Ted Mahsun

While 2007 was awesome for me , 2008 was not. A lot of things did not go well for me and people close to me this past year, and I'm not even counting my writing failures yet. I won't go into my non-writing disappointments this past year but I will touch on my writing disappointments. Of the three resolutions I made earlier this year , I achieved none. No surprise there, really ... since when have I kept a resolution? But still! Pretty disappointing! I mean, I would have loved to have finished that novel and would have been blown away to be able to write 12 short stories, one for each month. As it stands, not only have I not finished the novel, I went and started another unfinished novel for this year's NaNoWriMo, and I didn't even finish that. I did write 5 or so short stories this year, but all of them are unfinished. Yep, 2008 was an epic fail and not a year I will look back on fondly. On the other hand, I did have more book reviews published this year than th

This review was published in The Star on 28th December 2008 . Unusual Whodunnit Review by TED MAHSUN Instead of following along in the steps of a detective unravelling a crime, we’re given a different perspective in this simply-told but cracking good mystery. SIX SUSPECTS By Vikas Swarup Publisher: DoubleDay, 472 pages ISBN: 978-0385608169 VIKAS Swarup’s latest book, Six Suspects , looks conventional at a glance: a notorious mob tycoon, Vicky Rai, is murdered in his own house during a party, and there are six suspects. Sounds like a straightforward whodunnit, right? Not quite. Unlike most crime novels, this novel does not employ a sleuth; well, not it in the conventional sense, anyway. But then, Swarup is not your conventional novelist, either: he is a diplomat, currently posted in Pretoria as India’s Deputy High Commissioner to South Africa. His debut novel, Q & A , was also unusual in that its protagonist is a slum dweller who wins the jackpot on the Who Wants

This review was published in The Star on 28th December 2008 . Revisiting Columbine Review by TED MAHSUN THE HOUR I FIRST BELIEVED By Wally Lamb Publisher: HarperCollins, 832 Pages ISBN: 978-0007290697 THERE’S a selection of the book-reading populace that thumbs its collective noses at books picked by talk show host Oprah Winfrey for her Oprah’s Book Club. I don’t get this. Shouldn’t one judge a book by its own merit rather than dismissing it just because one isn’t fond of the talk show host? I was pondering this after I finished reading The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb, whose previous two novels had both been selected for discussion by Oprah’s Book Club. It would be such a shame if Lamb’s latest novel is disregarded just because Oprah likes it! Well, those who hate her book club ... they won’t know what they’re missing. The novel is intriguing and enjoyable; it constantly reminded me why I enjoy reading. The novel weaves fiction and fact by placing its two

Well, that was unexpected. I not only have one, but two book reviews in today's Star. The other review is for Wally Lamb's Hour I First Believed . I only noticed when I went out to get my own deadtree copy. I'd have noticed sooner though if only Google Alerts wasn't being so choosy... Anyways! A few months ago, I was given an advanced review copy (or as they call it, ARC) of Wally Lamb's Hour I First Believed for review, but when I finally finished writing the review, MPH Bookstores, who provided the ARC, told me they decided not to have a promo for the book so I thought, well that's that. Maybe the review wasn't going to be published. Turns out the Star editors turned to another bookstore to get a promo discount coupon from them instead. Neat! So there you go. If you get a copy of today's deadtree edition of The Star, you'll get a 25% discount coupon for both Hour I First Believed , Six Suspects and even Vikas Swarup's earlier book, Slumdog M

Dude, I totally forgot. I woke early today too – a rare event for me on a Sunday – to go to the dentist's. If I had remembered then I could have just picked up a copy while I was out. Dammit, now I have to make the long trek out to civilisation. Anyways, behold, a review of Vikas Swarup's Six Suspects , just for you .

Met an old friend last night. It was his wedding. Haven't met him in at least 8 or 9 years. And now he's a doctor!

Ahh! I feel pretty good. I just finished writing a book review and it was the easiest peasiest book review I've ever written. Usually a book review would take me days to finish (sometimes even weeks !), but this one just took me 45 minutes. Can't say what book the review is for, because I haven't sent it in for publication yet. This isn't on commission so I won't know whether they'll publish it ... until they do. In the meantime, I'll be basking in that nice post-writing afterglow. It feels nice and warm!

