So You Think You Can Write?

With shows like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance? becoming such big cultural phenomena, it only makes sense to adapt their formats to other art forms that could use similar constructive ... criticism.

Sharmilla Ganesan in Starmag today writes about the So You Can Think You Can Write? event organised by The British Council.  Ten stories were chosen, my own among them, and performed by members of Instant Cafe Theatre at the PJ Live Arts Centre.

It was an excellent idea - I found it fascinating to hear how an actress (in this case Joanne Bessey) read my work, and the comments afterward from the panel of judges (author Ardashir Vakil, playwright Ben Payne,   British Council Malaysia education and programmes director Peter Clack, and ZI Publications publisher Ezra Mohd Zaid) were encouraging. So ... the setting needs work but I had "great control" and there was pleasing symmetry. I was happy with that, and know what to work on.

(I did record my story for those of you who asked me to ... but apologise for the poor quality.)


We didn't know which story had been written by whom, and we voted for the one we liked best.  :

Writes Sharmilla :

What was impressive about the stories presented was the sheer diversity of themes and ideas – and yet, they retained a uniquely Malaysian identity.

Some revolved around simple, everyday experiences that told a much deeper story. For example, It’s Alright, Auntie explored, through a child’s eyes, his parents’ hollow marriage, while Martha Falling is filled with vivid imagery centred on a woman dealing with the loss of her unborn child.

Others looked at the greyer areas of life, such as Intermission, which speaks honestly about a woman’s broken marriage and her subsequent attraction to a much younger man. There were others that took on darker, even spooky, undertones, such as A String of Pearls and A Walk in the Dark.

Ezra found this very encouraging. “What’s amazing is how these writers presented such a huge variety of stories and viewpoints. Each reading had something different from the one before!” he said.

Datuk Dr M. Shanmughalingam won for most popular story for his Rani Taxis Away :

... a simple but touching tale of an Indian girl in post-Independence Malaysia who finds her own freedom in small ways.

and will receive a Professional Development Planning Programme mentored by Spread the Word which will help him devise a route forward in creative writing. I'm very pleased for Shan and I hope that this award encourages him to - finally - get a book out.

It was unfortunate that the timing went awry and most of the audience had drifted away before the end, but I hope that we do have more events of this kind.  Many thanks to the British Council and to Instant Cafe for putting this together.

What We Did in Our Second Workshop

The second week of the British Council's City of Stories workshops was lead by author Ardashir Vakil, whose first novel Beach Boy won a Betty Trask Award in 1997 and was shortlisted for the Whitbread (now Costa).  His second novel One Day was shortlisted for the Encore Award. (Sadly, neither novel was available in the local bookshops.) Ardu teaches creative writing at Goldsmith's College, London.

We were worked pretty hard throughout, with plenty more tasks and readings to keep us busy in between.

We did more exercises to develop character : we took a character from our fiction and described them ravenous with hunger for a particualr food, and then wrote about the last time they had eaten it; we placed our character in a room and described it ,and then wrote about a place where they would like to be; we described their favourite object. We wrote about who we were (Me? A brit dispalced ... a neither here nor there person ... too big, too loud too messy.)

We put stories under the microscope to see how they worked : The Kiss by Chekhov, in which a man's life is changed by a single kiss a mistake in the darkness and Jumpha Lahiri's Sexy (from The Interpreter of Maladies).  We saw how economically character can be brought to life in one or two telling details, and at how so much meaning can be carried in just a few words. ("Less is More" was one of the mantras of the workshops.)

And we looked at a much more complex and skillfully handled story, Five Points by Alice Munro, we looked at shifts of time and how transitions were made. (And now I realise what a bad reader of Munro's work I have been.  You can't hurry them, need to read and reread, and tease them out.)

We spent all day Saturday workshopping pieces of our own writing. It was done kindly and everyone I think took something very useful away from from the experience.

And one of the most fun things we did on Sunday was to go down to Petaling Street, to watch the crowds and record the things our senses took in.

(We sat down to write wherever we could ... and of course a nice beer helped!)

We had to make notes on one particular character who we could use later for our fiction.  (I met this fascinating guy called Jack who was selling bamboo whistles from his motorcyle tricycle.)

We came back to the British Council to share pieces of writing that had inspired us and pieces of writing from our notebooks which we had written over the previous few days.

I'm sad that the whole thing is over - I've come away from the experience feeling re-enthused and validated, and I feel I know how to move forward with the pieces I shared.

My greatest wish is that we could have more workshops of this kind so that more local writers can benefit. My greatest thanks to Ardu and Sarah and to the British Council for providing us with this opportunity - I feel mighty privileged to have been part of it.

Postscript :

Do read Damyanti's excellent take on the two workshops too. She fills in the gaps and says all the things I forgot to say.

Sarah's City of Stories Workshops

Sorry for not blogging for a few days. Was very caught up in the British Council's City of Stories creative writing workshops, which have been very intensive. For this first week we had Sarah Butler of Urbanwords who ran workshops for us last year too. 

I know those of you who weren't in the workshops are dying to know what went on, so here is a potted version :

We read and discussed three short stories : The Lady with the Dog by Chekhov (a classic, this, and one of the best love stories I've read), The Numbers by Clare Wigfall (my favourite of the three, and you can download it from here), and Popular Mechanics by Raymond Carver (a very powerful short short). How did each of the writers achieve their effects and what could we take away from the stories with us?

We thought about plot and how it differs from story, and we drew a diagram of  the plot in our own short stories.

We looked at the decisions you have to make when you write a short story : Whose story is it?  Who is telling it? What tense do you want to use?  What mood/tone/atmosphere do you want to create?  What is the timescale? What is the change that happens in your story?

