Asian Festival of Children's Content

Some news sent to me by Singapore's Book Development Council which will interest those of you interested in writing for children.  :

Over 400 international authors, publishers, distributors, institutional buyers, literary agents and multimedia producers of children’s content will gather in Singapore for the inaugural Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) from 6 - 9 May 2010. To be held at The Arts House, this is possibly the first festival of its kind in the world to focus on Asian children’s content.

The organisers, The Arts House and National Book Development Council of Singapore hope the festival will give a boost to the creation, production and publication of children’s materials with Asian content in all formats. The meeting of international industry players is also aimed at improving the distribution and access of Asian content to children worldwide.

The global children’s content business, which includes books, games, films and music, is a multi-billion dollar industry.

The festival’s advisory board chairperson Claire Chiang said: “To date, we’ve had easy access to and benefited from a wide selection of education and entertainment content from the West. Asian materials, even those available, are seldom translated and promoted, and are therefore left unexplored. It’s a big loss for children worldwide, and an untapped industry with tremendous potential.”

Ms Chiang, an author, a community advocate and businesswoman, added: “We believe this meeting will help to kick start the growth and internationalisation of Asian children’s content. Hopefully within a decade, Asia will be able to boast literary and visual works of global impact for children, like those produced by JK Rowling, Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton.”

Also speaking on the event, R. Ramachandran, Executive Director of NBDCS and Festival Director of AFCC, said: “The festival is possibly the first event of this nature in the world, and a great platform for Asian writers and content producers to meet and find ways to extend their reach, so that their creative works will find bigger audiences in the region and the rest of the world.”

Phan Ming Yen, Assistant General Manager of The Arts House, added: “Developing and showcasing Asian creativity, arts and culture has been one of the core focuses of The Arts House since its founding. This has been evident through its involvement in events such as the Singapore Writers Festival and Asia on the Edge.

“The inaugural Asian Festival of Children’s Content marks a significant milestone for us. We believe it will raise the awareness of Asia’s rich cultural resources for children. Through the festival, we hope to widen the boundaries of access to these resources so that the rest of the world can enjoy them as well.”

Apart from providing a platform for children’s content industry players to network, the festival will also host established and emerging writers and content producers such as Singapore authors Jessie Wee and Emily Lim, the Philippines’ Karina Bolasco, publisher of Anvil Publishing, Malaysia’s Teri Tan, international correspondent for New York–based magazine Publishers Weekly, Risuan Aramcharoen, President of The Publishers and Booksellers Association of Thailand, Taiwan’s Irene Chen, a children's literature critic and writer, Hong Kong-based Nury Vittachi, a best-selling author, Kathleen Ahrens, the International Regional Advisor Chair for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Misako Ohnuki, the Director of Culture Division, Asia/Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO, and illustrator and translator, Naomi Kojima from Japan.

Other speakers include India’s award-winning writers Paro Anand and Anushka Ravishankar (‘India’s Dr. Seuss’), and illustrator Atanu Roy, Christopher Cheng, 2009 winner of the Lady Cutler Award for services to children's literature, and award-winning young adult novelist Ken Spillman from Australia, Jeff Yang, founder and publisher of the Asian American periodical aMagazine, from the US, award-winning author Rukhsana Khan from Canada, Greg Childs, media consultant and former BBC Children’s director and producer, from the UK, Nathalie Beau, a pioneer of children’s bookshops in France and a founder of the country’s Children’s Booksellers Association, and Suresh Seetharaman, co-founder of Virgin Comics LLC.

At the event, the speakers and participants will engage in discussion and debate on a broad range of issues, including exporting Asian content to the world, challenges and opportunities in publishing for children in Asia, ways to profit from the emerging world of multimedia content, marketing and reaching out to media-savvy children, the emerging role of literary agents in Asia, digital rights and e-publishing, and copyright issues in the world of online content.

The public will have the opportunity to participate in the festival as well. There will be a forum for teachers and parents to discuss the latest trends in child education, motivation, enrichment and entertainment programmes.

During the festival, the organisers will also launch the inaugural Singapore Children’s Book Prize called Hedwig Anuar Children’s Book Award. The prize money is S$10,000 and will be shared by the writer and illustrator. Entries for the prize will be judged on criteria such as originality, creativity, appropriateness of Asian content to context of story, impact of Asian content to young readers, use of language, and entertainment value.

If you are interested, you will find more information and registration forms here.  I shall be going down, at least for one of the days, to moderate one of the panels.