And before long it will be the New Year. Hurray. Well, NaNoWriMo was a complete and epic fail for me. It wasn't all a loss though. I do have the beginnings of a novel that I'm pretty excited to continue writing, but for now I'll have to shelve it because I'd like to continue writing the novel I was working on before November ... which was really last year's NaNo project. Anyways, did you hear the news? Syed Alwi passed away. What a bummer huh? I enjoyed immensely his play "Alang Rentak Seribu" and regret I haven't seen any of his other theatre productions. Al-fatihah.

From Amir's blog again: BODY 2 BODY Writings on Alternative Sexuality in Malaysia Edited by Jerome Kugan and Pang Khee Teik Published by Matahari Books - CALL FOR ENTRIES 1. Writings should depict queer or alternative sexuality in Malaysia, or of Malaysian queers' experience in the world. 2. Possible Genre: fiction, true life accounts, essays, memoir, excerpts from novel or play. We do not accept verse. 3. Queer includes gay, lesbian, bisexual, transvestite, transgendered, intersexed. 4. Possible topics: coming out, forced out, going back in, love found, love lost, love squandered, encounters with homophobia, trying to go straight, married life, being friends with a queer person, being seduced by a queer friend, self-loathing, religion, family, work, studies, activism, etc. 5. Writers can be Malaysian or non-Malaysians. Writers can be queer or straight. 6. All writing must be in English, or translated into English. The writers are responsible for getting th

Three eggs. Hah! Take that, George Orwell !

Here's an announcement from Amir Muhammad : Bapak-bapak, ibu-ibu, jambu-jambu dan awek-awek hadhari dijemput ke acara yang santai lagi gerek: Pelancaran buku KITAB PENGETAHUAN HANTU MALAYSIA. Buku sususan Danny Lim ini telah diterjemahkan secara sahih oleh Ahmad Kamal Abu Bakar. Ketahuilah asal-usul, sifat serta tumit-tumit Achilles puluhan hantu dan roh yang menjadi khazanah budaya masyarakat sibilis (sekular, pluralis dan liberalis) kita. Tempat: Bau Bau Cafe, The Annexe, Central Market. Tarikh: 5 Disember (Jumaat) Masa: 8:30pm hingga LRT senyap. Terdapat hiburan oleh beberapa kumpulan gitar rancak yang akan diumumkan kelak. Juga pembacaan mengejut oleh: Ahmad Kamal Abu Bakar Amir Muhammad Danny Lim Fahmi Fadzil Shahril Nizam Sharon Bakar Ted Mahsun dan beberapa lagi artis yang tak sempat masuk Bi-pop hari minggu lepas. Buku akan berada di toko-toko hanya 2 minggu setelah tarikh pelancaran, jadi dapatkanlah di sini agar anda tidak frust menonggeng. Harga buku: RM20. Tebal: 115 m

Crap. Has it been twenty days already? I don't think I need to say I'm seriously behind on my word count. It's not that I haven't been writing. I have. Lots of it. It's just that all the writing I've done this past month has mostly been of the speeches, essays, book forewords and book reviews variety. After all that, the last thing I want to do when I get home from work is to wrack my brains for a novel. In addition to that, the gallery I work for just held a HUGE event (I've mentioned this before I believe) yesterday, where People of Royalty came and graced us with their Presence. It was all a huge fuss and all so we were all understandably kept busy. It's true what they say. If you want to write a novel, don't have a writing job as your day job. You'll have written a lot during work, and by the time you get home, you'll be too tired to write anything for yourself. Having said that, I believe NaNoWriMo's not over yet. So there'

Hmm. Well I've been real busy of late so I have had to abandon my NaNoWriMo efforts for the time being. Also! My brother bought the Dragon Quest IV remake for the Nintendo DS...and it's completely captured me within its evil grasps. I'm making up for lost time. I never finished it the first time I played it on the NES all those years ago, and when they released the Playstation remake, I couldn't read Japanese. Now I'm determined to save the goddamn world, NaNoWriMo or no! (The following paragraph might only be interest to a special breed of nerd–the video game soundtrack nerd. I was digging through my video game soundtrack CD collection yesterday, and I could only find the soundtracks for Dragon Quests 1 to 8 except 4. I'm pretty sure I bought the soundtrack for 4. Did I lose it or something? Oh well, at least I rediscovered a CD I thought I had long ago lost: the Saga Frontier II OST! Yay! Only the best jRPG soundtrack evah! Well, next to Final Fantasy 6 obviou