We looked at how those decisions applied to a short story we are writing, and we wrote two alternative beginnings to the story to see which one worked best.

We looked at how we build characters. We too one of the characters for a story we are currently working on and filled in a table which asked questions like - What is their favourite item of clothing and why? What's their favourite food? What's their relationship with their parents like? What are their obsessions? What do they usually have in their pockets and handbags? In what ways are they like you?

We drew round out hands and then made notes about our characters hands, and then did the same with our feet and their feet. (And were amazed at what extra detail this threw up.)

The we put our characters in a situation they would never normally be placed in, and looked at what happened to them. (My rather dowdy, self-sacrificing Malay lady got a makeover in a department store and rather enjoyed the experience!).  the we had them lose an item that was of great significance to them.  (The poor woman lost her wedding ring, and wasn't too happy with me.)

We focused on dialogue, and looked at how it has to always further the plot and express character, but how it can also do other things such as set the mood, increase readability. We analysed a brilliant scene of dinner party dialogue from Larry's Party by Carol Shields.

We worked on mood and atmosphere, considered how we create a sense of place, and had one of our characters revisit a place they had known as a child. (My Rosmah went back to the kampong.)

We considered what we look for when we edit our stories, and then looked at a sample of writing, and then at our work with a checklist in hand.

And then we heard extracts from everyone's stories and offered feedback. This was an incredibly useful process, and we learned from hearing everyone talking about the other extracts, as well as from the feedback on our own. On my part, I know where a story I'd abandoned to the desk drawer went wrong and where it needs to be fixed.

And in between all these things we did lots of short writing exercises to get us warmed up and focused.

This week our workshops continue with Ardashir Vakil, and I'm greatly looking forward to that, although getting psyched up for some intensive brainwork!

Have You Sent Your Story In Yet???

This is a reminder to the writers among you to get your stories in for the So You Think You Can Write event. It is going to be great fun, and it will be a unique opportunity for the wordsmiths among us,but it can only happen if enough people send in their work. All the details you need are here.

My story is almost good to go, and it would like a few friends!

City of Stories : The Workshops

Long awaited news from British Council :

City of Stories is a project under the British Council’s Creative Cities programme, with the aim of demonstrating through the arts how a city is inclusive of many different voices, with the city at the heart of the innovation and creative process. In February 2009 we ran a series of creative writing workshops in partnership with MPH and London based Spread the Word, and are back again with a second series of workshops and events to further bring out the best of new Malaysian writing.

SARAH BUTLER’S TALK on “SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER?”
- A TALK on BECOMING A WRITER
13 January 2010, 8:00pm – 9:30pm, MPH Bookstore One Utama

Ever wondered what it’s like to be a professional writer? Harbouring ambitions of being the next Booker prize winner? This talk by Sarah Butler will inform a curious audience on the process of creative writing and to inspire budding writers and expose them to the life of a professional writer.

Sarah will talk about her experience as a writer; from what inspired her to go down this path to how she got to where she now. She will be sharing some examples of various kinds of writing projects she’s involved with including residencies and public art commissions.

Deadline for application is 10 January 2010


SARAH BUTLER’S BEGINNERS WORKSHOP
15 January 2010, 10:00am – 4:00pm, MPH Bookstore One Utama

Get started, keep going…

A fun informal day for people new to creative writing, and those wanting to refresh their creative energy. We will look at how to generate ideas, how to silence our internal critics, and how to keep going once we’ve got started. Come prepared to write, experiment, meet other local writers and have fun; leave with a wealth of new ideas.

Sarah Butler writes novels and short fiction. She has been published in anthologies (Route, Tindal Street Press, Pen and Ink Press, Monsoon Press) and journals (including pulp.net and Litro), and has held various residencies, including writer-in-residence on the Central line, for Art on the Underground. Sarah lives in London and runs UrbanWords , a literature consultancy, which specialises in projects using creative writing as a way to explore and question our relationship to place.


ARDASHIR VAKIL’S BEGINNERS WORKSHOP
22 January 2010 , 10:00am – 4:00pm, MPH Bookstore One Utama

Come to this day with no expectations of who you are, what you will achieve or whether you have any talent as a writer. Expect only to participate strenuously in a range of stimulating activities that require you to write, talk, listen, read and think. We will be looking for where transformation might be possible. This course aims to send you away, full of yourself and full of new ideas about who you are in the world.

Ardashir Vakil was born in Bombay and now lives in London. He was educated at The Doon School in Dehradun, India and at Cambridge University. He has taught English at several London comprehensive schools and currently teaches Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. His short stories have been anthologised and broadcast on BBC Radio. His first novel, Beach Boy (1997), charts the adventures of 8-year old Cyrus Readymoney who lives in Bombay. It was translated into eight languages, won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the 1997 Whitbread First Novel Award. His second novel, One Day (2003), is set in North London and was shortlisted for the Encore Award.

Application criteria for both workshops:
 First time writers who are writing for pleasure or/and just starting
 Might be in a class or writing group
 Workshop fee is RM30 (including lunch)

Terms & conditions:
* Workshops are open to participants aged 18 years old and above
* All workshops are limited to 15 participants only

Deadline for application is 10 January 2010
ADVANCED WORKSHOP
MPH Bookstore One Utama

12 January from 7:00pm – 9:00pm with Sarah Butler
14 January from 7:00pm – 10:00pm with Sarah Butler
16 & 17 January from 10:00am – 4:00pm with Sarah Butler
20 January from 7:00pm – 9:00pm with Ardashir Vakil
21 January from 7:00pm – 10:00pm with Ardashir Vakil
23 & 24 January from 10:00am – 4:00pm with Ardashir Vakil

A two week course for people who have begun writing or who have been writing for some time. The course will start, both in week 1 and week 2, with looking at where you have got to with your writing and sharing what you have done so far with the group.