Asian Fiction for Italy

I'm very excited to hear of the launch of Italian publishing company, Metropoli d'Asia. I met founder, Andrea Berrini, when he was in Kuala Lumpur a few months ago, scouting for fiction from the region to publish in Italy. (Some of you might have met him at Readings@Seksan where he came to check out the local talent.) Here's the information about the new company :

... founded by Andrea Berrini, writer and essayist, in partnership with the Italian publisher Giunti Editore. The objective is to discover, translate and offer contemporary innovative writing by Asian authors to a wide public. Europe is starting to measure up to the new economic and political giants of this continent (China and India in particular, but there are others as well) and consequently with the new cultural scenes, the new schools and languages of contemporary Asia. This leads to the need to look more closely at the metropolises, cities which have undergone tremendous change in the past two decades and will change even more. Metropoli d’Asia intends to concentrate on authors living in many countries who experience their reality at first hand and on novels with urban settings; authors linked to a place, with which they have a physical and material contiguity, because they tread their streets and know their neighbourhoods and have a direct relationship with their inhabitants. The first titles, according to the editorial plan, will be published in 2009, from 14th October.

So far no Malaysian markets have been earmarked. We seem to do well on short stories, but very poorly on marketable contemporary novels. Maybe with the encouragement of a new overseas market for local writing ...?

Why Awards Matter

Something like the Readers Choice Awards helps to raise public awareness, and this surely encourages writers to get their work published ... But the most crucial element is the encouragement (the nomination) gives writers. It will encourage them to improve – without high quality writing, the rest is just superfluous. Good writing is the lifeblood of the whole publishing industry.

Chong Ton Sin, managing director of book distributors GerakBudaya is among those interviewed in Starmag today about how awards help boost the local publishing industry. He also talks about how he thinks reading could be encouraged in Malaysia.

More about the Readers Choice Awards today here. Robert Raymer and I were just over in Amcorp Mall where of course we made a visit to Popular Bookstores to vote. What surprised me was the assistant asking us how many forms we wanted! (Could hear Robert thinking, "Hundreds and hundreds so all my students can vote for me.")

Other things in today's Starmag :

Elizabeth Tai talks to Karim Raslan about his new book, and enjoys a tour of the apartment where he writes, with all its disturbing art ...

Leon Wing reviews Robert Bolaño's 2666 ...

Link with Harlequin

More in Starmag today on the move by KarnaDya Solutions Sdn Bhd to bring chick lit into the Malay for a local readership. Dzireena Mahadzir discovers that the company is linking up with Harlequin (the world's biggest publisher of "women's fiction" - most usually romances) to translate titles from its Red Dress Ink imprint.

KarnaDya are targeting the youth market and, says marketing mananger Faiz Al-Shahab (left) :

... even though the culture and lifestyle in the books will be different from that of local publications, the plots and story lines will be entertaining to Malay readers. In terms of the storylines, I think Red Dress Ink offers more interesting content compared to local novels. From our experience in Malay fiction, it should be suitable for the local mindsets and tastes.

Dzireena isn't too impressed with the titles she picks up, though :

I found the language a bit stiff and writing didn’t flow very well. Some parts sounded like they were direct translations from English to Bahasa.

Back to Front?

Malaysia has to publish 27,000 book titles for general reading annually to become a knowledgeable, developed nation and be on par with other developed countries ...

See how this little piece in The Star the other day made our Daphne splutter.

50 Books for Amir

... I think non-fiction is for people who don’t understand reality! ... Only when you really understand reality should you retreat behind make-believe stories.

Amir Muhammad is profiled by Allan Koay in StarTwo today. He says that he has given up film making to concentrate on his publishing career ... and his ambition if to publish 50 titles! His Matahari Books has released 6 to date, with the seventh -Taxi Tales on a Crooked Bridge by Charlene Rajendran - due out this month, and several more on the cards including one on Malay movies which he is in the process of writing.

He reckons that publishing in Malaysia isn't doing too badly and that in general, local books are outselling foreign ones :

The last Harry Potter book sold 75,000 copies, but a Malay romance novel sells more than 100,000 copies, as some claim. For non-fiction, it depends. Something like May 13 (by Dr Kua Kia Soong) sold about 35,000 copies.

The much banned Amir is asked whether any politician given him a hard time over the books, and answers :

No. I don’t think they go to bookshops.

Touché!

