Dancing those Short Stories

Today I was very pleased to be at the launch of Ronggeng Ronggeng: Malaysian Short Stories at the GeorgeTown Literary Festival.  I was delighted that Malachi Edwin Vethamani, the editor, of the book chose one of my tales (Mr Petronas) for inclusion in the book amongst so many luminaires of Malaysian literature.

There are 28 stories, spanning a period of 60 plus years of Malaysian writing, so it’ll be a very interesting read,

I was sitting in the front row at the laucnch and so had the opportunity to take photos of all the writers who read their stories …

Saras Manickam

KS Maniam

Shih-Li Kow

Paul Gnanaselvam

 

Noraini Md Yusof

Pang Khee Taik

 

Reading a story by the late Siew-Yue Killingley

Dato’ M. Shanmughalingam

 

I didn’t manage to get a photo of myself  as I didn’t get a chance to do a selfie on stage!

Hear me TALK!

So how are you this lovely day?

If you’re feeling lonely or have nothing better to do with your precious time the you can hear me TALK!

Me Talking. Courtesy: Lit Books

There’s not one but THREE interviews to listen to. So you can listen to one or all three … so don’t be shy, just listen!

There’s one from BFM for Halloween.

Another from one my favourite bookshops, Lit Books.

And from those nice ladies at Two Book Nerds Talking.

If you can’t get enough of me talking, then why not listen to my audio short story “Biggest Baddest Bomoh”. I recommend listening to it around midnight!

That’s it from me for now. Time to stop talking!

4 Events: At SWF 2019

It was a busy time for me this year at the Singapore Writer’s Festival.

Firstly, there was the Singapore launch of Scream to the Shadows, my retrospective colleciton of stories penned over a period of more than 25 years.

Then I conducted a workshop on Plot Twists in Dark Fiction, which was a lot of fun for me and I hope for the attendees too. We did a few writing exercises which I hope was beneficial.

I was also on 2 panels. One was with Brittany Cavallaro, Neil Humphreys and moderated by Alice Clark-Platts. It was about Good Riddance! which was about killing off our characters in our books. The second one was with Ng Yi-Sheng, Shuojie Ng and moderated by Christina Sng where we  mostly talked about the popularity of horror and dark fiction during our Language of the Paranormal discussion.

 

 

The SWF team were very professional indeed and I was well looked after!

 

Creative Writing Workshop at Taylor’s

I conducted a Creative Writing Workshop at the Per-University and Foundation School at Taylor’s College.

The students were entering a short story competition. Well, a very short story competition of only 500 words. Being a Halloween themed competition, I was, of course, considered the most suitable person to run the workshop!

Such a short story limit was coincidental as my piece of very short fiction called “Three Dead Chickens” was recently published in Horror Without Borders.

“Three Dead Chickens” are buried within its pages

We covered almost all aspects of creative writing including point-of-view, description, dialogue, setting, plot and character. I spoke of my experience as a writer and where I got my ideas from. I hope my seminar was of help and I wish the best of luck to all of those who entered the competition.

The Taylor’s students and I

Writing is not easy. Writing a short piece is not any easier and can actually be tougher.

But writing is fulfilling and I truly recommend it whether to students, grown-ups and those in between!

 

Sharing the stage at KDU University

I was at KDU University attending their Malaysiana 2019 event on 18 August 2019.

There were two other speakers, Peggy Loh and E.S. Shankar. Mr Shankar very kindly gave me a copy of his book, Tiger Isle. Peggy Loh is the author of My Johor Stories.

I like talking to young people for their views aren’t yet tarnished by life’s experience. Their cup is only half full and it is still possible to provide meaningful guidance.

Covering the topic to be discussed, I spoked about my experience about first getting published and my experience as a writer. I went off topic when I noticed three young ladies who were fully focussed on their phones. So I said:

“Sometimes we are so addicted to our screens, like those three ladies staring at their phones when they should be looking at this handsome looking guy here talking on stage!”

That got their attention and they put away their devices … but only for awhile.

I enjoyed sharing the stage at KDU University and I wish all the best to the students there.

P.S The above photos were taken from Peggy Loh’s blog. Hope she doesn’t mind!

Talk on Minimalism

I gave a talk at Sunway College a couple of weeks back.

My topic was: The Minimalism Journey.

It was a pleasure to present it to these intelligent, young people, mostly 16 and 17 year-olds, who were receptive to the ideas and had many questions on the topic.

Some people think Minimalism is a fad, because of its sudden popularity. But Minimalism, which is about common sense and essentially about focusing what is important in life, is here to stay. Good ideas don’t just disappear.

I’ve just finished writing a book on the subject and I hope that it’ll find its way to the shops soon!

Scream Talk!

I’ll be launching my new retrospective collection Scream to the Shadows this weekend. It’s being published by international publishing house, Penguin. It’s the first time a Malaysian horror writer (although I don’t really like that term ‘horror’) is being published by a global publisher, so it’s a bit of a milestone for me!

Anyway, I’ll be doing not one, but FIVE talks in the Klang valley this weekend. So I hope you get to go to at least one of them!

Children’s Encyclopedia Book Talk

Although I’ve done a few talks at schools, this is the first time that I’m talking at a children’s event in a bookshop. The post is a bit last minute …

I hope to see you today!

Scream to the Shadows!

I’m delighted to say that international publishing house, Penguin, have just published my retrospective collection of 20 short stories. It’s exciting news for me and I hope you get to enjoy the book.

It’s a really nice cover too. And no, the screaming man, is not modelled on me … although we do have the same rather fetching hair style!

Oh yes, I’ll be doing 5 book talks in the Klang Valley in the next couple of weeks. That’s a lot of talking and I hope I’ll see you there. I’ll update you on where and when!