Social Networking, the Bookstore, and the Bloggers

I have novelist Yang-May Ooi's latest book* in my hand ... but this time it isn't fiction. With co-writer Silvia Cambié, she has written International Communications Strategy : Developments in Cross-Cultural Cummunications and Social Media and is published by Kogan Page. (Listen to the authors talking about how they came to write the book here.) And I got such a surprise when I came to the chapter called Authenticity and Trust, because one of the case studies ... was about MPH Breakfast Club and how it brought together bloggers and writers and bookstore in an extremely positive way, connecting both online and in the real world. (Here's Tang-May's blog entry about the events she took part in.) I love this description of Eric Forbes :

He is clearly regarded as a local expert of publishing, writing and high-quality literature and has become widely known through his blog. In person he is approachable and unpretentious, reflecting the style and tone of his blog ...

Quite! Also mentioned (ahem!) :

Other literary events, such as 'Readings' run by Sharon Bakar, have also been thriving both on the blogs and in other trendy venues around Kuala Lumpur. Would-be writers encourage each other and enterprising young publishers have been forming new imprints to showcase local short stories and essays. many new writers have added their works to the body of Malaysian writing and a few more have been publsihed overseas. ... The key to success has been strong personal networks ... strengthened by the social media.

It's really good when someone recognises what you are doing, as well as the way that a terrific network of encouragment and support exists in KL now. I wonder where Breakfast Club has got to, though? Now that MPH in BV2 has closed, does it still have a home? (*Thanks a lot Yang-May for the copy.)

Busy Preeta

Preeta Samarasan will be back in KL following the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival and will have a very busy schedule.

On 24th October she will be on NTV7's The Breakfast Show which begins at 8 a.m. and then at 7.30pm there's An Evening with Preeta at MPH 1 Utama. (This is a by invitation event for MPH members plus media friends.)

You can also catch her on Saturday 25th October at MPH's Breakfast Club (11.30-1) and then at Seksan's at 3.30* (Other guests lined up are Sharmini Flint and singer-songwriter Reza Salleh so it's going to be a great event!! Yay!)

At the MPH and Seksan events you can enjoy a 25% discount off Evening is the Whole Day and get free postcards.

The following day she's at the Lit Addicts' Meet at MPH Mid Valley with SH Lim 2.30 - 3.30pm, and then at Borders @ The Curve (where you also get a free Starbucks beverage voucher with every purchase of Evening is the Whole Day from 1 - 26 Oct 08).

And on Tues 28 October she has a LiteFM radio interview with PK and Sara.

Busy busy busy!!!

Postscript :

I am so excited to tell you that I've just heard that Chiew-Siah Tei will be joining Preeta at both the Breakfast Club and Seksan's on 25th!!! It's going to be a great literary Saturday!

*Seksan Gallery, 67 Jalan Tempinis Satu, Lucky Garden, Bangsar, 59100 Kuala Lumpur

Robert Shares His Secrets

It was lovely to see author Robert Raymer on Saturday for MPH's Breakfast Club at the branch in Bangsar Village 2. These days he's so far away in Sarawak (teaching creative writing at UNIMAS), so it was nice that the launch of his revised collection of short stories Lovers and Strangers Revisited gave us the opportunity to meet up.

Remember how we talked about authors going back on earlier work to turn it into something much better? Well, our Robert is one such, and this is the third incarnation of the book. (In the picture, he's holding all three versions. The latest is published by MPH, and the previous edition by Silverfish.) His reason for rewriting is that when he started off, he was satisfied with writing for a local audience, but now want to take them to a higher standard and aim for an international readership.*

Robert is always very generous in sharing what he knows about writing, and in this session, he talked about how :

Ideas come from every place.

His short story Neighbours, now included on the SPM syllabus was based on a real-life incident. His neighbour had attempted suicide, and Robert drove him to hospital. (I don't think the guy made it.) When Robert got back, he found the neighbours gathered outside his neighbour's gate gossiping about him. Out came the note book, and the idea for the story was born. Another story came out of the strong sense of deja vu he felt when he visited KL's Station Hotel.