For the Love of Books

A couple of days back I was interviewed by Shazmin Shamsuddin on BFM89.9 The Business Station - and how nice, the podcast has appeared online! :

If you want to write - just do it!



Editing Malaysian writers



Book blogging and how it takes over your life! :

Gravy for a Kept Woman?

I lifted this from Facebook :

Silverfishbooks, Sang Freud Press dan Sindiket Sol-jah, dengan berbesar hati menjemput anda sekalian pencinta fiksi berbahasa Melayu untuk bersama memeriahkan sidang pembacaan naskhah DUA LAUK dan PEREMPUAN SIMPANAN.

Date: Saturday, March 28, 2009
Time: 5:30pm - 8:00pm
Location: Silverfish Books, Jln Telawi, Bangsar Baru

Readers include:

D'ianadi
Wani Ardy
Taf 'Tifani' Teh
Ila Syazwani
Dila Raden
Wahida Rahim
Alina Abdullah

Further enquiries : dvinecomedy@hotmail.com

Congrats to Sufian Abas and friends for getting this new collection off the ground. The title is a wee bit hard to translate directly into English. (But this bluff-full Mat Salleh will have a go anyway and mangle a beautiful language.) Lauk means the dishes, curry and so on, eaten with rice as part of a Malay meal. A perumpuan simpanan is a kept-woman = mistress. And in this case it seems she's only been left two dishes to eat with her rice. (But why? I am intrigued to find out the answer to this! And if they are delicious lauk, such as I feel perfectly capable of cooking myself, should she still feel deprived?)

No doubt Sufian will be along to tell me I've got hold of the wrong end of the stick entirely. Never mind.

We also have Readings@Seksan that Saturday afternoon, but I will try to finish early so that anyone who wants to walk up the road to Silverfish will be able to get a second dose of things literary that afternoon!

Cooking Up A Stormkitchen

Author and Publisher Amri Ruhayat (aka Ruhayat X), talks to Bissme S. in The Sun and I think some of his comments are bound to stir up some lively discussion.

On the philosophy behind his imprint, Stormkitchen, he says :

A stormkitchen is this cheap cooker you use on camping trips. It is simple and utilitarian. That is the underlying philosophy: to make writing fun. Even frivolous. ... My belief and experience is that young Malays are repressed. Our society behaves like it does not welcome young ideas … That these youngsters have no value. Fair enough. But we still need to give the young an outlet to express themselves safely before it gets too late. Otherwise it will be like a pressure cooker without a safety valve. But there are not many places where they can be creative and expressive. I wanted to give them one such platform. If they go to mainstream publications, they are unlikely to get published. ... Maybe it is simply the job of the mainstream anywhere to not tolerate alternative viewpoints. Or maybe it is simply because often there are no messages in these "karya picisan" (unimportant works). When I first started out I was often asked: "What is the message of the story? What is the moral?" But heck, not every story needs to have a moral purpose.

No moral values writ large, to cram down kids' throats?? *Blink*

I feel the same, but Amri says it better :

A writer needs to be aware that whatever he writes will have an influence on at least someone. If words have no weight then people would not have burnt books or prosecuted writers throughout history. But honestly, a writer of fiction should write for no reason other than to tell a story. It is not for the writer to guide society. In the realm of fiction, the story should operate on its own moral terms. That is what separates it from reality. ... I do believe that writers have a responsibility, but that responsibility is simply that they should be true to themselves. Anyone who writes deliberately with a subtext in mind is being manipulative, if not naive. Today you cannot dictate what the subtext is going to be anymore.

He also talks about his challenges in running the magazine Elarti. Besides the financial burden he says the publication hasn't been appearing because :

... we just don’t get enough quality contributions. And my bar is not set very high, so that ought to give you something to think about.

And not enough writers are prepared to challenge convention, which, he says, may be a result of upbringing :

Traditionally, the Malays are not outspoken. Even when we criticise, we are very polite. We do not say things directly to your face. For example, if you asked us to do something, we always say "Insya Allah" even when we already know we are not going to do it. It is one of the things I admire about this culture, but these days it is not always the right solution.

He also reckons :

Culture has become stagnant and stereotypical here.

Do the rest of you reckon things are as bleak as Amri paints them? I see writing in English really taking off in Malaysia ... at all levels. But am not at all qualified to talk about writing in Malay. And if Amri's right - then is there anything we can do?