Please come prepared with a short extract (2-4 pgs) of your best work. You should be prepared to allow time to develop new ideas, experiment with form and voice, and be keen to gain skills in constructive criticism. We will look carefully at each other’s work, but we will also take a careful look at examples of other people’s writing to see how voice, structure and language can be used to maximum effect.

For week 2 we will require you to bring along a text that has been an inspiration to you as a writer (2-4 pages long), to introduce and share with the group. You will work alongside other motivated writers to push your writing to the next level. We aim to enrich your repertoire as a writer by generating new ideas, working on drafts and finding routes to your true voices and your strong subjects.

Application criteria for all both workshops:
 Published writers (short stories, articles, )
 Trying to improve specific aspects of their writing
 Trying to get to the next stage in their careers
 Workshop fee is RM200 ((including refreshments and lunch)

Terms & conditions:
* Workshops are open to participants aged 18 years old and above
* All workshops are limited to 15 participants only

Deadline for application is 10 January 2010


“SO YOU THINK YOU CAN WRITE?” - AN AVENUE FOR CREATIVE WRITERS…
22 January 2010, 8:00pm – 9:30pm, PJLA

From any background to showcase their work through a public “audition” process to help popularise writing and literature while providing a relaxed, informal platform to receive feedback.

It’s time to bring out your manuscripts or grab fresh pen and paper and give us your best work to see if the public and our panel of judges think you have what it takes. This is your chance to get honest feedback from those in the industry as well as your future readers.

Your work will be read on stage by professional actors –our friends from Instant Café Theatre– there’ll be drinks on hand, a relaxed and supportive atmosphere, and fame possibly waiting round the corner. If that isn’t enough, there’s even a prize for the best work…

Manuscripts are to be submitted in advance for the panel of judges to read.

Award for the Winner!
 Professional Development Planning with Spread the Word (UK) that gives you the space to step back, review your priorities and devise a route forward to get to where you want to be

Terms & conditions:
* All manuscripts must be submitted are limited to 1500 words only

Deadline for application is 10 January 2010

You will need the application form from British Council to apply for the workshops, so please drop an e-mail to Joanne.Low@britishcouncil.org.my to ask for it. (I also have a copy of it I can forward to you so contact sharonbakar@yahoo.com).

Share Your City Stories!

Here's a new website I think you are going to enjoy very much. It will feature stories all set in the city where many of you live, and best of all, those stories are going to be written by you!

(Roll of drums ...)

Launched today at The British Council - City of Shared Stories Kuala Lumpur.

As you can see, it is a map of the city, dotted with little red tags. Each tag is a very short story told in under 1600 characters. One is mine. (Look for the little tag stuck into Tropicana Golf and Country Resort!) Others in this first batch were written by Daphne Lee, Damyanti Ghosh, Liyana/Dizzy, Priya K, and Jerome Kugan. If you like what you read click on the I like this story button.

And ... if you think you can do better, go right ahead. Locate your story at a specific spot on the map and write or paste it into the space provided, and then it will be there for everyone else to visit. Your story can be in English or BM (or even, as we learned at the launch today in Chinese or Tamil).

The website is a part of the City of Stories creative writing project and is a sister site to the UK site, City of Shared Stories , run by the writers development organisation Spread The Word.

The project is intended to get Malaysians writing and enjoying short fiction, and I think it is going to be a lot of fun, so let's get that map covered!

Great Writing Tips no. 428 - Remember to Eat!

I met my young friend Siege, aka Carlos Malvar, when I attended the British Council's Animating Literature conference in Manila a couple of year's back and he made an impression as a performance poet and really nice guy. Now he is the author of two best selling young adult novels, and he's started a rather good blog called Not So Unreal.

I really like what he wrote about writing and eating! :

Tip to all budding writers out there. Before getting elbow deep into your work, make sure you’re well fed. Never face the blank page on an empty stomach. Hunger pangs are distractions. You don’t want to think about what you’re going to eat while you’re figuring out how to express your character’s fears in 50 words or so using graphic descriptions and gothic settings. Writing is hard work. You’ll get hungry. Eat, eat, eat.

Also, do you know that thinking burns calories? Usually, I watch what I eat. I came from a family cursed with the fat genes on my dad’s side, and with the short genes on my mom’s side… which makes me a hobbit, especially now that I have curly hair, and furry feet. Anyway, I watch what I eat because I tend to get fat more than the usual person, and usually, I try to squeeze in some jogging in my moderately busy lifestyle of watching videos. BUT, when I’m writing intensively, I let myself loose and basically feast on junk food, loads of carbs, heaps and heaps of sugar (via coffee, iced tea, Coke), and whatever I can munch on. It’s OK, I’m writing. I’m running full speed on my mental threadmill.

When you’re writing, you will get very very hungry. This is because you will experience bending time while writing. While you agonize over three paragraphs where nothing happens in your “narrative time” except for one of your characters making himself some coffee, an entire hour may have elapsed in real time. A single page of manuscript may detail nothing but a fleeting moment in your narrative timeline, and you didn’t notice it, but four real time hours have gone by!!! That’s what it’s like to be a writer.

Siege was one of the performance poets invited to take part in the British Council and Apples and Snakes' Speechless poetry project last year, along with others including our own Priya K and Singaporean Pooja Nansi, and under the tutelage of Jacob Sam-la Rose and Malika Booker.

Siege's more personal blog is here. Yeah, he's nuts. So?

Maybe if we all shout loud enough he will be forced to come over to Malaysia and read some of his work for us.

Jeffers, Sheldon in NST

The New Straits Times today features a Q&A with illustrator Oliver Jeffers (left) who is in town for the British Council's Animating Literature: Words and Beyond conference. (For more on the conference visit Daphne's blog.)