Woke up this morning to a NaNoWriMo pep email written by Jonathan Stroud in which he equates writing the first draft of a novel to an epic, heroic journey starring Charlton Heston: "Full of dramatic highs, dreadful lows and endless tedious bits when the audience goes out to make a cup of tea." How very true! Last night's writing session went better than the day before with me being able to hammer up to 2200 words. I had a target of reaching 3000 words but it was not to be. Still! 2200 words! That's a lot! My overall word count is now 5236. I'm happy with that number and also happy with the direction my story is taking. I didn't expect it to take a life of its own just yet, but that's what happened. I certainly did not expect the protagonist to impersonate a masseuse to break into a house. Weird. I think I'm beginning to feel the NaNo vibe now!

Yesterday's word count was much better. It didn't reach the requisite daily count of 1667, but I did write more than a thousand words and managed to reach 1400 words. If it's better than yesterday and the day before, than it's good enough for me. There's another thing that's good about all this. The fact that my daily word count is getting higher everyday might mean I'm gaining momentum so things might get better in the coming week. I'm still preparing for the worst though, so I can't get too cocky now. The art gallery I work for is planning a huge (HUGE!) exhibition launch this month and my wife's office deems it fit to make it compulsory for husbands to attend their family day, also happening later this month. I foresee these two events threatening to derail my NaNoWriMo efforts so I'll have to take some precautionary measures if I want to make sure my word count is good enough. Lastly, FUCK YOU PJH Corporation for forcing husbands to come

NaNoWriMo is here again! I would've blogged earlier but somehow the Internet keeps acting up everytime I want to log into Blogger. So anyway! To catch up, there was a book launch party on October 31st , and by the time I got home at about midnight, the last thing I wanted to work on was a 50,000 word novel. (What I did was fire up Thief: Deadly Shadows . Have you played it? It's awesome.) When I did finally start writing – at 8pm on 1st November – I only managed to crank out 670 words. This is something new for me. Usually with every NaNoWriMo I've taken part in, I start writing furiously, fueled by enthusiasm and ambition. This year, even though I've got a story I want to put down on paper and have the basic outline in my head, I don't really seem too excited by it. Not like previous years anyway. This seems to be reflected in my miserable wordcount. (Talking about my wordcount, the NaNoWriMo site seems to be having its annual early hiccup, wherein the their server

Finally! Something new about Haruki Murakami I can feast my brains on! He was in Berkley to receive the inaugural Berkley Japan Prize (wtf? I have a feeling they created this one specially for him...) and was kind enough to have a reading and a conversation with the many fans who attended. (The session sold out fast.) Ben Dooley of The Millions was there and reported back a lot of interesting stuff I still didn't know about the writer, such as Murakami's likening of writing to playing video games: " Writing a story for me is just like playing a video game. I start with a word or idea, then I stick out my hand to catch what's coming next. I'm a player, and at the same time, I'm a programmer. It's kind of like playing chess by yourself. When you're the white player, you don't think about the black player. It's possible, but it's hard. It's kind of schizophrenic. " He also says he doesn't dream the conventional way: "I

My pal, Fadz, who had his second SF novel published earlier this year is featured in The Sun . Congratulations Fadz, and major props to Bissme for writing about a very much disregarded genre in local writing. As for the novel itself, Saga Horizon is set in a post-apocalyptic world where humans struggle to survive against a never-ending rampaging hoard of robot soldiers. (Think Terminator.) Haven't finished reading it yet, but so far it's quite an okay read...albeit a little too depressing for me to stomach at the moment. Am in the mood for light and happy lit right now. So sorry Fadz, your review will have to wait :p