Exciting Times for Ezra

Our vision is to provide a balance of new and exciting titles while not forgetting the classics that have shaped our understanding and experience of the world. ... Now, more than ever, we find that there is an appetite for innovative, alternative ideas that challenge the mainstream ... We publish fiction and nonfiction, in both English and Malay. That said, we feel that there is great potential in the nonfiction market for both languages, especially for the Malay-language audience. Currently, the Malay-reading public doesn’t truly have the option of reading Thomas L. Friedman’s The World Is Flat, Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist or Camilla Gibb’s Sweetness in the Belly, so the translation market is something that we’re going into aggressively.

Dynamic young publisher (though he describes himself, self-effacingly as "still wet behind the ears") Ezra Zaid of ZI Publications is interviewed by Eric Forbes in Readsmonthly supplement of Starmag today and maps out his exciting future plans.

The Young Ones

There's a nice piece in StarTwo's Youth 2 section today about young Malaysian authors. Sharmila Nair and Ian Yee interview Lim May Zhee, Ruzaina Fikri and Muhamad Syrafuddin ... valiant souls all. (And may they continue the good fight as they grow older.)

And in a side piece, MPH's Janet Tay talks about how to realise the dream of getting published, tempering encouragment with a dose of realism. And of course the most important piece of advice :

Read, read, read. I can’t emphasise that enough. I think we do encounter a fair bit of writers who want to write but don’t pick up books themselves “ it’s like a chef who doesn’t know how to eat or taste his food.

Chapbooks, Chaps!

What do ... Francesca Beard, Sharanya Manivannan, Jasmine Low, Priya K, KG, Liyana Yusof and Poetica and others have in common?

Poetry? Yes, okay.

But something more. Each of them embraced the chapbook, a simple handmade publication to put writing out into the world - given away free or sold for a nominal sum. It's a simple way of being published, showcases your best writing, and often acts as a stepping stone to flashier publishing.

Lee Rourke on the Guardian blog waxes lyrical about the chapbook and reminds us that this form of publication has been around since the C16th. He particularly praises Blackheath Books for their series of poetry chapbooks and links to this video of how the books are lovingly made by hand. (See this in the video below.) In a world where big business interests control publishing, I find this a refreshing and inspiring reminder of how the little guy can be independently creative.

It's almost the print form of busking while you wait to be discovered, isn't it?

A Case for Pessimism?

This month's Time Out has a piece (which Eric has put up on his blog) by S.H. Lim about the state of local writing. Lim interviews the guys who should know - senior editor of MPH Group Publishing, Eric Forbes, and bookshop owner and publisher Raman Krishnan.

Raman says that despite the successes of our overseas published authors :

... these successes are just here and there. Sporadic. Intermittent. There's no pattern to suggest that things are different now. In any case, these are writers who live overseas (most of the time and make occasional visits to our shores to press skin with local readers to promote their books or to have face-time with their families), and are published there. Not here.

Eric points to the need to put in place the right building blocks if you want publishing locally to thrive :

You need writers, literary agents, good editors and publishers and a reading public. When local works don't sell, publishers don't invest. After all, publishing is about ringgit and sen. About the bottom line. It's not about charity. Or, heaven forbid, the art of writing and the message delivered.

(I wrote on this here.)

He points to the fact that although he receives manuscripts, few of them are of publishable quality. Most local publishers want almost-ready-to-print scripts and just don't have the resources to work with a writer closely on rewriting, so that the authors themselves must learn to self-edit and/or employ the services of a freelance editor.

Raman talks about how :

There are thousands of stories that tell us who we are as Malaysians ... They need to be told. They need to be written. But we don't have enough writers. We don't have enough people writing. We need stories about ourselves. Our history.

and how his approach is not to find new writing but to nurture a group of writers and bring them up to publishable standard, as he did with the three authors of News from Home.

I must say that overall, I found the article more negative than it needed to be. There is plenty wrong, plenty that isn't happening yet, but I believe that things are improving, albeit slowly, and both Eric and Raman (among others) are playing a very necessary part in all that.

And despite what Raman says (I think he's unfairly dismissive) one of the biggest shots in the arm our local writing community has had is seeing other Malaysians doing so well on the international stage.

These authors too are major encouragers of local writers, sharing their thoughts about writing through articles for magazines and blog posts, and taking part in local writer events including Readings@Seksan. Perhaps the most important contribution they've made is to show Malaysian writers "Look this is possible" ... and of course they set the standard.

Nope, I won't be pessimistic yet.