And there is also an interview with author Jeremy Sheldon who ran some of the recent British Council City of stories workshops, who says that he first started writing as a bored teenager, confined to his dorm at Eton for rebellious behaviour. He says too that he got his love of story-telling from his mother who is Hong Kong Chinese.

About the workshops :

Sheldon said working with aspiring writers and having the opportunity to study their written work is similar to getting a “window into their hearts and minds”, an experience that still astonishes him every single time. ... His role said Sheldon is to function as the “external eye” and to show these aspiring writers not just the things they are already doing very well, but also to point out the few elements they may be missing.

The best piece of writing advice he received from his own teachers? :

... quite simply “write every day” ... Writing requires practice and writing daily, even if it’s only a little bit, can make a difference to aspiring writers. You need to keep working out what a colleague of mine calls the writing muscle. You can’t actually touch it or see it working but you know it exists.

Jeffers' Paper Caper at Kino

Here's news of another literary event you might like to attend this Saturday. Artist and illustrator Oliver Jeffers will be at Kinokuniya Bookshop on Saturday 21 February from 4.00 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. to talk about his work.

Some information about Jeffers from contemporarywriters.com :

Oliver Jeffers was born in Western Australia in 1977, and brought up in Belfast. He is an artist who began by exhibiting his work at several small exhibitions in Belfast from 1995-1998, before beginning to illustrate book jackets for local publishing houses. He graduated from the University of Ulster with a degree in Visual Communications in 2001. From 1999 to 2000, he travelled to Australia and the US, settling in Sydney and becoming a freelance illustrator and painter, working for various magazines, and illustrating for the Lavazza Coffee Company.

The first picture book he wrote and illustrated was How To Catch A Star (2004), which was shortlisted for the 2004 Booktrust Early Years Award (Best New Illustrator). Lost and Found (2005) won the 2005 Nestlé Children's Book Prize (Gold Award) in 2005, the 2006 Blue Peter Book of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. The Incredible Book Eating Boy (2006), was shortlisted for the 2007 British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year. Oliver Jeffers continues to exhibit his work in London, Ireland, Australia and the US, and has undertaken illustration commissions for various organisations, including Starbuck's, Orange, and Sony PSP. He is also a co-founder of the art collaborative, OAR.

His latest book is The Great Paper Caper (2008).

Writing and Place

Now I have to transmute scribbled jottings in notebooks, my souvenir from three straight days at the British Council's City of Stories creative writing workshops, into something coherent for my blog. I promised to share what I learned with other folks not lucky enough to get into my workshops, while other participants have said that they will be writing theirs. If you would like to write something and don't have a blog - well, I have this space you could use! If you do blog an entry, I will be happy to link to you. (Let's shaaaaare!)

Sarah Butler's Friday workshop Writing & Place began with a quick warmer. We interviewed a partner and found out about their favourite place. Then we had to write down 2 things we loved about KL, two things we hated. We read them back around the group, alternating between the positives and negatives and Sarah said that just from that she got a very good impression of the city and what it was like to live here.

We went on to think about our relationship to place. We wrote a description of a place that used to frighten us as a child. (For me it was a chance to revisit the carillon bell tower in Loughborough ... a place I still have nightmares about.)

We then looked at how other writers had described place and in groups looked at three extracts - Arundhati Roy's description of May in Ayemenen from The God of Small Things, Dicken's description of the fog from Bleak House, and an extract from The Hiding Place by Theresa Azzopardi. An interesting whole group discussion on the such factors as use of detail, style, rhythm followed, and the group was pretty much divided as to whether we preferred the richness and piled up images of Roy and Dickens, or the more pared down directness of Azzopardi.

We moved on to an exercise I liked so much I must definitely steal it for my own classes. Everyone wrote down the name of a (fairly specific) place on a piece of paper, and on another the name of an emotion. The papers were then redistributed randomly so that everyone had a new place and emotion and then we freewrote about it. (I got a toughie - nostalgia and a KL rapid bus and was glad I didn't have to read it out!)


In the afternoon we concentrated on a specific building in the city and thought about it in various ways. What can it see, and what can't it? What affects it? What is it made of? What associations do you have with it? We then did the same kind of thing with an open space, before writing a piece which was a conversation between buildings. (I had a rather supercilious Petronas Twin Towers talking down to Wisma Selangor Dredging who was fretting over its lost reflection of Bok House!)

Then another very nice exercise which I shall nick for my own use. Sarah showed us some "maps of the imagination" (I think they were taken from this book) which showed different kinds of personal journeys - some through place, others through life.

We then drew a journey of our own through part of the city and marked it with all kinds of personal details. (I drew the area round central market and marked on it such landmarks as the spot where I saw Bandaraya guys fish a crocodile out of the Klang River; the place where I saw Jackie Chan hanging from a helicopter; the beggar outside the LRT station who I always feel like screaming at because I don't want to be confronted by his ugliness; the Dayabumi building which David Copperfield was supposed to make disappear on the day I was sitting a diploma exam etc etc.)


Then we exchanged maps and with someone else's in hand, wrote a piece of fiction. I got a map which had Taman Connaught in the corner and my mind went leaping off to the days when I used to go for extended dim sun breakfasts with my colleagues which got turned into fiction.

It was a great day. I could feel my flabby writing muscles tauten again, and I really enjoyed the pieces written by the other members of the group. It was also great to experience being the other side of the workshop facilitator's desk for a while and see how it felt ....

(More to come!)

Photos of miscellaneous course participants working hard. How many can you name?

Polarbear Performance

I like the idea that, I’m here now, (and) you’re there; boom, I perform, (and) it’s gone. ... I think I’m a bit of a nerd, I like the excitement of (something being) momentary, and only available at that time.

