Heroic Cicaks

Nic Wong wrote to tell me about Malaysian political and pop culture magazine the CICAK's second annual writing competition.

The theme is:

50 Years, 50 Heroes: Young Malaysians You Need to Know

and it is:

.. a global search for 50 young Malaysian heroes in conjunction with the country’s 50th Independence Day.
Participants will write about and photograph an unsung Malaysian hero who has persevered against all odds to succeed, or has helped his or her friends, family, society or country in unique ways. Be sure to include the challenges your hero faces, and how he or she will overcome them. Make your hero REAL to readers by including his or her goals, passion, ambition and life-experiences. And be creative!

The top 50 stories will be published in a book. Prizes worth RM1,000 will also be awarded to the winners.

theCICAK is collaborating with The Star and Inkyhands, an online Malaysian literary magazine. The competition is supported by Pusat Komunikasi Masyarakat (KOMAS), an organization that promotes community and public education through documentary film-making. A US$2,500 grant from the Swarthmore Foundation at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania will fund the competition.

For a full list of rules, a tasty list of prizes, and more info click here.

And if you want to catch the mucho talented Nic, he will be reading at Seksan's this coming Saturday. (More info about the event coming shortly.)

Justifying Malaysian Ways

I thought Elizabeth Wong's editorial piece for the latest edition of online magazine for young writers Inky Hands, raises a whole lot of interesting questions about who do, or who should, Malaysian writers write for.

How much should we expect of our readers? How much should we pander to other people's demands, especially when we are trying to reach across cultures? How much should we water down our uniqueness? Should we try to justify the distinctive elements of our culture?

Please do go read the whole thing, and give Elizabeth your comments. There's a new batch of fiction up to enjoy and I think this is an initiative well worth supporting.

Poetic Vision Needs Glasses

Hide no more: the inspired now have an outlet, as the KL poetry scene lifts its veil to a surprisingly ready, albeit still stylishly niche, audience. With the increasing popularity of open mic nights, brave singer/songwriters and literary academia amateurs now have the platform on which to hone their art.

Whether it’s organising performance poetry (where poets take on a small but captivated crowd and literally wax lyrical), or creating the poetry that’s performed, one thing’s for sure: what once was an individual self indulgent pastime has now been made public. Malaysian poets take it upon themselves to bring their poetry to the masses.

Nicholas Wong and myself got interviewed for a Vision KL article about the growth of performance poetry in KL, and Nic is the cover boy. (Don't let it go to your head!)

The piece is a nice plug for "Readings", and for Inky Hands, and it does give a flavour of what's happening, but it is a terrible shame that the efforts of the British Council in bringing in poets from the UK to energise the whole scene and run workshops and the main movers and shakers: Jasmine Low, Jerome Kugan, Bernice Chauly and Project OMG don't get a mention.

Still it's nice to see local poetry getting some coverage.

Sharanya's Launch at Indie Scene Cafe

There's been a lot going on this weekend. and I'm only just getting round to blogging it!

First Sharanya had a do at the Indie Scene Cafe Fiday night to launch her prety chapbook, Iyari. The event was supposed to start at 7 p.m. but it was a total nightmare to get down there with all the jams and it was after 8 when I arrived ... and that after running from the top of Bukit Bintang because I couldn't stand any more crawling in traffic.

Luckily (for me!) the start of the reading was delayed by the carolling "Santarinas" in the foyer of Piccolo Galleria. Sharanya had got a great crowd of friends there, and the atmosphere was just so warm and supportive. Even before anyone began to read, I was glad I had got my lazy self out of the house.

Sharanya has posted everyone's biodatas on her blog, so please go there for more information on her invited "talents". But here follows the pics I took.

Sharanya looked gorgeous in a black sari with gold trim and with big white roses in her hair. (She had also grown a few inches thanks to her platform shoes!) She did her job as host very well indeed - the open mic readings falling between her own readings. it was very special to hear her read poems that I've only seen on the page before.