Then he talked about how important it is he finds the beginning of his stories and chooses the right point of view to tell the story from :

Each point of view is a different story entirely.

he says, and adds that if a story is going to go wrong (as it does for many of the students he teaches) it usually goes wrong on the first page.

In his stories he often finds himself inside the skin of a Malaysian character and in fact he says he once felt very flattered when a judge in a competition organised by the New Straits Times disqualified his entry believing it plagiarised, because how could a Mat Salleh write so convincingly about a Malay character?

Robert also talked about the importance of maintaining momentum :

Even if it's crap writing, stick with it. As parents we know that crap can be cleaned up. It's part of the editing process. When you've cleaned up that crap you find there's a cute little butt in there!

He reckons too that some of the stories that give you the biggest grief can be your best stories.

He urged his audience to take writing off the backburner of life and said write for yourself first before you do other things in the day (like answering email or checking your blog!).

Robert's hard work and commitment is clearly paying off, his novel The Lonely Affair of Jonathan Brady won 4th place in the 2008 National Writers Association Novel Contest (USA), there is going to be a play based on Lovers and Strangers, and he has a book about 20 years living in Malaysia coming out soon.

Those of you in Penang who would like to catch Robert can find him at Little Penang Street Market on August 31st, selling books on one of the stalls and giving a reading at 11am.

*Aiyoh! This got misinterpreted (thanks to my own clumsy writing) in the comments and Robert steps in to clarify how and why he rewrote his work.

Another Literary Saturday

Heavens above! Once again we have a single Saturday crammed with activity of the bookish kind. I'm talking about 26th which kicks off with MPH Breakfast Club (11.00a.m. to 12.30p.m.) featuring short story writer Robert Raymer, whose collection Lovers and Strangers Revisited has just been republished by MPH. (More about Robert and the event on Eric's blog.)

I've been hoping for some time that Sarawak based Robert would find his way back over here again soon, and that I would be able to nab him for Readings@Seksan. And so it has come to pass.

This then is the second great event of the day, running from 3.30-6 p.m.) and the poster will be up on this blog as soon as I have finalised the line-up (or as far as I can, given the inherent unpredictability of this kind of event!).

Saradha Narayanan will be at Silverfish at 5.30 p.m. to talk about a little about her experience with writing and then read selected passages from her book, Freedom of Choice. (Should be possible to hop from Seksan's to Silverfish in time to catch this if you need a double/treble dose of book events.)

Meanwhile, over at Rasta Restaurant in Taman Tun (5.30-8.30), the lovely Farish Noor launches his new book Dibalik Malaysia. The hilarious Harith Iskander will be MCing and there's food! (Click the poster up to full size to see details and map.)

Can you cram in four events in one day? This is the ultimate lit-lovers challenge.

Elmo's Story

I'm just a very ordinary man who wrote a book and they called me a novelist after that.

said award-winning Sri Lankan author Elmo Jayawardena very modestly at the MPH Breakfast club last Saturday.

I finished Elmo's first novel, Sam's Story a couple of day's back and very much enjoyed it. The story is narrated by a young man called Sam, who is mentally slow and illiterate, and who finds employ as a domestic servant with a family at "the river house". Alternating chapters unravel the story of Sam's growing up in a village in the rural Kalutera district where the poverty is absolute, and the only jobs to be had are tapping rubber or digging sand ... and for the young men, joining the Sri Lankan army to fight the on-going civil war.

The novel is largely based on real life. There actually is a Sam and he still works for Elmo (who "drives areobblanes" for a living) and his family, and many of the incidents described in the book with such humour and affection really did happen. (Elmo took out his family photos to show me Sam and the house by the river before the event began.)

The background about Sam's family and childhood which real Sam was unable to tell him, he filled in from his own experiences of growing up dirt poor, often going without food, and from his charity work with the poor.

There is reality in the real sense of it ... when a person is poor they don't have hope.

In the book, Sam's voice is convincingly realised and his quirky way of seeing the world acquires it's own logic. (Why have a statue in the garden of a boy pissing into the fish pond when he can do it just as well? Why pack away the Christmas tree when it will only need to be brought out again next year? Why isn't the dog his when he loves it most?)