Performance poet Steven Camden aka Polarbear is interviewed in The Star today following his performance at Wayang Kata VII, organised by The British Council.

City of Stories

The British Council, MPH, and London based Spread the Word are organising a series of creative writing workshops for aspiring and developing local writers from 11 – 20 Feb 2009. Here's the blurb :

Everyone loves a good story and these sessions will help writers hone their storytelling skills inspired by real lives and our urban setting. Whether you’re a first time writer or a published author, there’ll be a workshop for you!

Check out the workshop descriptions, timetable and registration details here.

Limited spaces so register early to avoid disappointment!

Everyone has a story to tell and our experienced writer-facilitators from the UK will help unearth the stories from amongst the everyday.

City of Stories will encourage participants to derive inspiration from their surroundings for the production of written work. The writers’ skills will be developed through innovative activities that creatively and sensitively engage the writers with their cities and with the people who inhabit these spaces.

Jeremy Sheldon and Sarah Butler from Spread The Word are the workshop facilitators.

Check out the workshop descriptions here.

Registering for workshops

The creative writing workshops are divided into two categories: beginner writers and advanced writers.

Beginner writers are first time writers who are writing for pleasure, just starting out, who might be in a class or writing group.

Advanced writers are published writers (short stories, articles, non-fiction, etc.) who are either trying to improve specific aspects of their writing, or are trying to get to the next stage in their careers.

Also note that workshops are open to participants aged 18 years old and above and limited to 12 participants a session.

Participation fee:

Half day workshops – no fee
One day workshops – RM 30 (includes lunch)
Two days workshop – RM 50 (includes lunch)

To register, download and complete the registration form and email it to: arts@britishcouncil.org.my

Advice Surgery :

Jeremy and Sarah will be in store at MPH 1 Utama and Mid Valley on 12, 17 and 19 Feb for 1:1 sessions with writers to give their work a full diagnostics. Each session is an hour long and starts from 2.30pm up to 9.30pm and no fee is charged.

If you wish to book an advice surgery session, contact us directly with your preferred date and also include your contact details, a summary of your writing experience and the work you wish you discuss during the session. Work submitted should not be more than 4,500 words.

About the workshop facilitators :

Jeremy Sheldon is the author of two works of fiction, The Comfort Zone and The Smiling Affair, as well as a number of anthologised short stories. He is a tutor on the MA in Creative Writing Programme at Birkbeck, University of London, and at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. He has led fiction workshops for the Arvon Foundation and Spread the Word in the UK and has taught internationally for organisations such as the Geneva Writers Conference and the British Council. In addition to this, Jeremy continues to work as a script editor and development consultant for script writers and film production companies. He graduated from the MA in Creative Writing at UEA in 1996.

Sarah Butler is a writer and freelance project manager with a particular interest in the relationship between writing and place. In 2006 she set up her consultancy, UrbanWords , to explore the area of creative writing and regeneration. Sarah’s background is in community and participatory literature development and has an MA in creative writing from University of East Anglia. She is currently writer-in-residence for a project called Almost an Island? based on the Greenwich Peninsula.

Spread the Word is a London based organisation dedicated to developing writers of all ages and at varying stages of their careers, leading workshops and support groups for writers, and working with writers who offer a tailored approach to education and outreach.

The programme falls under the British Council Inclusive Cities project, which aims to promote that the channels of artistic and cultural expression in a city are inclusive of and accessible to a diverse range of community groups.

Little Launch with Happy Booklovers

Siew-Chiah Tei's Little Hut of Leaping Fishes had its launch last night at the British Council and a good sized crowd turned up to cheer her on. I was given the honour of introducing her and started with a mention of "the quiet emergence" of Malaysian literature on the world stage. I forgot to mention in my speech (so make up for it here) that it was the first time that the British Council and book distributors Pansing had worked in partnership to organise an event and it seemed to work out very well for both of them - and certainly for us, the booklovers!

The author then she spoke a little about her book and how it came to be written and read an extract from the opening:



This is, incidentally, the novel's first launch ahead of the release in the UK next month (it has already been released in Australia) and it was lovely to be part of that.

Later, while the author signed copies for the guests (who found a copy of the book in their goody bags!), we had a nice little party with nibbles and the music of the guzheng playing gently in the background. (And how nice for me - some folks who comment pseudononymously on this blog emerged into the light of real life!)

In an earlier session, Chiew-Siah had given a talk about some of the things to consider when writing a novel, and illustrated the talk with examples of how she worked through each challenge. Writing must come from the heart, she said, otherwise it won't touch the heart of the reader.

I will tell you much more about Chiew-Siah and the novel soon as I will be writing up my interview notes for features in Starmag and Off The Edge.

If you're hungry for more in the meantime, you can find an extract from the novel here.

Poetic Passions

Ahnaf in today's Starmag does a very good job of providing an overview of what's happening on the live literary scene in KL. Noting that:

Over the past two years, the idea of poets performing their work rather than just writing for themselves or simply reading it aloud has become increasingly popular ...

he interviews local performance poets Priya Kulasegaran and George Wielgus (left - and soon to appear at Readings@Seksan) as well as Bernice Chauly and Chris Mooney-Singh of WordForward who is bringing Poetry Slam to KL.

Priya talks about how audiences for Project OMG have been steadily growing through word of mouth and I think she's right when she says:

Younger people like us are getting involved ... After being fed the kind of music you’re supposed to listen to, and the kind of movies you’re supposed to watch, there’s a kind of reaction.

I'm glad that the piece also highlights the contribution of the British Council and the Wayang Kata events and workshops it organises and also the wonderful irony that the organisation that has done most to encourage a local literary scene is a foreign one.

