Silverfish New Writing is No More.

The Bloke in Bangsar has announced that Silverfish New Writing is no more after the seventh book rolls out. Say what you will about Raman, but the New Writing series has been a large contribution to the local literary scene and its discontinuation will be a major loss.

On the other hand, it's a perfect chance for another publisher to pick up the reins and fill in the vacuum left by Silverfish. A chance to start anew, with less politics and perhaps more focused on local writers, like what Amir Muhammad says on his blog:

I feel the series should have stayed as a focus on Malaysian and Singaporean writers. It could have then become a reference point for writers and readers interested in this area. From the third issue on, it started to lack a distinctive character when too many foreigners started pouring in.

But then again... who reads all this literary nonsense anyway? Surely not Malaysians!

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The bane of every book collecting person: the Silverfish. DUN DUN DUNNNNN!!! How to get rid of them? If one book has been infected, place it inside an air-tight plastic bag along with some silica gel desiccant. The silica gel is important to get rid of moisture, because you will now place the sealed plastic bag with the book in it inside the freezer. Leave it in there for a couple of days so that those bugs catch their death of cold. If you're feeling particularly paranoid, (like I usually am) feel free to leave the plastic bag in there for a week. If they're not dead, then you might likely have an infestation of zombie silverfish , which is out of the scope of this blogpost. But what if a whole colony of silverfish decided to invade your whole bookcase? Then you have to make sure you're ready for war. Place a generous amount of silica gel (or if you can find it, diatomaceous earth) behind your books at the back of the shelves so that moisture levels remain low. ...

Ted Mahsun

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