Pretty good news for Malaysian writers writing in English! From Eric : (27 October 2008 - 31 March 2009) In Support of Malaysian Writing in English MPH Group of Companies has collaborated with Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd as our main sponsor and the Malay Mail as our official media partner to create a national short story prize in support of the arts and to encourage Malaysian writers to showcase their literary talents. The Prize is also supported by the Reader’s Digest , Seventeen Malaysia , Discovery Channel Magazine , The British Council , the National Library of Malaysia and the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage . We aim to promote the following objectives through the administering of the Prize: To encourage reading and writing in the English language; To recognise new writers and give them increased confidence to pursue writing as a career; To make more widely known the work of rising literary talents; To encourage more people to write about their lives in Malay

Am having net problems, so won't be blogging until my ISP gets its priorities right.

Lydia Teh, author of Honk! If You're Malaysian and Life's Like That is having a book cover design contest for her new book, Do You Wear Suspenders? – The Wordy Tales Eh Poh Nim , a collection of her vocabularistic column in The Star. Check it out ! You could win a RM100 worth of book vouchers which I assume can be used at MPH Bookstores.

The Gallery had a buka puasa cum launch event yesterday so I left later than usual from work. Even stopped by Kinokuniya to pick up a copy of Murakami's Running Book. But if I had left like usual, I probably would have been on one of the trains involved in the collision near the Bukit Jalil station on the Ampang LRT line yesterday. The time and place of the accident is right about the time and place I would have been on the train if I hadn't gone home late. That is a very scary thought. (But not as scary as the thought that the Ampang Line has been becoming less and less reliable ever since RapidKL took over 4 years ago.) It was a really unusual scene when I got on the platform at Masjid Jamek around 10pm. I was expecting it to be more or less devoid of people, but what greeted me was a scene equal to rush hour at 6pm! Had to wait for the train for ages, and it only went on till Tasik Selatan. From there there was a temporary feeder bus service to ferry passengers to the

There was some confusion with Kinokuniya (and maybe even The Star) and I won't be reviewing Murakami's Running Book . They gave the review copy to someone else instead. Ah well. Alea jacta est and all that. Wish they could have told me earlier because then I could have just bought the book and read it already instead of having to twiddle my thumbs. In the meantime I'm reading an ARC of The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb which MPH kindly gave me. So far so good, although the protagonist is getting to be a little too flawed for my liking.

Feeling a little sad. No. Scratch that. A lot sad. My iPod Shuffle just died. It's a first gen Shuffle so it looks like a stick of gum rather than a silly clip-on. I bought it right after launch and has served me well for the past 3 or so years. I guess it was time. The headphone socket had been having problems recently with the audio dying out on one side of the 'phones, and then switching to the other for no reason at all. But even then I loved using it as a general-use thumbdrive. When not using it as a music device, just plug it in and it becomes a spare backup drive. Very useful, unlike the 2nd gen clip-on Shuffle, which you have to plug into a dock before you can connect it to a computer. I'll miss you 1st gen iPod Shuffle! *sniff* On the upside! The new shuffle doesn't cost more than RM200 while I bought my old 1GB Shuffle for RM500. (It was right before CNY and my old company had recently given out a bonus). These days you could get a Nano with 8 times the memor

Young Adult author Eoin Colfer has been chosen to write the sixth book in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker Trilogy (yes, yes you read that right). But why? I have never read any of Colfer's books and I'm sure he must be a good writer but I doubt anybody could match up to Adams' wit and talent. The Hitchhiker series isn't even remembered for its story more than its jokes and clever wordplay so why bother continuing it? I just hope Eoin Colfer is an atheist. Only an atheist can properly write another Hitchhiker novel!

Don't you hate it when you're seeking le mots juste but the damn word just keeps being elusive? What's ironic about this is while I cannot find the word I'm looking for I can however remember an uncommon phrase like "le mots juste". The mind boggles.

Okay! Moving on. After all the brouhaha about Ahmad Ismail's unwelcome commentary , as well as the subsequent illogical actions , I found it heartwarming to read Amitabh Bachchan's quote on apologising : Bachchan, 66, had asked for "forgiveness" for his wife's remarks, saying they were without "malice." When asked whether he felt it demeaning for a star of his standing being forced to apologise to a political group, he told reporters in New Delhi, "by apologising no one becomes small" . ( Emphasis mine. ) I've always wondered my Malaysian politicians have always found it hard to apologise even though it's very clear to everyone with half a mind that they're in the wrong. After all, no one becomes small .