Bernice Chauly talks about how live literature events have helped to create a much-needed sense of community among local writers, and also how our Malaysian authors doing so well on the world stage, have really done a lot to encourage local writers as well. Bernice says that when Tash Aw won the Whitbread first novel award in 2005:

It was like, ‘Oh wow, Malaysians? Writers? Really? So good, ah? Wow.’

Yeah, that good. Believe it!

Note: Links to the organisers of spoken words events are listed in a side-bar. The email given to contact me about Readings is wrong - please use sharonbakar@yahoo.com if you want to get in touch.

Thiruvananthapuram Fights Back

While the British Council Library in Kuala Lumpur is closing down with scarce a ripple of public protest, things have taken a very different turn in Thiruvananthapuram in Kerela State, India (left).

The Hindu reports that a writ petition has been filed in the High Court against the closure move. The petitioner is pleading the loss of "a cultural landmark". An online petition has also been organised and a blog set up by engineer Krishnamohan. (More about the closure too on Jo's blog.)

I wish them all the best with their protest and hope that the library can be saved.

I was a bit slow on the uptake and did not at first realise that the closure of our library is a manifestation of a worldwide policy rethink on the part of the British Council.

The closures have been happening too across Europe in Cyprus, Serbia, Georgia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Italy, Germany and Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in Greece.

Other countries where libraries are closing or have closed are Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Kuwait, Turkey, Israel and Bhopal, India.

Last August, Helena Smith reported in the Observer about the closure of British Council library in Athens. Calling it a "cultural earthquake", she described how:

... 8,000 books - the entire literary heritage of the British Council in Greece - were carted off to the English department of Athens University

(The Chief Executive of the British Council, Martin Davidson, made the point that this library was not economically viable in a letter to the newspaper.)

The money saved by the British Council, Smith said, is to be channeled to "high priority areas" to projects aimed at combating the dangers of Islamic extremism. Cathy Stephens, acting director of British Council operations is quoted as saying:

You cannot succeed unless you enter into risky areas and are prepared to deal with them. ... We are in transformational mood. ... We want more impact, better results and interaction,' says Stephens. 'Books and buildings are inert resources that [entail] fixed costs and a lot of maintaining and staffing. And the internet has enabled much better access to books.

Author Fay Weldon:

... a vociferous supporter of the earlier campaign to prevent the closure of the council's libraries, and an author who has long toured with the council ...

naturally scoffed at the idea:

What do they hope to do? Win hearts and minds by sending in rappers to Saudi Arabia and the Middle East? We're trying to impose our culture and values on the culture of countries that don't share them, in the extraordinary conviction that we are right. ...'All of this feels like somebody's bright idea that has not been properly thought out. The British Council should examine its own motives, attitudes and indeed cultural imperialism, because what they are doing is totally short-sighted.

The council are also justifying worldwide closures because they say its research shows that:

... its target audience between the ages of 18 and 35 is less interested in borrowing books than surfing the internet.

But, one could argue, isn't a good library the best (perhaps only?) way to counteract this drift? (Or does it not matter at all, online resources being the perfect substitute and the way of the future? Why fight the death of the book, particularly when it isn't economically viable to do so.)

The council has supported British authors and contemporary literature so well for so long but it does seem a great shame that this very important showcase for the most important contemporary British writing is to be lost.

Not to mention the big hole it will leave in the lives of readers.

Postscript:

I've lifted this letter whole from David Blackie's blog. I'm glad to be able to give it space.

Don't the British care for what people in other parts of the world think about them? I live in the state of Kerala in South India. It is a place that is considered a model state in many ways. We don't produce terrorists of any sort; not surprising when you consider our high levels of literacy and education. Quite a number of people from here have migrated to the UK, mostly from the professional classes. They've integrated very well into British society and have contributed significantly to British life, culture and economy. There are also British companies with big offices in Kerala. We had a British Library run with the help of the British Council. A couple of weeks back they abruptly announced their decision to shut the library. Members are devastated at the prospect. We have not been given reasons for the closure. It was suggested at first that the Council was pulling out because they would have to come up with significant amounts of money for new premises. Our state government offered free land and a building if the Council could continue to maintain the library. Now the Council says it is part of their world wide policy to close down libraries. Maybe it is the British Council's policy, but can't anyone in the UK see it is not beneficial to anyone? Allow me to point out that this is one of the few parts of the "third world" where there is some goodwill for Britain and the British. That is not because we are fans of what you are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is because we've had a mutually beneficial relationship with Britain. And your library has played a very important part in this relationship. Does the British Council not care for this? I would have thought it was more important for you to win hearts and minds here than to alienate yet another part of the world. The Council even refuses to talk to us, the members of the library. Is it your famous stiff upper lip or residual imperial arrogance? Will some British person answer my questions?

P. Vijaya Kumar Kamalalayam -2 Kunnukuzhy P O Trivandrum 695037 South India

Postscript 2:

A former colleague who still works for the BC, wrote to me in an unofficial capacity, and I think explains things pretty clearly:

While I don’t necessarily agree with the policy, it is part of a worldwide trend to make the Council’s grant go further. Libraries are expensive places to run; our grant, while it increased over most of the last 10 years, has now been fixed at the same level for the next 3 years (with no allowance for inflation – thus in effect a decrease in real terms); books in English are much more widely available in places like KL than they used to be (both with the advent of places like Borders, and also websites like Amazon); and also, at least in places like Western Europe (I don’t know much about the current strategy for East Asia), we believe we can stretch our grant further by targeting future leaders and influencers, who are less likely to rely on our libraries for information about the UK (let alone literature in English) than by targeting students and language learners, who we will attempt to reach through our language schools and UK education promotion activities.