He's aware of the ironies too. The family dog gets the best medical treatment and a stream of visitors when he gets food poisoning. Sam's mother has to walk miles and wait hours for medical treatment, and is prescribed medicine and an improved diet which they can't afford. His master's family have two children who are educated overseas and who barely think about the civil war. Sam's brothers are conscripted, and one killed while the other becomes a deserter.

The war enters the household in the form of conversations between the master and his friends over drinks - everyone expounds on what should be done, but no-one really has answers. Meanwhile in the kitchen, there is enmity between Sam and the two servants Janet and Leandro. Sam doesn't know what the war is about but he knows that the Tamils are supposed to be the enemy of the Sinhalese.

But as the Masters wife (hey, this is my friend Dil!) says, sadly shaking her head each soldier in the conflict is some mother's son and really it is as simple as that.

As Elmo said at MPH :

We hate because we do not know them, and we will not know them because we hate.

I find it really interesting that Elmo the author is so easily able to slip inside another skin, and see himself too through that person's eyes. (He isn't always complimentary about Elmo the character!) The ending of the novel, thank goodness, is fiction.

The real Sam is unable to comprehend that he has become the hero of a book and that a lot of people travel to meet him, but in the pages of this book he becomes the perfect vehicle to explore the effects of poverty and war on the the ordinary Sri Lankan citizen.

Kunal, Coffee and Curry Puffs

Kunal Basu was the guest author at MPH's Breakfast Club. He read from the title piece from in his short story collection, The Japanese Wife in which a painfully shy Bengali boy finds a true friend in a Japanese penpal, and later marries her ... by letter. The two never meet, but remain entirely loyal to each other. It's a relationship, as Kunal says :

... of great intimacy, but no domesticity ...

Kunal had a small but very tuned in audience and it was certainly one of the liveliest Breakfast clubs that I have been to with no-one being shy to ask questions.

He talked (among other things) about how he is :

... driven by the strange ...

when he writes; about where his inspiration comes from :

I think I have a chemical imbalance in the brain ... stories germinate in my mind ...

whether he finds it easier to write short stories or novels :

... both require the same emotional passion ...

who he writes for :

I write to please myself and hope this will please others

and whether he has writing rituals :

I write fiction longhand and non-fiction on the computer, and I write fiction at home, and non-fiction at Oxford (where he a Professor of Marketing) ...

And of course he talked about the making of the film of his short story The Japanese Wife with director Aparna Sen which will start doing the rounds of the film festivals next month, and be on general release in October. It is a true piece of world cinema, filmed in English, Bengali and Japanese, and by the miracle of YouTube I managed to find this news item about it :

Aparna ready with The Japanese Wife



I have more posts to come on Kunal, so stay tuned!

Literary Glamour

Here are the pics of Daphne Lee and myself from the Seapark Brickhouse photoshoot from the new issue of MPH's Quill magazine, due out at any moment. You can click it up to full size and read the nonsense that burbled forth from my mouth. I am sitting in the bathtub which comes complete with frangipani tree. What literary glamour! Autographs later.

I liked the question about my ideal writing retreat. I long to sit and write in one of those beach side chalets on stilts over the sea at Pan Pacific, Pangkor. (Or better still Pankor Laut.) I'm sure my muse would be really awakened and ready to do great stuff if I could have a few months there. (Sponsorship deals greatly appreciated!)

What would your ideal writing retreat be?

Enjoying Dog Hotpot in Bangsar

Yesterday was another of those literary Saturdays in Bangsar.

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MPH's Breakfast Club at Bangsar Village 2 brought together the authors of two recently published collections of short stories, Wena Poon (above) and Chuah Guat Eng (below).

I was very excited to meet Wena at last, after reading her work and exchanging emails with her, and I thoroughly enjoyed her reading of Dog Hotpot, which also appears in Silverfish New Writing 7. She really brought out all the nuances and little touches of irony in this story about cultural values. (Wonder if there's scope for an audiobook? Wena clearly enjoys acting out her characters.)

< After that, Guat read from her story Two Pretty Men - one of my favourites from The Old House and we had a pretty interesting discussion about the gender of some of the characters, where their short stories come from :

... a special place (said Wena) ...