Okay, so I'm in The Star again ! Not as a book reviewer though, but in a Roald Dahl profile written by Rouwen Lin. As evident in the article, I am a dork. Seriously. Look at this photo: Haha! Anyways, thanks Rouwen, for giving me my fifteen minutes of fame.

It's Roald Dahl Day again and this year I haven't forgotten! (Thanks to Blogger's scheduled publishing feature.) So last Roald Dahl Day, I showed you pictures of my autographed first edition copy of Rhyme Stew and the previous year I told you my experience at the book signing . This year let me show you a photo of the book signing. Look at that! My glasses are the same colour as Roald Dahl's! So this Roald Dahl fellow? What's so awesome about him anyway? Let me tell you! Roald Dahl's works appeal to me because there's always a sense of childish craftiness or mischievousness in the writing, as if he's letting the reader in on a secret joke. It's like Roald Dahl was this good-hearted prankster who never really grew up, and he threw all his good ideas for pranks into the books he wrote. Add to that his silly and funny made-up words, is it any wonder he won many a child's heart? In a way, he never really did grow up. I remember watchi

Just in time for Roald Dahl Day on the 13th, Puffin has published an "extended" version of Roald Dahl's boyhood memoir, Boy , called More About Boy . From the Amazon UK page : What were Roald Dahl's first words? Read his account of going to football matches with Joss Spivvis, the gardener. This new edition of a favourite book contains a wealth of new photos, facts and writings about Roald Dahl and his childhood, together with the original text and illustrations from his much-loved memoir. With lots of little-known details, this is a must-have for all Dahl fans! I checked with Kinokuniya but they don't have it yet. Faster, Kino! I guess we can expect More About Going Solo in the future? And then it won't take long before they start releasing More About Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator or More About The Magic Finger or More About The Vicar of Nibbleswicke or... okay, I'll stop here.

I was writing an essay earlier this month and in it I quoted a children's poem which I knew since childhood composed by Robert Louis Stevenson. This made me realise that despite the fact that I knew the existence of R.L. Stevenson's works since I was very young I have never really read a novel by him. Never read his famous pirate book, Treasure Island , nor The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and My Hyde and certainly not Kidnapped . The former two books are familiar to me thanks to the wonders of film and television (not to mention pop-cultural references) but I've never really known the story that moves Kidnapped . Seeing as I've owned a copy of Kidnapped almost as long as I've known the poem I mentioned earlier, I thought I'd put this problem to a halt. Having done so, I found Kidnapped to be an intriguing adventure story, filled with deception, sword fights and nasty, snarling men. This is also a very, very boyish adventure, due to the lack of prominent female c

From The Guardian : Roald Dahl never won a children's book prize in his lifetime, but today he has gone one better, as the shortlists for a literary prize bearing his name are announced. Founded by the children's laureate Michael Rosen, the Roald Dahl Funny prize celebrates honours the most hilarious children's authors. The inaugural winners will receive £2,500 - a slightly more serious prize than the Gloucester Old Spot pig handed over to winners of the Wodehouse prize for adult comic fiction. Rosen founded the prize to boost the profile of humorous books as part of his campaign to put the fun back into children's reading. "I have sat on judging panels before and what happens is that the funny books get squeezed out, because somehow or other they don't tackle big issues in the proper way," he explained. "They'll get through to the last four or five books, and then historical fiction, or something about death or slavery or new technology

I just came back from Kinokuniya where I talked with one of the merchandising peeps and she told me they actually had Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running in the store the other day but it sold out. Sold out?! Already? Seriously, who stalks Kinokuniya for Haruki Murakami and buys up every new book of his? (Don't answer that.) Anyways, Kinokuniya is only bringing in more stock in next week which is hopefully when I receive my review copy. Yes!