One of your correspondents casts doubt on the work we’re doing combating Islamic radicalism: a couple of examples for you. We’re running English classes in Pakistani madrassahs, to try to help both the imams and their students get a more balanced view of the west, by enabling them to access more sources of information through English; and we’re developing a project in this part of the world, exploring the shared European heritage of the 3 Mosaic religions.

I realise – as I’m sure does senior management – that this is going to upset some (a lot of? people: and it’s worth noting that the National Audit Office, who are carrying out a value-for-money audit of the BC, have described us, apparently (ie I have only heard this said: I have no documentary evidence) as “addicted to change”. It may also be that the rationale for these changes has not been clearly explained, or understood (not necessarily the same thing) by the people most affected.

Shakespeare Goes Manga!

From the British Council news of events I'm sure many of you will be interested in:

MANGA SHAKESPEARE

Bringing to life the great Bard’s words!

To kick start 2008, British Council has something for Shakespeare enthusiasts and manga fans alike with Manga Shakespeare. Published by UK-based SelfMadeHero, Manga Shakespeare is a series of graphic novel adaptations that fuses classic Shakespeare with manga visuals in cutting-edge adaptations, drawing inspiration from trend-setting Japan. Using Shakespeare's original texts, this series brings to life the great Bard's words. The collection includes Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, Richard III, The Tempest and A Mid-Summer Nights’ Dream. Emma Hayley (Director, SelfMadeHero) and Paul Duffield (Artist for The Tempest) will be in Kuala Lumpur 23 to 26 January 2008 to run workshops and will meet the public at a bookshop talk.

Meet Emma Hayley and Paul Duffield!

Date : Wednesday, 23 January 2008
Time : 8.00 p.m.
Venue : Kinokuniya Bookstore, Suria KLCC
Admission : This event is free Emma and Paul will be at Kino’s to talk about Manga Shakespeare and sign books.
If you’re a Manga/Comic artist, bring your best artwork and the Top 3 as selected by Emma and Paul will win Kinokuniya vouchers.

Illustrating graphic novels and manga for aspiring artists – workshop by Paul Duffield

Date : Saturday 26 January 2008
Time : 10.00 a.m. to 4.30 p.m.
Venue : Dram Projects, Happy Mansion, Section 17, Petaling Jaya
Admission : This event is free. Participants should be 16 years old and above.

This workshop is for the casual manga or comics hobbyists with an interest in learning more. Paul will take participants through drawing exercises that focus on observing and drawing the figure, the process of designing a character, and producing a character sheet with turn-arounds, costumes and notes.

The workshop is free but space is limited. If you’d like to be a part of this workshop, please contact us via email (arts@britishcouncil.org.my) letting us know a bit about your background and interest manga/comics/graphics/drawing/doodling and a sample of your work.

We’re also running a graphic story competition in conjunction with Manga Shakespeare - watch this space for more details! In the meantime, send us an email at arts@britishcouncil.org.my if you have further queries.

More about Emma and Paul:

Paul Duffield is an illustrator and animator who takes influence from a fusion of manga and european comics. After graduating from a BA in animation at Kingston, he went on to win both Tokyopop's Rising Stars of Manga, and the International Manga and Anime Festival grand prizes, and is now at work on several upcoming publications.

With a background in journalism, film PR, and as editorial director for a number of publishers, Emma Hayley launched SelfMadeHero in March 2007 with the first titles in the Manga Shakespeare series - Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. She was recently shortlisted as Young Publisher of the Year in the British Book Industry Awards.

Live Lit KL - Looking Back, Looking Forward

This has been a year when live literature in KL has gone from strength to strength, and in a way we could not have imagined I think, a year of two back. What follows is an overview of what's happened, and then, if you have the patience to read to the end, I want to solicit your opinions about the direction we're headed in.

The British Council have continued to be major movers and shakers of the local literary scene bringing poets (This year Benjamin Zephaniah, Charlie Dark and Jacob Sam-La Rose) out from the UK to perform and run workshops. There was even publication Well Versed containing the work of some of our fledgling performance poets, and Jasmine Low and Jerome Kugan have worked with British Council to organize entertaining evenings of performance poetry and music under the banner Wayang Kata.

There were signs of our own poets "coming of age". Sharanya was brave enough to put on a one woman show before she had to leave for India, and was invited to the Singapore Writers Festival to give a solo reading. Priya, Liyana and Divya appeared with Charlie Dark at the same festival, and the poet said some very complimentary things about the local pool of talent.

Project OMG proved a great forum for young writers, Klue Magazine continued to run their Words and Tunes event this time in conjunction with MPH bookstores.

I have thoroughly enjoyed organising Readings@Seksan's, which as you know, I took over from Bernice Chauly. It has been a challenge to seek out (bully and cajole!) interesting folks into putting their words out before an audience. Where these readings have, I hope, differentiated themselves from the other live-lit events happening in the Klang Valley is in providing more of a forum for prose writing (fiction and non-fiction) along with poetry. I've also aimed for as diverse a collection of readers on any of those Saturday afternoons as possible ... though I don't think that I've done a good enough job tapping into the Malay writing scene, and this bothers me because I'd like to see writers coming together and sharing whatever their language of choice.

Our international "special" at Central Market was for me one of the highpoints of the year, and again, I have to thank British Council for that.

Bernice adopted a second baby this year, in the form of Readings@No Black Tie, held on the first Sunday night of the month, a more "upmarket" version of the Seksan readings held in a more nightclubby setting with some excellent talent on hand to entertain.

Maskara, the monthly readings event focusing on writing in Malay was started by Vovin and friends, and run along similar lines to the Seksan events at Rumah Pena.

All these events look set to continue running and building on their success in 2008, and lets add one more really great thing on top of them.

