First, there was MPH Writers' Circle where Puan Hafizah of The National Library (pictured above with her colleague Pn. Zalina) told us all about how ISBN numbers work and why we need them for our books and how to get them. She also introduced us to the 13 digit EAN numbering system which will be introduced next year. There was an interesting discussion afterwards about the work of the National Library and its role in promoting local writers and developing libraries in the rural areas.
Local writer Lynette Kwan (right) had some great news to share. After taking part in the first Writers' Circle meeting last year, she was so enthused that she went home and wrote a collection of short stories, found an agent in Singapore (apparently the one and only) and soon had four publishers competing for the right to put her work into print. Dark City, her book of tales with Dahlesque twists in the end is called , is written under her pen name Xeus, and some of the stories are being filmed for Singaporean television. Lynette is a doctor by day and fits writing into a very busy schedule.
I had a quick nosey around the new 1 Utama branch of Pay Less (sorry MPH!) and bought a couple more volumes of Best American Short Stories. Had lunch and a long chat about writing with a friend from the Writer's Circle, Chris, and then drove to Bangsar for the readings at Sek Sen's place.
Bernice (left) kicked the event off with a touching tribute to Pramoedya.
Kam Raslan's (right) first novel is being published soon by Marshall Cavendish in Singapore ... and you may not have realised it, but you've probably being reading it already if you read Off the Edge each month. Yes, that's right, you thought it was just a column written by an codger reminiscing about the good old days days ... Am so happy for him!
Zedeck read too (left) ....
... so did Bernice's CENFAD student Farid Ramlee who can draw on a family history populated by British, Chinese and Malay forebears for his fiction. (Lainie was supposed to read but was sick, so Soefira Jaafar read her piece). ...
... The lovely Ruhayat X read a deliciously humourous piece which had everyone laughing ...
... Dina Zaman read pieces from her I Am Muslim column. I took a beautiful picture of her (which doesn't make her look like a chipmonk!) but we both agreed that I shouldn't post it up because of the moronic sicko who took the photo of her from my blog to post online advertisements which has her being bombarded with lewd SMSes (she showed me) and emails. What exactly is it about her that provokes this gonk?
The third and final port of call was Silverfish and I got there with Saras and Diana just as the event ended. Apparently Raman decided against a conventional reading and Robert Raymer was talking about how the stories in his collection came to be written ...
Rounded off the day with a nice cold beer with Saras, overjoyed because my long-term writing buddy has a story in the next Silverfish collection!!!
It was a really good day with so many reasons to be hopeful for local writing.