Guat told us that she had had a lot of pleasure writing her stories, although in many ways writing short stories is harder than writing a novel, and she often works on them over a long period of time. She also talked about the little seeds that had started the story she had been reading to us (the title of a nursery rhyme, a puppy which had come into her garden and died in a pool of blood though there was no mark on his body ...).

Wena added her thoughts about writing from a distance - being overseas, she said, enabled her to look back on Singapore more objectively, and she quoted Peter Carey saying that moving to New York had enabled him to write about Australia.

Both seemed quite amused when recalling the difficulty some local readers have with accepting that a writer isn't always putting their own life on the page in fiction, thinking everything in the stories must also have happened to the readers.

(This has happened to me too when a "friend" of mine blabbed the rumour far and wide that one of my characters was actually an ex-boyfriend who broke my heart!)


We didn't actually have dog hotpot for breakfast, but thanks MPH for the curry puffs and sandwiches!

Wena and Guat for Breakfast Club

A quick plug for MPH's Breakfast Club this coming Saturday. The focus is on the short story with two authors whose anthologies have recently been published. Appearing will be Wena Poon author of Lions in Winter and Chuah Guat Eng, author of The Old House. More details on Eric's blog.

So your whole day is taken care of. You come along for this. Have a nice relaxed lunch. And then proceed to Seksan's in the afternoon.

Some January Events for Your Diary

Here's are some not-to-be-missed January lit events to put in your diary.

How great that another venue for live literature has sprung up. Raja Ahmad has a great list of readers for Kata-Suara, to be held at his very beautiful gallery on Saturday 19th January. Do support! (More on Ted's blog.)

The monthly MPH Writer's Circle meeting takes place on 19th January too (11.00am - 12.30pm in the Booker Room.) I think these meetings are very worthwhile, particularly as you get to know so much about author's experiences of getting published and marketing their books. Sadly, they haven't been attended as well as they deserve to be. This month's guest is Jason Fong, author of Feng Shui in the City. So if you want to write a book on Feng-Shui (and I must confess I've toyed with the idea) or if you want to hear another author's "war-story" about how you move from initial concept to finished book, do come along.

If you like crime fiction, you might like to meet Singapore's answer to Agatha Christie! Shamini Flint (left) is launching her second detective novel, Criminal Minds at the La Bodega Lounge on Monday 21st Jalan Telawi 2 at 7.45. (More about this author another day.)

You are probably aware that MPH have a monthly book-discussion, and you can get a 20% discount on the chosen title.

This month focuses on Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain, and to make this an extra-special meeting - the author himself will be there to talk about the book and answer your questions. (Eh, how often you got chance to chat to a Booker-nominated author, especially of the home-grown variety?)

If you haven't read the book yet (and you should because 1) it's a great big passionate, exciting read 2) you will enjoy the Penang setting 3) Malaysia really boleh in this instance, so you can enjoy feeling proud), then you have nine more days to buy it and read it

(MPH as usual has lots on, which you can check out here.)

Readings@Seksan's is on Saturday 26th January, and I'll be putting up the line-up very soon. It will be a very special readings as we are celebrating our third birthday and need you help to blow out the candles! Tunku Halim will be among the readers, and he will also be appearing at MPH's Breakfast Club at the Bangsar Village 2 branch at 11 a.m. - 12.30 p.m. (He will be appearing at several other events while he is in town, and has listed these on his blog.)

That same afternoon Indonesian authors Lakshmi Pamuntjak and Goenawan Mohamad are appearing at Silverfish at 5 p.m. (Come to Readings first and then skip over the road!) Goenawan will be launching On God and Other Things, the English translation of his book of aphorisms, Tentang Tuhan dan Hal-Hal yang Tak Selesai. This event is sponsored by the Malaysian International Literature Society (MILS).

You can also catch Lakshmi and Goenawan at a talk at the English Department, Arts and Social Sciences Faculty Universiti Malaya at 9 a.m. (I kid you not!) on Sunday 27th January. If you'd like to attend, contact Catalina Rembuyan or via Facebook. I plan to be there ... but can't guarantee to be awake.