Some of you will remember our Cross-Causway Poetry Slam, held earlier this year at Seksan. Well, Chris Mooney-Singh and his wife Savinder who run WordForward in Singapore, will be bringing poetry slams to KL on a regular basis, starting we hope in February. We also hope that there will be a lot of spin-off events such as themed slams and workshops radiating out from this.

Now then, my first (multi-part!) question to you - are we in danger of having too much going on in the city, and how do we ensure that events don't clash or crowd so tightly together on the calendar that we steal each others audiences or cause our fans to overdose on spoken word? Or are the audiences totally different for each event so that the question is academic?

This question bothers Bernice and I a lot, and we decided that we would organise only one Readings event each month, alternating between Seksan and No Black Tie. (So Readings@Seksans will be bi-monthly in 2008 rather than monthly as it has been this year.)

This gives me a little more breathing space and also gives me time to plan for some alternative kinds of literary happenings. (News of one to be posted very soon!)

My second question (equally multi-part!) is which live lit events have you attended this year and which did you like best? How could the organisers (inc. me!) do what we do better? (Please do be honest.) What would you like to see happen in 2008?

What I have found particularly heartening this year is the way that the organisers of these events have networked with each other, and the way audiences (without which nothing at all would happen!) have supported live lit events and made them viable.

Charlie Dark, Blacktronica and Wayang Kata V

From British Council:

In the last episode of Wayang Kata, three poets won their way to the Singapore Writer’s Festival. This fifth installment of the spoken word series welcomes them back on stage along with Charlie Dark and poets from Singapore!

Music producer, club DJ and, yes, poet Charlie Dark is the latest in a line of British talents to come our way. Despite over fourteen years behind the decks, Charlie’s first love was the spoken word. He was one of the individuals responsible for starting the famous Speaker’s Corner jams and he continues to wow audiences with his apt observations and insights whenever he steps up to the microphone. With his flamboyant gestures and vocal gymnastics, Dark has made a dynamic impact on the UK poetry and performance scene.

Before we bring on the poets, though, KL goes dark with Charlie and Blacktronica, a revolution in music and UK club culture. Featuring live performances, DJs, spoken word and more, this is not your average club night!
Image copyright British Council

Date Saturday, 8 December 2007
Venue Heritage Mansion @ Heritage Avenue, Jalan Kamunting, Kuala Lumpur (Map)
Time 9.00 p.m. till late
Admission Free. Entrance only for 21 years and above only.

Wayang Kata V

Date Sunday, 9 December 2007
Venue No Black Tie, 17 Jalan Mesui off Jalan Nagasari, Kuala Lumpur
Time 8.30 p.m.
Admission RM10 at the door

Hosted by the dynamic duo Jerome Kugan and Jasmine Low (also known as Troubagangers), this is a night not to be missed. Find out more about Charlie and the poets joining him on stage for Wayang Kata V here.

Charlie will also conduct workshops with local poets and teachers (sorry, by invitation only).

For more information, email us at arts@britishcouncil.org.my

Charlie Dark on My Space.
More about Blacktronica here.
And here's a little taste of Charlie strutting his stuff for Life Lines for Oxfam :



I am sad I will be missing this as I am going to be down in Singapore for the Writer's Festival. But hope you guys go and have a good time!

British Council Library Closes

I knew earlier, but now can pass the news on: the British Council Library in KL is closing.

Sad, but yes, understandable. After a couple of years of drawing up lists of books to restock the library, I've come to realise just what an expensive service is to keep running, particularly as the number of members (and therefore the revenue from them) is small. (If your response to this is a howl of outrage, let me ask you, when was the last time you borrowed a book? I didn't borrow either as I am so bad at remembering to take books back!)

Sadder still for me is the fact that the e-library service won't be available for much longer either. I really found this useful for research purposes. But because the passwords got passed on so often to people who weren't members of the library, the service became just too expensive to be tenable.

Still, in these days of massive warehouse sales and excellent bookshops in every shopping mall, no reader should go book-hungry. And it's good that the money can be channeled into new ventures, including the active promotion of literature through other means.

But I'm sad I won't get to order my whole wish-list of books in the future.

* I can forward the list of libraries to anyone who is interested.

Postscript (22/1/08):

Did not realise at first that the closure of this library is part of a world wide phenomena, and less about our KL branch not being viable than about a change in the perception of the role of the council. Fay Weldon attacks the closures in the Independent.

Malaysian Poetry Idol

Some pictures from last night's poetry extravaganza at Wayang Kata IV at No Black Tie.

As usual the event was entertainingly compared by Jerome Kugan and Jasmine Low doing their famous double act.

Jerome also rolled up his sleeves and sang for us:

Jasmine read some of her poetry, and Shahrul Nizam read some pieces from his new collection If Only. (And was a lot less shy reading than I thought he'd be!)

Then the six poets competing for three places to go to the Singapore Writers' Festival in December:

Priya K.

Liyana Yusof

Bathsheba Zlikha Arsalan

Datuk Shan

Patricia Low

And ... oh my goodness, realised that I didn't get a photo of Divya KM Jiwa! My biggest apologies.

Members of the audience got to vote for their favourite. Daphne Lee, Pang Khee Teik, and I were the judges and we looked for those whose words had touched us most deeply. The standard overall was high (and I'm so happy to see how far these guys have come on, performing their work). A special commendation to Shan for making us laugh and Zlikha for her dazzling showmanship which involved several changes of clothing.

When the votes and our marks were tallied, the winners were Priya, Liyana and Divya. Well done, guys.

I missed some of the later stuff as I was hiding from all the cigarette smoke which was bringing back the hacking cough I thought I'd got rid of. But who was the woman with the truly astonishing singing voice? I want to buy her album! And who was the hip-hop poet? I want him for my readings later on!