Monsoon Making Waves in Local Publishing

It was so good to see Singaporean-based publisher Philip Tatham of Monsoon Books in the Telegraph yesterday talking about his ambition to "put South East Asia at the heart of the literary map".

The piece by Rosie Milne profiles Tatham, a British expat who studied South-East Asia Studies at Hull and then moved to Malaysia and spent a decade in publishing before moving to Singapore in 2004 to set up his company. Monsoon has really taken off, finishing 2007 with top ten bestsellers in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

(The Malaysian hit of course was the wonderful Growing Up in Terengganu by Awang Goneng.)

Some of the problems Philip is working to solve :

Sorting out distribution was a big problem, but I think we've cracked that one now ... We also face constant problems getting paid in some of our smaller markets - getting money out of the Philippines is an ongoing battle. It's also a struggle to get agents to take us seriously. There are very few agents working in Asia, and agents in London and New York as yet seem reluctant to show us manuscripts. That should change, as we become more established.

The Green Bookaholic

In case your book-reading conscience needs a prick.

The US publishing industry is responsible for 12.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide entering our atmosphere each year, mainly because of cutting trees to produce paper, according to the just-published report Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts: Findings from the US Book Industry (found via).

The situation in the UK is of course comparable, and booktwo.org quotes an article in the Times Higher Education Supplement in which environmental scientist and author David Reay throws some pretty scary statistics at us:

What with production and transport, the average paperback has eaten its way through 4.5kWh of energy by the time it gets to a reader. In terms of climate impact, this is equivalent to about 3kg of carbon dioxide emissions for every glossy new textbook. So, for a print run of 10,000, there is a cost of 30 tonnes of carbon dioxide not mentioned on the dust jackets. But this is a best-case scenario. The sale-or-return system virtually guarantees that the damage is much more severe. If half the books delivered to bookshops then have to be trucked back to the publisher and pulped, there’s yet another great belch of greenhouse gases to ultimately heat up the cheeks of both publisher and author…

Assume that the average print run for those 200,000 titles is just 1,000 copies. That’s 200 million books coming off the presses in a year - 600,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions and, even if we assume very low return rates, enough pulped book to fill the dining hall at Hogwart’s several times over.

In terms of its contribution to global warming, UK publishing in effect puts an extra 100,000 cars on our roads. Our esteemed seats of learning are a sizeable cog in this engine: the average undergraduate buys at least three volumes per course, while most academic offices are crammed from floor to ceiling with dusty tomes…

The industry is terrifically wasteful. booktwo.org estimates that :

... half of all books printed in the UK are never read. And they’re not redistributed either, but returned to the publishers or otherwise disposed of, usually pulped or simply placed in landfill.

The good news, the industry is becoming much greener :

The book industry’s use of recycled fiber has increased six-fold in the past few years, and many companies in the book business are developing environmental policies and setting goals to increase their use of recycled and certified paper, improve impacts on forests, reduce energy consumption, and lessen their overall carbon footprint.

Approximately 45 percent of publishers now have meaningful environmental policies in place, with concrete goals and timelines. In fact, four of the top 10 publishers-including Random House, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, and Thomas Nelson-have joined 160 smaller publishers in making significant public commitments in this arena. In addition, a solid majority of respondents (more than 220) have endorsed the Book Industry Treatise on Responsible Paper.

But, something else to chew on. Global shipping is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and most of the books we buy in this part of the world are shipped to us from the US and UK. And books are mighty bulky things.

Greener solutions?

Well those who love read their books in digital format tiny carbon-footprint have tiny carbon-footprints compared to the rest of us. (I hear Chet and Leon cheering.) Maybe some attitude shifting (including my own) has to happen?

I reckon that if we want to be truly environmentally friendly in our reading we should encourage major publishing houses in the west to explore the idea of print-on demand so that small numbers of copies of books can be printed here as we want they are ordered. (Is this just a dream? Why couldn't this work?)

Publishers can of course make greater use of recycled paper. The quality is excellent, but according to Amir who has used it, the price is much higher than for new paper.

And perhaps the industry as a whole (here and in the west) has to look at the way it deals with returns and make an effort to be less wasteful ...

Perhaps you have some more ideas of your own?

An Alternative Bookfest!

Here's something that has needed to happen for a long time. I'm lifting the whole of Amir's post:

The day after the launch of New Malaysian Essays 1 (a 2-hour event where over 200 local books managed to be sold), I spoke to Zulhabri Supian (who works at Gerakbudaya) about the possibility of organising a longer event that focuses on local books. This idea was strengthened when, a week later, I found out that several Malay fiction books were rejected by a large distributor; although no reasons were given, the fact that none of them had 'Cinta' or "Kasih' in the title may have been a contributing factor. So this is what we came up with; do join us!