Okay. Google Chrome ? Total awesome. After using Chrome, using Firefox 3 is like driving a lorry after driving a Lotus Elise. Too bad the EULA isn't very writer-friendly . Update: Looks like Google is fixing that EULA snafu . Now if only they'd release a Mac version, I'll be ready to sell my soul to Google. Oh wait I already did. (I heart Google Reader.) Update 2: I forgot to include this, and I really should, because it's a comic by Scott McCloud . Yes, the very same Scott McCloud of Understand Comics !). The comic explains the whys and hows of Google Chrome and is a very good primer on understanding the reasoning behind the design decisions in the new browser.) Update 3: They've updated the EULA, so everything's peachy now . Well, except for the bugs I've been noticing. Doesn't work so well with Facebook.

I've always known Dahl was a ladies' man (and even called upon his talents for writing his stories) and I knew he was somewhat of a spy (as we learn in Going Solo ) but I never knew he used his manly charms in his work as a spy : Drawing on previously unpublished letters and other documents, American journalist Jennet Conant has written about Dahl's numerous sexual conquests. They include Millicent Rogers, the heiress to a Standard Oil fortune, and Clare Boothe Luce, a right-wing congresswoman and the wife of the publisher of Time magazine. Boothe Luce proved so frisky, Dahl later claimed to have begged his superiors to take him off the assignment, only to be told to get back into the bedroom. Conant writes: "Dahl's superiors watched his rake's progress with grudging admiration. "A certain amount of hank-panky was condoned, especially when it was for a good cause." Such a rogue!

I logged into Malaysiakini this afternoon to see if anything was wrong in the country, and instead of the news I was presented with a nice little science fiction story by Lim Teck Ghee : It is Merdeka Day 2057. The Supremacist Alliance is in power. Having successfully re-engineered (and renamed) itself several times over, it has the record of being the longest-staying political party in power in the world. Interviewed over Mal-Jibberish, the sole media agency (all other printed and electronic news media had lost their licences in the great media purge of 2020 or had been swallowed up by the national media Goliath) the Supreme Minister (SM) proclaimed that the Supremacist Alliance looked forward to another hundred years of ruling the country based on its past record of successfully managing the multi-racial society. And you thought he only dabbled in political science! Link might be for paid subscribers only. If you're not a paying subscriber to Malaysiakini then allow me to

The Guardian is celebrating the Beijing Olympics by publishing short stories, and the first one is a hilarious one written by Hari Kunzru , and it features pandas. It also reminds me of Chet . :D

So the literary corner of the interwebs is abuzz with the latest news that the number one of the 50 best-loved authors is Enid Blyton. And people have since come out to say that they too like Enid Blyton, warts and all. To say I'm dismayed is an understatement. I hate Blyton. Always have, always will. This may have happened because I was introduced to Roald Dahl first and only to Enid Blyton a few years later. If that have happened the other way round maybe my feelings for her books would be a lot different. But since we do not have the benefit of a time machine or a device capable of peeking into parallel worlds, who knows? But I'm not here to complain about people liking Enid Blyton. For what it's worth, she was responsible for instilling the love of reading into at least a couple of generations so that's okay by me. Also, if it weren't for Enid Blyton, I would have never known what a Gollywog is. Ho ho! As for the rest of the list, I think it's spi

In the first time he's actually done something I'm impressed with since he became Prime Minister, Pak Lah took a ride on the city's LRT : He said the existing services were not systematic, there were not enough coaches and coverage was not comprehensive, leaving many areas not serviced. "I just saw the plight of people using the trains to get to work every morning. They were jostling to get on board every time a train arrived. There appeared to be no system. "I'm not happy with this because the people are not getting satisfaction from riding the trains. This we must fix," he said. "I found the trains really packed with so many passengers. Some had waited for three trains and yet could not board. "There's no queue. People push their way in, women with children and old people are pushed aside," he added. I'm glad you've finally noticed, Mr Prime Minister, even if it has taken you four bleeding years to realise it. If

My brother-in-law got married yesterday and I was the best man. Let me tell you something. If you ever get the chance to become a best man at someone's wedding, at that wedding happens to be a Malay wedding and takes place in Johor, then I suggest you don't do it. It's pure madness I tell you! And don't come to me crying afterwards. It'll be too late by then. I'll spare you the told-you-so s. I have never seen such uncivilised behaviour at a wedding. Is that what the Malays call adat? Count me out of service, out of Johor, I wouldn't hang about . But I'm one for talk aren't I? Should I be talking about barbarism in Johor when I will be seeing Wall-e tonight in IOI Puchong? You think the Goths and the Vikings were barbaric. Hah! I say you wouldn't know barbarism before you have had a chance to see a movie in IOI Puchong. Also if anyone finds my syntax atrocious , please feel free to resyntax this post.

