Saturday was of course the launch of the first edition of
Elarti at Seksan's. I didn't know who was reading until Ruhayat X (aka Amri Ruhayat) and his sidekick Sufian Abas turned up a short while before the whole thing began, bearing the long awaited first copies.
It's a slimmer volume that Amri had wanted it to be, because he did not get the avalanche of entries he'd wanted and the financing of it was also touch and go. But now the magazine is idea made manifest, I'm sure the project will keep rolling, and
the contributions for the next and the next and the next issue will come flooding in! This is the place for
your writing!
The layout of the magazine is classy with lots of grainy black and white photos. And there's some very interesting content. The features and fiction are mainly in Malay (a challenge to my reading skills but one I will enjoy!). There's an interview with Nizam Zakaria by Diana Dirani, book reviews by ...
Monyet di Mesin Taip (Monkey on a Typewriter - clever monkey!) an exhortation to
Penulis dammit menulislah! (
Write, dammit, write!) by Ruhayat X, which everyone should take to heart ... and there's much more. And then the best section of all -
Zon Kreatif - with stories and poetry from Diana Dirani, Sufian Abas, Dina Zaman, Natasya, Hati Kasih, Tok Rimau, Amaruhizat, Nazri M. Annuar, Animah Kosai, and Muslin Abdul Hamid.
To launch the magazine, we had readings from ...
... Animah Kosai who gave us her very funny
The Idiot's Guide to Restricting Books (so now we all know what goes on behind the scenes at the KKDN!) and a very effective poem called
Denial ...
... Muslin Abdul Hamid (back from doing the MA in Creative writing at UEA) read the first part of her short story about polygamy,
That Shade of Grey, and left us with a cliffhanger! ...
... It was first reading for Vovin (Nazri M. Annuar) who gave us his short story
Dogma (which I liked because it has cats in it, having a cat-conversation.)
Dina Zaman sadly couldn't make it, because she is recovering from surgery. Her two short short stories
TV Tengkok Aku (
The TV is Watching Me) and
Ilusi Cinta (
Illusion of Love) were read by Sharanya Mannivanan and KG, respectively. ...
... Here's Diana Dirani who read a piece which she said was another piece of chick-lit ... her story in the magazine is called
Jin ...
... and Amran who writes as Amaruhizat (and is the little brother of Ruhayat X! See the resemblance?) read his short short
That Last Blooming Petal.
If you're wondering why there is a great big (scary!) picture of me and the name of this blog plastered across page 5 ... it isn't that I am so terribly deperate for fame but ... well
when Ruhayat X wrote that buying an advertising slot is a bit like:
... buying a plot at the Nilai Memorial Park, really, except that you're not dead yet and we're not a graveyard ...
... I decided to make a bid for immortality ... and support a cause I truly believe in.
My biggest congrats to Ruhayat X and Sufian for making the effort to get local writing out there. Congrats to the writers.
Thanks to to the great audience that turned up and bought the fifty review copies which were sold for a donation (and I was happy to see Ruhayat X with a fistful of ringgit!). Copies will soon be more widely available - check back here for details later on.
And our great thanks, as always, to Seksan and
La Bodega for sponsoring the event.
Nazri M. Annuar (better known as Vovin) author of Opera Angkasa will be appearing tomorrow afternoon between 5 and 6 at MPH Mid Valley for a book talk and signing session. (It's part of MPH's local author's month.) Do drop by to support if you are in the vicinity. According to his Facebook ad :
But Shinji Moriwaki came back in the second part of the afternoon with a high-energy delivery of very powerful hip-hop poems with social and political themes- the first one about Islamic fundamentalism particularly clever.
Our Nigerian-resident-in-Malaysia author Anthony Isoh told us a little about his latest novel Black Banana and read to us from the first chapter.