The 1st KL Alternative Bookfest (KLAB) will be held on the weekend of 3-4 May, 2008 at The Annexe, Central Market.

Held less than a month after the mammoth Pesta Buku KL (where you can buy as many text-books, romance novels and religious instruction manuals as you want), it will be held simultaneously with the very popular Art For Grabs event – but in a different room.

KLAB is ... basically a gathering of small, independent publishers who would like a popular venue to sell, launch and discuss books. We seek to fill 10-15 tables. Each table can be taken up by one publisher, or it can be shared between various people who each have books to sell.

There are many happenin' Malaysian books now being published; the trouble is, not many of them are readily available in the main bookshops. This is an opportunity to bring these books to the public, and to make the whole process fun lah.

4 tables have already been filled up; they are by Gerakbudaya, SIRD, Silverfish, and Matahari Books. We seek 6-11 others. We are in negotiations to bring one publisher each from Singapore & Indonesia too.

The events we plan are:
- Book launch by Hishamuddin Rais
- Discussion of new books, with the authors present
- A 'book give-away' where people can simply get rid of books they no longer want, for free. This will physically take up one corner of the room, where people can just leave the books. The idea is to make interesting books available even to those who can't afford to buy 'em. The remainder of the books will be donated, most likely to The Ricecooker Shop
- Bilingual poetry slam, where the audience gets to vote for favourite performers (to be coordinated by Ted Mahsun)
- And more!

Details:
The fee per table (for both days) is RM100
The event is from 12-6pm both days.
Deadline to receive entries (including payment) is April 26
Payment goes directly to The Annexe

Interested? Contact zulhabri at gmail dot com.

Malaysian Book Academy

So Malaysia now has a "Book Academy"? I only realised this when I read this editorial about Malaysian reading habits in the New Sunday Times :

While offering information and entertainment, books also provide an architecture to make sense of life. More importantly, reading civilises our inner self. And in a multiracial nation such as Malaysia, a passion for reading about each other's ways can help prevent cultural or religious conflict. Which is why any move to improve the reading habit among Malaysians -- such as the establishment of the Malaysian Book Academy -- is most welcome. The academy, launched on Friday, aims to train people for the book publication industry, and encourage writers. Admittedly, past efforts do not appear to have turned Malaysians into rapacious readers. Which is why, bearing in mind that the availability of more books does not equate to a greater readership, the academy must work in tandem with bodies such as the Education Ministry and libraries if it is to produce results.

Here's Bernama's report dated 29th Feb (which, forgive me, I'm quoting in full because I think it is very important) :

The country's book publishing industry has yet to reach the desired standards with its rate of publication of less than 10,000 titles a year, National Book Development Foundation Chairman Datuk Khalid Yunus said.

He said not only were there insufficient publications for general reading, the type and quality of the publications were also limited.

"Compared with Korea and Japan, we are still far behind. Taiwan, whose population size is about the same as Malaysia, has 30,000 books published a year," he said at the launch of the Malaysian Book Academy by Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim here today.

Khalid said publication companies in the country were not managed professionally and their staff were not exposed to modern technology.

"It is for this reason that the Malaysian Book Academy is set up," he added.

He said besides collaborating with the Culture, Arts and Heritage Ministry, the setting up of the academy would involve cooperation with the London Book House, Insitute of Book Publishing New Delhi and the School of Publishing New York.

Meanwhile, Rais, when met by reporters later, said he believed the setting up of the academy would help overcome problems in the industry, like book tax, tax on printing machine, ways to promote publications, etc.

He also hoped it would encourage people from other races to publish books in Malay, saying that the books could be sold at the more than 2,000 rural and public libraries nationwide.

If the sale of the book reached 3,000 copies, it was already a best-seller, he added.

On reading habit in the country, Rais said people read English publications more than those written in Malay as reflected in the statistics on English and Malay newspaper readers.

If this works it could be a real shot in the arm for local writers and publishers and I really am looking forward to hearing more.

Plumbing Depths of Tastelessness

The hunt for missing child Sharlinie Mohd Nashar has turned into a real dog and pony show with members of the public phoning in false leads, a dubious clairvoyant mathematician (who has clearly been watching Numb3rs!) turning up to steal the limelight ... and now an unscrupulous local publisher cashing in on the act.