Hafiz performed a beautiful song called Dengarkanlah (Please Listen) with lyrics by Nizam Zakaria (below). (You can download a demo version of the song here.) I didn't snap Hafiz because I was busy eating pizza!

Roy read a piece about being stopped at a police road block when neither he or his friend had a valid driver's license and ... er ... coming to an arrangement with a policeman.

Datuk Shan and Faridah Manaf did a nice little duet with a poem they had bounced back and forward by e-mail the night before.

Tshiung Han See read his poems ...

... and Priya K read a short piece ...

Nicholas Wong is distressingly talented for one so young (17) and has already won awards for his writing and had his poetry published. He's off to Columbia University in September to read Comparative Literature and Creative Writing.

Another very talented young man ... known simply as KG! His cousin also read a piece.

Somewhere in there too was me. Sharanya introduced me as the matriach of the local writing scene. Aiyoh, that sounds very scary!

I read a short short about an old couple warring over a dining chair that ends up abandoned and ruined in the garden. I wrote it some months ago and still haven't got polished to the point where I'd feel happy sending it out. Maybe after this I'll revise it again.

Thanks to Sharanya for inviting me and putting such an enjoyable evening together. Thanks too to Jasmine and Nicky for making this excellent little venue available to us. Indie Scene Cafe closes at the end of the month. How nice it would be to have a more permananent home for it ...

Quality Quill

Picked up the new issue of MPH's magazine Quill a couple of days back. There's a generous helping of yours truly - writing about why writers must read (the piece started life as this blog post but grew rather longer) and a fun list of latest books with one word titles (which I found dangerous to write because it made me want to buy the books myself!) The art work that went with the article was pretty nice: how many book titles can you pick out below and can you name the authors? (The grumbling myopics among you can click to enlarge!)

I was also quite thrilled to read a review of this blog by Chai Mei Ling. She says about me:

..she shares her (very) frank views on everything books, reading and writing in a light, conversational tone with a sporadic twinge of wickedness and a dab of sarcasm.

Sarcastic? Moi?

Mei Ling also reviews two other excellent local blogs about books and writing: Eric Forbes' Good Books Guide and Inky Hands which gives a home to the work of young writers.

Now I've finished blowing my own trumpet, I have to point out that there's tons of other good stuff in this issue, including an extremely interesting interview with Culture, Arts and Heritage minister, Datuk Seri Utama Dr. Rais Yatim about the local book industry. Eric Forbes gives sterling advice about how to get published, and Philip Gan (aka Eternal Wanderer) writes about coffee table books.

Then there are several articles in Malay including an interview with writer Nisah Haji Haron. And I learned from Shaharom TM Sulaiman that the Malay word for what ought to ail us is:

Biblioholisme

Love it!

Congrats, Renee and team, for creating a book magazine that grows more entertaining with every issue - and not just because you are kind enough to include me in it!

Inky Hands Needs You!

Mentioned Inky Hands website some time back, and went back there recently to find the project had taken off (two issues are up for you to read) and the pages are very pleasing to the eye. Well done for getting this off the ground, Liz and friends!

But any publication is only as good as the submissions it receives, and the editors are looking for suitable material for the third issue. If you are a Malaysian writer aged 14-24 and long to get your work out there, Inky Hands would be delighted to hear from you.

Inky Little Fingers

Learned from The Book Review Blog that plans are afoot to start up

an online Malaysian litmag which features fiction and creative non-fiction writing, and 'hopes to showcase the best that Malaysian writers (of ages 14-24) has* to offer.'

The new online publication is to be dubbed inkyhands magazine and you can submit your entries here.

Such intitiatives make me very glad at heart. Here are folks who are not sitting around waiting for someone to wave a magic wand over them and say Thou Shalt Be A Writer. Just claim a space for yourselves and fill it with words. Doing so will make you happy, and from little seeds greater writing grows.

(*But says the English teacher in me ... just make sure that you proofread your contributions carefully to prevent the ouches ...)