera-ish!

This lady is taking my creative writing class but I don't think she needs any more than the permission to say "Go ahead and write, kid". I don't think she did at all badly for the first time she read.

At the end of the afternoon, Animah Kosai (for some reason dressed in yellow) introduced another first time reader.

She had read a piece Vani (below) posted in the comments of Haris Ibrahim's blog, a big howl of hurt about the ongoing Hindu temple demolitions in this country. Animah was so moved by Vani's words in Oppressed in My Own Country that she invited her along.

Vani had never thought herself a writer before, but when the heart is moved there's a need to express it in words, however raw. And she read her words with great confidence.

I hope Vani will continue to draw on that passion now that she has seen how she is able to affect and reach others.

Anyway, thanks (as always) to those who read, and those who came and supported so well. Thanks to Seksan for the beautiful venue. To Shahril for the lovely poster. To those who helped set up and clear away. To Catalina for bringing wine. To whoever brought all those snacky things.

Will try for December 29th for the next readings and will confirm as soon as possible. Shall we have a Christmas theme? I'll try to get some mistletoe!

Shifting the Course Over Tea

Got invited to be a forum panelist at MPH's Saturday event - the annual Hi Tea for Local Authors. It was a great chance to meet friends and make new ones - even though some of the folks I'd hoped would be there couldn't make it.
 The panel discusion. The question before us:

What is the direction of the local industry based on current developments? Is this where we want to head, or should we collectively shift the course of things to come?

A whopping big question. Janet Tay (above, far right) chaired the discussion. The rest of us grabbed a bit of the elephant to describe.

Nisah Haron (below, holding the mic) talked about the problem of lack of promotion of especially for Malay writers and the need for an "Oprah Bookclub" on TV. Nafisah Ahamad of the National Library (in blue below) gave some good news about the development of 425 rural libraries, and said that 14,000 titles had been published locally so far this year.

I talked a bit too long and I'm not sure how interested everyone was in my tuppence worth because I wanted to focus more on fiction. (A genre not much talked about at these kind of events.)

I talked about the need to develop and encourage new writing talent while raising critical standards. (Hobby horse lah!)

I also wagged a stern finger school-marmishly at those who put out work which is badly edited and proofread, and told 'em that that their competitors were not the other authors in the room, but also every author from overseas whose books hit the shelves. You have to be as good as: not merely good enough for the local market, I said. And I had to slip in something about the overseas published novelists (and also Kam, published locally) raising the bar too. (Wonder if local authors wanted to hear any of this??)

Datuk Ng Tieh Chuan CEO of MPH (above centre) gave a very interesting speech. We don't have a direction, he said, we are quite lost and writers are too left to fend for themselves.

Nevertheless he said, we are ready for the global market. MPH is planning to set up an export division to make available the work of local writers regionally and globally. He also talked of the need to form a guild for local writers to provide advice and practical support.

Then there was a Q&A. Antares talked about US protectionism; CEan about the high cost of postage on books from Malaysia (there needs to be a books postal rate!); an author called Rozita (?) had more to say about the shops not promoting her book and not reordering when stock ran out. Several more authors made observations or asked questions, but the discussion slipped away from the big picture to the small one: the me-and-my-book. Understandable. The big picture is so big that it would merit a conference to thrash out issues properly.

Datuk Mohd. Zaid Ibrahim, (MP for Kota Bharu) who has just launched his new book In Good Faith said a few words before rushing off to his next appointment, and then Datuk Ng invited Rehman Rashid to say a few words. He told the story of the publication of A Malaysian Journey, and the way it continues to resonate with the Malaysian public.

Then the formal part was over. Authors posed for group photos. Hugs were exchanged, curry puffs were eaten, photos snapped.

Here's one I love, of Nisah and baby. We're friends who have met through blogs and by e-mail but never in the real world before. I also met Choong Kwee Kim, another online friend who materialised in the flesh!

Rehman (the handsome one), Lydia Teh (the little one) and me (the one with the inane grin) with Gerald Chuah (the one who looks like Rocky) in the background.

Thanks MPH for inviting me.

MPH Literary Tatler

Am playing catch-up with some pictures of a couple of MPH events that I meant to post earlier. what can I say ... my hard-disk crashed so I couldn't post them immediately ... and then so many other things got in the way. (And I was a little lazy too ...)

Anyway, if you missed last month's Writers' Circle (held at 1 Utama, 13 March) kick yourselves because there was so much in the talk for writers of creative non-fiction!

Invited speakers Larry Parr (co-author of business tycoon Tan Chin Nam's Never Say I Assume!) and Balan Moses (author of Brickfields: A Place, A Time, A Memory) talked about the researching and writing of their books.


American author Larry Parr had forgotten the first time we met some years ago. I was wandering around the Sucasa very early one morning looking for a decent cup of coffee. (I was due to observe one of my students teaching in the school opposite but needed a caffeine fix first! School canteens don't have Americanas!) I bumped into Larry who told me that there was no coffee available, but there was a small newsagents which also sold second-hand books very cheaply for charity. (Damn! Wasn't going to let that slip!)