Darshini Kandasamy in today's Malay Mail (which I can't link to online since no-one has updated the website for weeks) picked up the story from a reader who said that she was:

... shocked and disgusted ...

when she saw the book Di Mana Sharlinie? (Where is Sharlini?) in a bookshop in Bangsar because :

... her parents are in pain, worrying about their daughter, yet this book publisher is cashing in on their sorrow ...

The 40 page book in Bahasa Malaysia is a compilation of news items about the five year old's disappearance and includes:

... findings of a psychic as to why Sharlinie was taken ...

as well as the particularly insensitive faux film poster of Sharlinie with another missing girl Nurin Jazlin Jazimin, which is featured in the newspaper.

The publisher Penerbitan Karang Media cannot be contacted and there is no authors name, although the book was "arranged" (whatever that means) by "Bob Sri Menanti" and "Ron Sikana", who likewise have left no trace. The book clearly had no ISBN.

(Hmm, the cheques from the sales must be going ... somewhere!)

I have to say that this publication plumbs new depths of tastelessness and one wonders just why any bookshop decided to sell it in the first place! If people don't buy it and booksellers don't stock it, someone is going to lose all their money. (What a shame.)

Actually isn't it sad how a case like this brings out the ugliest side of human nature ... and we aren't just talking about the abductor.

Update (21/2/08) :

The story makes front page news today (and is online) and Sharlinie's father is interviewed about the book. He wasn't approached for permission and is deeply upset by the suggestion that his daughter will meet the same fate as Nurin. He is considering legal action. But does he really need this on top of everything else he is having to put up with?

*(Now which would that be? Can't be Silverfish. I wouldn't think MPH. Might be one of the mamak newsgents in Lucky Garden. Actually we want to know - why the coyness?)

New Malaysian Titles - Coming Soon

Some great new books from independent presses are about to launched. This announcement came to me via Facebook and I guess it was Amir M. who sent it:

Matahari Books launches New Malaysian Essays 1 in February 2008. Together with it, are two other books: The Old House and Other Stories and Kasut Biru Rubina.

Kuala Lumpur, January 07, 2008 – In February 2008, there will be a launch heralding new and older voices in the literary scene. Ali, Apu and Ah Beng may have heard of some of them, and may not, which is why Malaysians should go out and get the books when they are in the market next month.

Matahari Books which previously published the best-selling Malaysian Politicians Say The Darnest Things (Vol 1) by Amir Muhammad (writer, film-maker Amir has added another feather to his cap: he’s behind Matahari Books) will be launching New Malaysian Essays 1, featuring the talents of personalities such as Sonia Randhawa, Brian Yap, Saharil Hasrin Sanin, Burhan Baki*, Aminudin Mahmud and of course, Amir. Their essays which border from scathingly humorous to tongue in cheek and yes, illuminating, will have the reader viewing Malaysia in a different light. Which can be good. Or bad. It really depends on how you look at it.

Each essay runs from 20 to 50 pages and the large-format paperback book includes photos, illustrations and even spoof advertisements. It is hoped that this is the start of an annual series that concentrates on Malaysian non-fiction.

Two other books will be launched as well in February, and they are both short-story collections: Chuah Guat Eng’s The Old House and Other Stories (Hologram Publishing), and Sufian Abas’s Kasut Biru Rubina, (Sang Freud Press) (in Bahasa Malaysia) will make their debuts.

More about each book later. Chuah Guat Eng will be appearing at the next Readings on January 26th and Sufian Abas in March. I also need to pull in some of those essay writers, don't I?

Oh and before I forget, Bernice Chauly's new book will be launched at January readings too.

Adibah Amin also has Glimpses, a new collection of her newspaper columns coming out and Amir has written the introduction.

Is it just my imagination, or are things really getting vibrant around here?

(*Burhan Baki - so long I haven't heard news of you! How's UEA??? Are you on Facebook?)

A Post on Kindness and Criticism Written in Horribly Clashing Metaphors

I love having my friend Guat Chuah Eng back and now in the literary conversation in our Malaysian blogosphere, and now she's turning over the stones and debating whether there is a future for Malaysian literature in English.

While the larger question might now seem passe (and surely can only be answered with a *yawn* of course lah!? seeing as how a number of Malaysian authors are producing work of quality both locally and on the world stage) some of the other questions she is asking are very pertinent.