Feel like a party? Project Open Mike Gig are inviting you to a night of mayhem on Sunday 27th January 7.30 till very late at The Dram Projects BG-6 Happy Mansions, Jalan 17/13, P.J.
This from their Facebook ad:

Because this is an OMG event, anyone who feels like whipping out a guitar should feel free. Poets are, however, advised to keep it to no more than 17 stanzas. And no free verse about curry leaves! Mostly, however, it's a party, which means Doritos, dancing and debauchery [in that order]. Bring a bottle or three!!!

Who can resist?

Phew! Have I forgotten anything? Do let me know in the comments and I'll append it.

Twan Eng and Devika Bai and Little Egg Sandwiches

So yesterday the Saturday literary marathon in Bangsar, and I managed to last the distance. (Just!)

The first event was of course MPH's Breakfast Club bash at the Bangsar Village 2 branch. There was a very good turn out to meet authors Tan Twan Eng and D. Devika Bai.

A somewhat shy Twan Eng invited questions from the audience about The Gift of Rain, and got some thoughtful ones thrown in his direction.

One perennial question* came up: why are so many Malaysian novels set in the past, and set during the war rather than in present day Malaysia?

Twan answered that wartime is a period of great upheaval and gives the author plenty of conflict to write about. He also wanted to reach as wide an audience as possible - the Japanese occupation of Malaya being of course of great interest to an overseas audience as well.

Someone asked if he plotted the novel step-by-step and he answered that he knew where it began and ended but the journey between those points was uncharted.

D. Devika Bai was a school administrator in Rawang when she first started writing. she began with articles and then began her family saga The Flight of Swans which took her eight years to write. She says she tried to find a Malaysian publisher but was unable to.

She then sent the novel out to publishers overseas, side-stepping the conventional route of going via an agent. Whilst most publishers do not accept unsolicited manuscripts, she was pleasantly surprised to receive helpful feedback from David Davidar at Penguin Books Canada.

The novel was finally published by Monsoon Books in Singapore.

A chapter of the book was published in one chapter was published in Dimsun (later relaunced as the Asian Literary Review) edited by Nury Vittachi. The novel was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers Prize.

She is currently working on a novel called Like the Lion Be (I heard it first as Like the Lion Bee and wondered what kind of creature that was!) which is about slavery in SE Asia and told through the eyes of an Indian "gypsy" girl.

One point she made which I feel needs to be kicked around a bit (but wasn't at the time):

You can't tell it like it is in Malaysia.

My thought here is: you can't, or you won't because you are afraid to? And how will any novelist know what those limits are if no-one is prepared to challenge them? (But can we in fairness expect authors to stick their necks out when the renumeration for writing a novel is so scant?)

We broke for sandwiches and snacks and lots of lots of chat and photos and friendship. I do enjoy these mornings!

*Note: You may remember that this issue came up so often on my and other blogs (it really seems to be an issue that that gnaws at the Malaysian reading public!) that Twan actually wrote a post about it for this blog some time back.

MPH Goes Spotty!

I stumbled upon yet another local litblog a week or two ago but was sworn to secrecy until the bloggers decided that it was time to launch the site officially. Now I can link it in my sidebar and invite the rest of you to take a look.

Redwhite Spot is written by the staff of MPH Bookstores and features news of events and book reviews. Welcome to the blogosphere you guys!

(I wonder, though, if Livejournal is a good blogging platform, particularly as it can be slow to load ... and WordPress and Blogger are whizzier ...)

Meanwhile there are a couple of MPH events this weekend. The Hi-Tea for Authors is happening this afternoon at MPH 1 Utama, and since the readings planned for today aren't happening, I will be there and on the panel.

The Breakfast Club, usually held on the last Saturday of the month, has shifted this month to a Sunday! Tomorrow in MPH Bangsar Village 2 you can catch up with Crocodile Fury novelist, Beth Yahp, and Yvonne Lee, author of the hilarious collection of mile-high anecdotes: The Sky is Crazy: Tales from a Trolley Dolly.

And the younger writers among you shouldn't forget that the closing date for MPH's Search for Young Malaysian Writers is 31st August. Screw your patriotism to the sticking place, as Billy the Bard might have said.

Tinling and Kam for Breakfast

The Litbloggers Breakfast this month featured FireWife author Tinling Choong and Kam Raslan (Confessions of an Old Boy) who both turned up to field questions about their writing and their experiences of being published.