Bissme S. is a journalist with The Sun and I've linked to his interviews with authors several times. He also writes short fiction, and has had stories published in Dark City 2 and now in Aweks (translated into Malay). He read for us a story called To Be His Lover which had a very surprising ending.
Kenny Mah catches the insecurities and the bitter-sweetness of love so well. (One of the pieces he was Hide and Seek).
Nazri M. Annuar, better known as Vovin who read a short story from K-Eight the latest publication put out by Sindiket Soljah.
Poet Pey Colbourne was also making her second appearance at Readings and I hope it isn't too long before we have a book of her work. Among the poems she read Lost Seasons of Sun and Rain which expressed a nostalgia for the Malaysian climate (and a peel of thunder rang out bang on cue!) and a magical piece called Fox Women based on a Chinese legend.
Apologies for not being too fast blogging all this. My camera packed up and I had to beg the photos from Lyrical Lemongrass from whom I lifted the pictures of Kenny, Pey, Shinji, cake and Seksan (see the whole set here) and from Daphne Lee (the pictures of Anthony and Bissme).
If "Readings" at no Black Tie is "readings at Seksan's" little brother, Maskara is surely a first cousin!
(Mengklikkan poster untuk membesarkan.)
... Animah Kosai who gave us her very funny The Idiot's Guide to Restricting Books (so now we all know what goes on behind the scenes at the KKDN!) and a very effective poem called Denial ...
... Muslin Abdul Hamid (back from doing the MA in Creative writing at UEA) read the first part of her short story about polygamy, That Shade of Grey, and left us with a cliffhanger! ...
... It was first reading for Vovin (Nazri M. Annuar) who gave us his short story Dogma (which I liked because it has cats in it, having a cat-conversation.)
... Here's Diana Dirani who read a piece which she said was another piece of chick-lit ... her story in the magazine is called Jin ...
... and Amran who writes as Amaruhizat (and is the little brother of Ruhayat X! See the resemblance?) read his short short That Last Blooming Petal.
If you're wondering why there is a great big (scary!) picture of me and the name of this blog plastered across page 5 ... it isn't that I am so terribly deperate for fame but ... well when Ruhayat X wrote that buying an advertising slot is a bit like:
Wait for the world to discover you and publishers to beat a path to your door and you'll wait forever.
The first is a hand-made chapbook of poems by Sharanya Manivannan: a beautifully produced little publication. The work is attractively laid out on the pages, there are illustrations and a front cover trimmed with sari ribbon. There are even quotes from other poets on the back ... glowing recommendations for her work. Saturday afternoon she sat during the reading gluing the whole thing together, so I guess my copy was "hot off the press", and I'm going to treasure it because one day Sharanya will be famous.
This nicely produced little book is a compilation of fiction (what they call centrilog, short for cerita entri log) written by six bloggers who I guess are bent on world domination. It costs RM15. You can check out their work online:
Ted Mahsun had his parents and girlfriend there to support. This was the first reading for this keen and hardworking young writer. I'm so glad he read his story The Ghost in the Garden as I personally like it best of all the pieces of his I've so far read. It's an autobigraphical piece in which you can really hear the voices of the characters. I love the gentle humour of it and sense that it could be developed into a longer piece. (You can read the whole story here.)
We got two thirds of the writers of Snapshots! Jessie Michael read The Change, one of the stories I like best in the collection because it makes visibly the disadvantaged community in Malacca's Portuguese Settlement. The story tells of one man who does his best to break out of the poverty trap but finds circumstances cruelly against him ...
... while co-writer Saradha Narayanan read her Rani, a moving portrait of an elderly woman.
Sharanya reading another extract from her novel. Lyrical and sensual writing. I am really looking forward to the finish work.
The sporting Jasmine Low stepped in at the last minute to read some of her shorter pieces. She's so relaxed - love the way she relates to the crowd. it's one thing to write the words, another to show ownership of them when read aloud. She read some newly written short pieces including one partly written in Hokkien which I enjoyed very much.