We got talking about books (as one does!) and it turned out that Larry collects old novels written about Malaya which he's bought from second-hand bookshops here and in the States. I'm actually quite envious! He told me then that he was going to be working with tycoon Tan Chin Nam on his autobiography and it seemed a really interesting project. We exchanged cards, but I didn't see him again until the Writers' Circle at MPH 1 Utama when he talked about the finished book and the challenges of writing the story of this very important businessman, whose life story parallels the history of the country.

Larry is a fascinating speaker. (This wikipedia article contains some inaccuracies e.g date of birth and number of kids.) He was an expert in Soviet affairs and the editor of Glasnost magazine, and he also edited Chess Life magazine, the official publication of the United States Chess Federation.

(And he's going to be co-writing a thriller, but it's all top secret for now!)

Balan Moses is the news editor of the New Straits Times and has spent all his working life with the newspaper. His book on Brickfields is a loving portrait of an area of the city with a very distinctive history that's rapidly changing out of all recognition. And into the history and geography of the place, Balan weaves personal recollection and portraits of the inhabitants ... as well as mouthwatering descriptions of the food to be found there. It is in many ways a guide book to an area that tourists seldom travel too, but which yields as much (or more) cultural interest as the more famous haunts.

The book is apparently selling very well, and small wonder because I feel it's one that KLites, and particularly Brickfieldsians (!) must surely take to their hearts. I heard from friends who attended a talk that Balan gave at the Commonwealth Club, that members of the audience virtually hijacked the meeting to talk about their own reminiscences of the area and suggest what should go into the next volume!

You can catch Balan at the "Readings" in May. (More about that later.)

The other MPH event was the second Breakfast Club for the Litbloggers held at the Bangsar Village branch on March 24th with Mrs. Good (Lydia Teh) slugging it out with Mrs. Dark Side (Xeus). I'm joking of course ... it was a lovely morning spent with friends chatting about writing and getting published. Both Xeus and Lydia are very good speakers and kept the crowd well entertained.

Xeus (whose very full account of the event can be found here) gave some excellent writing advice.

Lydia Teh was just hilarious. She turned up with a horn so she really could honk! And I loved the piece she read from her book which was a glossary of expressions translated from standard English read into "Manglish" (Malaysian English).

It was Kak Teh's (Zahara Othman) birthday and it was lovely that we were able to celebrate it with her. I like this not yet posed, informal shot. Left to right: Chet, Xeus, me (tangled up with the ficus plant), Lydia, Kak Teh blowing out her candles, Eric Forbes and Janet Teh.

Do come along to the next one this coming Saturday. If you missed Larry Parr, you have a chance to see him again. The mind-expanding Farish Noor will also be along, as will I Am Muslim author Dina Zaman (whom I am introducing).

I must add a silent prayer that the irrepressible and irrelevant questioner behaves himself. Still Kenny will be moderating the session, so we know we're in safe hands. (He will restrain me as ... )

Oh ... and if you do come along, do stay in Bangsar and come along to "Readings" afterwards!

Litbloggers Breakie!

The inaugural Breakfast with the Litbloggers kicked off on saturday at the new branch of MPH I Bangsar Village Two. I wasn't sure beforehand how it would all turn out, and whether a discussion in a very open bookshop bookshops space would work and whether anyone at all would get up on a saturday morning and come along ... but it all worked out very well. Quite a number of people turned out to support many of them writers and wanna-be writers and bloggers ... many of them the strange folks who comment on this blog!

The only problem was little kids who gravitated towards the musical books ... One Two Three Four Five Little Indians ... but Renee handled them very well without resorting to infanticide.

Here then are the social pages ...

Here's novelist Yang-May Ooi with Eric Forbes, MPH editor, bibliophile bibliomaniac, and litblogger extraordinaire. Eric did a great job of organising the event.

This here's Janet Tay who drops by this blog on occasion. Janet is just about to start work as an editor with MPH, working alongside Mr. Forbes. She got roped into helping with this event even before she was officially in harness, so to speak. She is doing a Masters degree in Literature at Universiti Malaya part-time and enjoying it very much.

Two UK published novelists together! Tan Twan Eng dropped by.

This smiling guy is Kenny Mah who made the great poster for the event. It's so nice to meet him in the "real" world!

Sharanya reading an extract from her novel-in-progress Constellation of Scars and poems from her chapbook, Iyari. Kenny summed it up best when he broke the silence after the reading saying "What I need now is a cold shower!"

A crowd scene. Anyone you recognise?

More to come, but I thought I'd better post this all up quickly before you all think I've died or left the country. The computer was sick, not me. Thanks for phone calls and SMSes!!

Updates:

Do go and listen to Yang-May's phone blogging experiments to hear about Saturday's events from her view points and there's so much good stuff here about Malaysian writing.

Kenny Mah's account of the day is so good I think I could be out of a job.

Xeus' thoughts on the morning and the setting up a critiquing circle ...

Sharanya has a lovely photo up with Yang-May ...