Tinling describes herself as an author who writes:

... far from the centre of things

and says that this feeling of not quite belonging, of living between cultures, of what she describes as "multi-rootedness", is what has fuelled her writing. She is considered an Asian-American author in the States but sees herself more as a voice of the Chinese diaspora. Born in Malaysia (she is from Penang but went to a convent school in Ipoh, and then moved to the US to attend Wellesley College) she now lives in Vermont and describes herself as:

... a tropical city girl who lives among the snowy mountains.

She is now working towards a PhD in Chinese Literature at Yale as well as juggling life as a new mum and working on her second novel, Yuyu and the Banyan Tree which is due to be published by Nan Talase/Doubleday in 2009.

FireWife she says was fuelled by the image of a woman letting her naked body be used as a plate for sushi (a practice known in Japan as Nyotaimori. ... Now don't go trying this one at home!) while a group of four men sat around her with chopsticks eating the food. She says that she felt so angry that she went home and wrote the woman's story as if she were right inside her skin. The story of this woman became one of the eight in the novel.

In 1992 she got a Wellesley College Stevens Traveling Fellowship to travel to Asia to further develop the book, and went from country to country gathering material. She decided to link the stories of the different women through the character of Nin, who takes time out of her normal life to complete a personal photography project, also called FireWife.

The book is about the gap between knowing and actually living your true self, says Tinling, and there's much more about the writing of it on her website.

Kam says that he also feels that he writes from the periphery.

You can be Muslim and Malay and still outside the centre.

5,000 copies of the book havve now been sold and it is still on Kinokuniya's best selling list

Kam says that he deliberately chose to write for the Malaysian market, an audience which would get the in-jokes and references which a wider audience wouldn't. But the book certainly isn't going to make him very rich. He reckons his royalty check will be somewhere in the region of RM12, 000 which isn't a lot considering that 7 years work went into the book.

But, he says, he did find writing very enjoyable, creating:

... a world that's bigger than the one you live in.

He is, though, now looking for an overseas publisher for the book.

Tinling described the elation she felt when she heard that a publisher wanted to take on her book and said she had to pinch herself:

I got really lucky. The sun, moon, everything aligned!

The book is a bit expensive here at the moment, she says, as it is still in hardback. Her dad worked out that it costs 70 bowls of hokkien mee! (This is the kind of exchange rate I think in too!)


Postscript:

This article about Tinling appeared in the Star's northern edition (click to enlarge):

Good Stuff on this Saturday

This blog is becoming a bit of a bulletin board, there's suddenly so much on. Bear with me just a while longer while I tell you about a couple more literary things you might want to attend - this weekend.

This Saturday, 23rd June is the MPH Breakfast Club at Bangsar Village II at 11a.m. which this time features Zhang Su Li, author of A Backpack and a Bit of Luck.

And this Saturday night at the Gallery, Central Market Annexe you can watch excerpts from the works in progress of three of FIRSTWoRKS playwrights: Animah Kosai (Melaka ’07), Ridzwan Othman (Tahun Melawat Malaysia) and Shanon Shah (Revenge).

I've more stuff to tell you about later, but I'm so afraid of becoming the bloggers' version of KLue Magazine, I'll stop here!

David Byck and Lee Su Kim on Toast

This coming Saturday you can meet authors David Byck and Lee Su Kim at MPH's Breakfast for Litbloggers. (Click poster to read the details.)

Sadly, I won't be able to make this one!

Bloggers Breakfasted

Much overdue, here are my photos from last Saturday's Breakfast with the Litbloggers held at MPH Bangsar Village. There were curry puff, tuna sandwiches ... and plenty of brain food too, especially about Islam and fundamentalism, and the need for a plurality of voices in Malaysia.

Dina Zaman talking about I Am Muslim and her project to collect other voices for the sequel.

Political scientist and human rights activist Farish Noor, author of The Other Malaysia and From Majapahit to Putrajaya talking about the need to reclaim Malaysian history, and document women's history, and his fears about extremism. Poor Farish was extremely jetlagged, and had big dark rings under his eyes, (how many countries in how many days?) but still made perfect sense.

