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.

Sunday Literary Fix from the Star

Also in Starmag today - a feature by Tan Karr Wei about the winners of the Apostrophe sixteen word short story competition and their Bali trip. (A shame there isn't a bit more about the actual festival apart from a passing mention. This is one of the major literary events in the region, and the Malaysian authors who attended did the country proud!)

The battle of the performing poets at Wayang Kata IV is featured in a very entertaining piece by Daphne Lee.

I do like her little diversion about the Sylvia Plath film where a poetry recital leads to some passionate table-top sex! Rest assured though, nothing happened like that the other night. You'd have to go to the Ubud Writers' Festival to find that!

(Divya, the one poet I didn't manage to get a photo of the other night, is pictured here, right. And of course, that's Priya K. to her left.)

The education section of the Star has a very nice article by Sarah Chew about some of the excellent initiatives in Malaysian schools to encourage kids to get their hands on books.

I was really pleased too, to read about how some schools are encouraging parents to get in on the act. The student-teachers I was working with earlier this year had seen parents helping in UK schools and knew what a big difference such involvement can make. And now it seems that the idea is percolating into Malaysian classrooms. Great!

Apostrophe Interpreted

The winners of the sixteen-word short story competition organised by KLue Magazine have been announced. I was one of the judges but didn't actually know who won (apart from Georgette!) till just now since although I dutifully scored the final selection of stories, there were no names attached (quite rightly).

The final selection was very good, but the best stories were like little haiku - complete in themselves, leaving space for the reader to fill the gaps.

The awards were given out at Central Market Wednesday night, but I was in no fit state to go after a twelve hour round trip to Nibong Tebal to see a student teach. Pity, as I know it would have been fun and so many of my favourite peeps there.

The sixteen finalists have had their stories interpreted in visual form by local artists, and the pieces are on display until Sunday at Central Market Annexe.

And the six winners get to go to the Ubud Writers' and Readers' Festival!

Biggest congrats and well done to Klue for organising such an interesting contest.

KLueful

Many good writing things coming your way from those good people at KLue, including a competition for the best 16 words story. Click the poster to enlarge and read.

Words and Music Today

Oops. Before I forget, a message from Elina Ismail of KLue Magazine:

I would like to invite you to join us for the next KLue Words & Tunes on 9 June, 3pm (this Saturday) at MPH in Bangsar VIllage II. Ciplak will return to provide the music and we'll also have Sharanya Manivannan and Nicholas Wong to do some readings. There will also be an open mic session so if you know anyone who might be interested in doing a little 2 to 3 minute performance (or even yourself) do spread the word. They can sign up 45 minutes before the show starts with a KLue representative.

Words and Tunes Resumes

Elina of KLue magazine sent me an email to say that the Words & Tunes Series will be resuming this Saturday, 3 p.m. at MPH in Bangsar Village II.

Ciplak, Jerome Kugan and Zedeck Siew will be performing ... but unfortunately Fahmi Fadzil won't be able to make it.

There will also be an open mic session for those who want to come up and do a 2 or 3-minute reading. You can sign up for it 45 minutes before the show starts with the KLue representative.

If you cut out the coupon on page 53 of KLue's May issue, you'll receive a 20% discount on selected titles.

(Click the image left to view full size).

Bardic at Borders

,Thanks to all who sent good wishes. And big hugs to those who turned up.

There was a pretty good crowd there and I was happy that they didn't wander off after Tempered Metal (excellent!) had done their set.

The reading went fine. Read some poems and an autobigraphical piece based on The Leaves of Life entry I posted here yonks ago (but have rewritten quite a lot thanks to friends who have told me more about the music's possible origins ...), it's a piece close to my heart and I plan to tighten it up a bit more to send out soon to find a home.

It's true what Dina says, you feel a piece when you read it aloud and see where it connects with an audience (or doesn't!)...



Fahmi and Azmyl were up after me with their Wayang Buku - perfectly nutty, and very funny ... Books by local authors (the loneliest books on Borders' shelves) became shadow puppets and talk show characters ...

Sat outside Starbucks for a good long time with Ruhayat X, Irman and Raja Ahmad talking about publishing and ways to make things move.

Dina's KLue Reading

I hurried across town afer the MPH writer's Circle Meeting (another story), parking in Bangsar and then LRTing and Monorailing to Times Square, cursing the unconnectedness of KL transport. Met up with Dina and her friend (she calls him Miyot on her blog, so I will too) who used to be one of my kids at MCKK - 21 years ago. (Can it really be that long?).

At the Starbucks inside Borders, we were joined by Leon, Patrick and Raja Ahmad (who has now lost his pony tail and looks less like an eccentric poet than he did) and we had fun catching up while Dina panicked and shuffled her papers and the two bands (The Sofa Sessions & Rhapsody) did their sessions (very pleasant music, and Rhapsody's Nichole has one hell of a voice).

Dina had a hoard of friends turn up to cheer her on, which is just what you need. Sharanya turned up. And IreneQ. So the Dina Supporters Club provided a reaonable crowd.

Well, she did great despite all her protestations beforehand of "I can't go through with this!". (To which I just think, yeah yeah yeah, heard it all before.) She was much less nervous than before her last reading at Seksen's. Looked lovely of course. Patrick in his best schoolmaster voice told her to sit up straight when she first took to the microphone.

But the nervousness seemed to evaporate and she read confidently and clearly: two of her columns I am Muslim, (as engaging as her fiction) and a short story The King of the Sea from her (forthcoming) collection.

I stayed to watch a documentary about Lomography - and now desire one of those funny little cameras with multiple lenses I've seen when noseying in Wondermilk. Hope I don't feel a new hobby coming on.

Two things strike me. 1) The way that as soon as technology goes leaping ahead making all things digital and perfect, we begin to desire the imperfect, the simple, the analogue. 2) The rules for Lomography are very close to the rules for creative writing I lay out in my classes - don't think, shoot fast, go up close.

My expensive Olympus digital camera pisses me off - I have to constantly remember to recharge it, and I constantly forget, being the blur thing I am, so am constantly having to beg photos off the more organised. Miyot took the photo of Dina above. (Many thanks!) Might have been fun to shoot Dina with a frog eye lense though or to have snapped a multiplicity of Dinas!

Have decided that this branch of Borders is wonderfully squidgy, a nice place just to hangout and meet friends, an excellent venue for KLues's Words and Music.

Bought books (of course). Discovered one had a sticky patch on the back which is one of the perils of letting folks do their "free reading" in a cafe.

Words and Tunes

Klue magazine is sponsoring Words &Tunes events in conjuction with MPH.

On Saturday 10th December you can listen to music by Tragicomedy and Bedsheet Wonders and words from Ashok Soman and Sharanya Manivannan at MPH Bookstore at Bangsar Village from 3pm onwards.

Bernice Chauly and Jerome Kugan are providing the words and Sei Hon and Azmyl Hunor the music at the second gig at MPH 1 Utama on Saturday 16th December, 7.30 onwards.

Well done KLue - hope these are just the start of a whole series of poetry and music events around the city.