Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Local Writers' Manifesto?

Trawling through the Sun online the other day for the feature on Kee Thuan Chye, I realised that there were some other excellent interviews with local writers archived. Beth Yahp talks about the writer's life, how her first novel The Crocodile Fury came to be published overseas but found a long time to make it to these shores ... and about the local literary scene.

I agree wholeheartedly with what she says about where the Malaysian creative writing scene is headed:
I think just from readings that I’ve gone to and the classes that I’ve run that there’s some interesting work being done here. Real interesting work.

And I think there’s also an energy here, an enthusiasm. And it would be good to see that kind of energy and enthusiasm and the kind of work that is already being done, kind of, harnessed and see it result in something… I’m not sure what that thing is, actually.

I mean, we can’t help talking about markets and publishing, but I’ve just been encouraging everybody to self-publish. Coz, like last night, we were talking about outlets for people writing fiction — there are not that many in Malaysia for writing in English. And yet, the students have a lot of energy and are keen to write and keen for their work to be heard or read. And, so for me, you know, it’s like, ‘Okay, if you’re keen on getting read, just do something about it.’ I mean, that’s how movements get created, when people have the energy to actually start things and keep it going.

And now, with the means of production [that we have], producing is actually much easier because you can practically do it all with your little iBook. Distribution is still a problem, but there are various means of getting around that.

I think there’s a lot of potential. I think people are probably not so sure about how to go about things. And again, my comments are based on [a] very narrow experience; I haven’t actually looked at the literary scene as a whole.

But, I have a sense that the idea of writing and being a writer, and kind of leading a writing life, is so new here to most people. Most people here are at a stage where it’s a dream, you have a dream of being a writer but you really don’t know what the steps are that need to be taken to get there. And so, what we probably need is a sharing of information. And also a kind of sharing of possibilities.

And what I’m really comparing this to is when I was a student and learning the craft of writing but also kind of learning how the writing scene and the publishing scene and the small magazines scene worked. And so, we were doing things like producing work ourselves and writing stuff, and then sending it off to small magazines. And there were a lot of small magazines around. And that’s the thing that I’m asking myself. Where are the small magazines here which are run by students? You know, because they are really the training ground for new writers and also they are the means by which new writers get their work seen. Where are all the readings with open mike sections where the new writers can go up and listen to established writers and read and be heard on the same platform? Because we used to do that. Famous writers or people who were more experienced would be reading on the official list and there would always be an open mike section where students could go up. And then you have the experience of reading your stuff in public and then you get to talk to the more established writers and a connection gets made. And then you go and listen to authors speaking, um, you do writing workshops, you send your stuff out. So, there’s quite a lot of turnover with all this stuff happening…

It’s not just like kind of dreaming about it, sitting in your room by yourself, in isolation. That’s very hard! I mean, I think that’s very, very hard, to begin writing, in isolation. So, that’s the kind of stuff I would love to see happening here.
I'd love that too. We gotta get off our bums and make some of these things happen!

17 comments:

Elizabeth said...

I especially agree with the part where she says "Where are the small magazines here which are run by students?" Malaysia doesn't even has a single English literary mag - well, not that I know off anyway

Chet said...

Sharon - remember what I said before about doing a magazine for students with excerpts from books, to get them started and interested to go on to the whole book?

Any chance of exploring this further?

bibliobibuli said...

Elizabeth - see, there's scope for you and your friends to do something here!

Chet - a good idea - why not get it moving?

Lydia Teh said...

I was just telling Kak Teh we should set up The Hem & Haw Writers Club (see my latest blog entry) to motivate each other :)

Anonymous said...

Sharon and Chet: If you guys are kickstarting the magazine thingie, count me in! I'd like to learn about magazine production *snip* *snip*

bibliobibuli said...

xmocha - good - and let's hope more folks have the same idea

Not I setting up, Yvonne. I'm just cheering the rest of you on!

Lydia - on my way to your blog ...

bibliobibuli said...

xmocha - good - and let's hope more folks have the same idea

Not I setting up, Yvonne. I'm just cheering the rest of you on!

Lydia - on my way to your blog ...

Anonymous said...

How about co-operating with All The Rage? Just an idea without leads. :-Þ

bibliobibuli said...

Good luck with it Yvone!

Anonymous said...

Yup.. always happens. Who's going to volunteer to bell the cat ? anyone ? :)

Unknown said...

Many good things said in this piece. I realize that you guys are talking about a specific geographical region, but what Beth Yahp says can be transposed on just about any region. Since my relocation to Long Island, New York, I been asking myself the same questions and thinking the same thoughts. I wonder if there's some way for all of us outside the literary mainstream to work together to build the community infrastructure that will get good quality writing get into the hands of readers regardless of what island we live on?

bibliobibuli said...

Porty - all cat belling can be your department since you like the metaphor so much!

angler - yes, I think that is important ... and isn't it great for a start that we can even talk about these issues across the world like this! I think in the West the main problem is that being published has become such a monopoly and new voices don't stand a chance to be heard unless you do something pretty audacious to get your words out there. Let's keep thinking about this!

Unknown said...

I've talked to a couple of my writer friends here and we wondered if a group blog might not be a good starting point. The idea is that several people serve as ``editors'' and solicit/select short short stories for a daily or many times a week publication schedule. The short short stories would be a showcase for the longer works the authors might have to share (that is self-published works).

Such a group blog would be a kind of literary magazine where readers and writers could pool their attention and build a writing/reading community. For this to work I would imagine there would need to be ten or so editors and maybe three times as many regular writers. It would be really nice if such a group blog had international representation. A couple of Malaysian editors plus a couple of `Merican editors, perhaps a Swede, etc.

Dunno, might work if there was a critical mass of interested, enthusiastic writers.

bibliobibuli said...

angler - I like the idea very much and would like to work with you.

One problem for some writers though is that anything appearing on a website is in a sense "published" which prevents them from submitting it elsewhere ...

Unknown said...

Yes, of course. The group blog would be for publishing short short stories. This is the pot-o-honey that brings/informs readers. So the short short stories serve as a showcase for the writers who (hopefully) will have a book/novel (self-published or otherwise) that can be pushed on the blog's side bar or along with the short short story itself. ``If you like this story, consider reading the new novel by...'' This is an attempt to solve the marketing/distribution problem. Give readers one good place to look for new fiction by emerging writers.

Anonymous said...

regarding the idea of making setting up a group blog is a great idea, infact the good news is here at modblog.com, we already set up a group blog specifically for writers..well not for publishing of course but the group blog have certainly motivate people to write as a start.

here, we have a feature that make it possible to start a blog and turn it into a group blog.and the group blog could invite members or anyone could apply to be a member (i think it might be retricted to anyone within the blog hosting i'm afraid)

currently there's a lot of group blogs in modblog covering many topics and interest

the group blog for writers in modblog is located as below:

1. http://writers.modblog.com - a group blog that allows members to post whatever type of writing (poem, short stories, long stories) with unlimited words count

2.http://writable.modblog.com/ - A group blog where short stories/poem is written according to themes nominated by the members or the moderators. but in this group blog all pieces are restricted by maximum of 500 words only

i have this idea of making an anthology of all the stories ever written at both the group blog or in individula page of a blogger but hem and haw as i am, i dont know enough about publishing or anything to do with marketing it to get my ideas to fly.

any help?

Anonymous said...

Not familiar with her writing but she looks pretty damn hot!