Larry Parr, co-author (with Tan Chin Nam) of Never Say I Assume is also a fascinating political analyst, and believes that Islamic fundamentalism does not represent a threat to world peace and is largely a by-product of US interference in the Middle East. He also predicted the break up of China into a number of autonomous states. (And you thought we just talked books!)

Chatting afterwards. Kam Raslan (in the brown shirt) dropped by.

I met blogger Enar Arshad with her son. We discovered within minutes of talking to each other that we are related by marriage! (She's my sister-in-law's sister.) That's Kenny behind us, of course. He did a sterling job of facilitating the session.

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!

MPH Happenings for March

MPH Writers Circle resumes this month with an interesting session this Saturday(17th), 11-1p.m. in the Booker Room of the 1 Utama branch. The focus is going to be writing memoirs and autobiographies.

The first guest speaker is Larry Parr who is co-author of business tycoon Tan Chin Nam's Never Say I Assume! (A whole lot of articles from the Star and about Tan Chin Nam have been archived here.)

The other is Balan Moses. You may have already seen Brickfields: A Place, A Time, A Memory in the bookshops. I bought it the other day at the MPH Warehouse sale and have been enjoying it. I particularly enjoy the way that he combines the story of this area of the city with personal anecdote, photographs and charming sketches.

I must add that -I'm very fond of Brickfields, and got to know the area when I was supervising my students on teaching practice. Sometimes I had a long gap between the lesssons I had to observe and wandered around appreciating the food (wonderful banana leaf!), the green spaces, the architecture of the "100 Quarters" in Jalan Rozario - sturdy housing built by the British, and the general "Indianess" of the area. I also used to love to visit Skoob when my favourite secondhand bookshop was still in that area. I've been fascinated to find out about the history of the various buildings from Balan's book.

The area is changing so fast now, with office blocks and condominiums,
luxury hotels and KL Sentral station, the main city transport hub, so the book captures a slice of the past before - sadly - it disappears forever.

Well, on Saturday, I'm going to be moderating the session, so I hope to see some of you there!

This is also a suitable point, I think, to put up an ad for the second Breakfast Club the following Saturday (24th) when Lydia Teh (Life's Like That) and Xeus (Dark City) will be slugging it out at MPH Bangsar Village II. (Isn't Kenny's poster great?)

Yang-May for Breakfast

Yang-May revealed some very useful stuff about writing on Saturday. I was scribbling some notes but every time things got really interesting my pen stopped moving. Forgive me, then, for the lapses.

She said that she was in love with English from an early age relishing new words from the dictionary and going around using expressions like "You pucillanimous little freak!".

She became a thriller writer because she likes to read a book that's entertaining, but had to master the very masculine style of the genre in order to write her two novels The Flame Tree and Mindgame.

She was interested in how the description of landscape could be used mirror state of mind and add texture to the novel, as it does in The Flame Tree. Jasmine's story, and how she slowly becomes her own person also parallels the wider story of Malaysia developing as a nation.

She urges local writers to tackle contemporary fiction reflecting the Malaysia of today. She talked about her great hero Thomas Hardy who wrote about Britain at a transition point in its history - when mechanisation began to change the lives of ordinary rural folks. Hardy used things that happened in the news in his novels - including the blood dripping through the ceiling incident in Tess of the D'urbervilles.

She used newspaper reports when she was writing her novels. Reports of landslides in the press here gave her the pivotal scene of The Flame Tree and she used it to mirror the effect of her character's overriding ambition.

When asked how much of herself she puts into her novels, Yang-May said "I am Jasmine, but also all the other characters" and confided that your fiction is a great place to put the dark-side of yourself - and admitting that she enjoyed writing the gangsters!

Talking about how she puts bits of herself into her writing she gives the example of the flame tree itself, which she used as a symbol of enduring love and hope in her first novel. How can someone plant a flame tree, she asks, knowing that they won't see it flower for another 20 years? "What Mrs. Foong says in the novel was exactly what mum said to me."

Yang-May finds blogging different - very immediate and exciting. She reckons that putting some of your writing online and for free is a good move, as good material in the public domain can only enhance your reputation.

She also said much else about getting published and finding an agent, but I'm going to write about that in a separate post and add to it some of the insights Tan Twan Eng gave me when I interviewed him. So you'll have to keep reading!!

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 ...