And I've nothing better to do at the moment (no need to cook dinner tonight) so I'm up for a good argue.

In her latest post she writes:

I found particularly depressing the comments on our aspiring writers' poor command of the English language and their lack of writing skills. Depressing, not because it is untrue or because it is all too true, but because--dear oh dear--haven't we been through all this before?

Where, I ask myself, would Amos Tutuola's classic, The Palmwine Drinkard, be today if the editor who received his manuscript had returned it to him for corrections? Where, indeed, would e. e. cummings be if his editor had told him he shouldn't write until he had learned how to punctuate? Wasn't it in 1963, if not earlier, that Raja Rao said, "We cannot write like the English. We should not." (Should there be a question mark here? And where should it be placed? Damned if I know--or care!) And right here in Malaysia, as long ago as 1976, novelist Lloyd Fernando, then Head of the English Department, University of Malaya, reminded us that for local literature to develop, "for some time at least, it would be more profitable for critics and scholars to confine themselves to the less spectacular role of recorders concerned to nurture, rather than critics giving evidence of their perception and integrity."

Are Malaysian writers in English so thin on the ground? Or is the ground in fact thick with writers dead and dying under the weight of hopes dashed and dreams shattered by their critics?

The balance between encouragement and criticism is crucial in a writing community as I've argued before. (My famous fishtank metaphor!) And I've been concerned with the question of when and how to criticise emergent writers since I started the blog and I'm only too aware (as someone who's been a beginning fiction writer, and as a writing teacher) that they need a safety zone and that confidence can be destroyed with harsh criticism too early on.

The dilemma is that (to use a botanical metaphor) with too much early criticism, the tender little plant will wilt and possibly die. But at the same time, without the right kind of criticism at the right point, the plant will grow straggly and no-one will want to look at it.

Where exactly does that right point for criticism come? The best first criticism is from a writing teacher and fellow writers. Possibly from friends you can trust. It should be kind and supportive and stress the positives and help you see the direction you might move your work in. It shouldn't jump up and down on your work wearing jackboots and waving it's own aren't-I-clever flag. (World War II metaphor.)

But I would say that it comes when your work is put between the covers of a book and start to charge the public for it, you have to be ready for critical open season. If you aren't, sit on your manuscript, hide it in a drawer, keep it in a file on the computer that only you know the password for. Being published is the point of no turning back.

This post I wrote on "the gentle cycle" (washing metaphor) says it all I think, and I hope that if you write, you will take a moment to go back to it.

I haven't commented on this blog about the stories in some collections by local writers I've read, and one reason is that I feel that new writers need space to try things out and yes, make their mistakes.

(As a little aside. The Silverfish collection I edited got reviewed very fairly, I thought, in the NST. Just one of the contributors got totally slammed in the piece. She happened to be the youngest writer and one I thought was promising ... but not yet arrived. I never told her about the review and I don't think she saw it. I just didn't want her to be discouraged. Now, years on, I can laugh about it with her because she is proving to be a very successful and in demand writer. Would she have given up if she'd seen the review? Or was she made of far tougher stuff from the beginning?)

I did review the Silverfish collection News From Home the other day (and honestly with trepidation) largely because it was interesting to see how Mr. Raman's new venture was working. Raman (who asked if I would review the book on my blog) felt the comments were fair, but I hope that I haven't stepped too hard on the toes of the writers in question who all have promise ... but like all writers are on a journey.

A good editor will not put out work that is rough around the edges, and will gatekeep so that the writers who are published are ready for public scrutiny and are in that sense protected. And the editor as I've said before has a responsibility not to put crap work before a public paying good cash for their copy. (Remember - a locally produced book generally costs only a bit less than an imported mass market paperback of a top international author which the reader could be enjoying instead!)

Now as a book-buyer, I don't want to see books with a multitude of typos and tense mistakes. It isn't necessary. And this is how painful the reader finds it.

Now about the two authors, Guat mentions:

E.E Cummings' lack of capitalisation (in his poetry though, not his own name) was a deliberate stylistic choice, much like Cormac McCarthy's annoying trickiness with apostrophes.

I love Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard which is written in West African pidgin English as I have loved other books, comics and poems written in that dialect. A good editor will see immediately whether it does or does not work.

So encouragment and criticism - where should one end, the other begin?

I think you do everything possible to encourage the writer, but only publish, in the end, the very best.

Over to you, Guat.

Postscript:

I've put together an index of all my posts about building a writing community in Malaysia, which you can find here.