Leon has started up a new blog called the Malaysian Poetic Chronicles which he promises will be a place to house your poetry or short shorts. He's open for submissions now. The first two posts are a poem by Leon, and a short story from yours truly, which you have already read here. However! My short story over there has something extra: a write-up of my creative process while writing the story. If you're interested, go take a look .

I wrote this short story for a contest but then I got waaaay over the word limit, so I had to scrap it and start over again. I wrote another short story and sent that one in instead. The abandoned short story is as follows. Tell me what you think. It was already a week into the month of Ramadan but all Afiq could find in the dark corners of the sprawling town built on the back of the humongous beast, Buraq, was water to break his fast every evening. The water, whenever it was found, was not clean, and Afiq often had to lick it off the most repugnant of surfaces, such as the walls of an abandoned hut, rotting away, as was walls made from the skins of long ago deceased tics were wont to do after a brief period of time; or in huge acrid beads of sweat in between the the beast’s fur, where ever he could find it growing–sometimes in between buildings, other times in between blades of the beast’s fur, growing like tall blades of grass in patches very much like small fields, on the outski

Read an excerpt from Michael Moorcock's latest book, LOVERS: Mervyn and Maeve Peake. A Personal Memoir over at Enter the Octopus .

The Guardian has one of the first reviews for Haruki Murakami's latest, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running , up online and is written by Alastair Campbell. The Times meanwhile, has helpfully put up an article telling us the Top Ten things we need to know about Murakami , for those who haven't already. MG Harris, owes her published book to reading Haruki Murakami ...and is now all fangirl about him: ...I do know what reading Murakami did for me and it’s nothing less than this: it enabled me to write a publishable novel. I’ve written before about the day I met several publishers who were interested in acquiring ‘The Joshua Files’. And one of them commented “We can’t believe this is your first novel!” to which I replied (laughing) - “Well it’s not - it’s my first publishable novel. I’ve written three before this.” “So what happened,” they asked, “between writing the other three and writing Joshua Files?” So I told them the truth. In the meantime I’d read almos

TIME Magazine is asking from readers what questions to ask Haruki Murakami in an upcoming interview .

Not that there's any surprise in it but Midnight's Children is Booker of Bookers . Again. I approve. If you haven't read it yet, do so and you may not regret it. And if you haven't finished it, why not? (btw, I read Satanic Verses last month and it was over-rated.)

Was a bit surprised to hear that Tom Disch killed himself on the Fourth of July . For those not in the know, Disch was a reknowned SF writer but he was most often overlooked and under-read. Even I haven't read his acclaimed books, Camp Concentration and The Genocides , mostly because they're hard to find. But I did read his non-fiction book about SF, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of and it was a blast. Ironically, he's just had a book out, The Word of God , in which Disch writes as God. I guess embracing divinity was just too much for him.

Warning! I'm revealing the tech-side of my geekiness today. I find it interesting Anwar is a Macbook Pro man. Why does he use an Apple laptop when every other Malaysian politician I see uses a Windows machine? Was it on the recommendation of his pal, Al Gore (who happens to be on Apple's board of directors)? Maybe we can expect him to present some mind-blowing presentations using Keynote in the future. That is, if they don't throw him in jail that is. Again.

When it's excerpted in The Guardian of course! Woohoo! I don't think most people would like my personality. There might be a few - very few, I would imagine - who are impressed by it, but only rarely would anyone like it. Who in the world could possibly have warm feelings for a person who doesn't compromise, who instead, whenever a problem crops up, locks himself away alone in a closet? But is it ever possible for a professional writer to be liked by people? For me, at least, being disliked by someone, hated and despised, somehow seems more natural. Not that I'm relieved when that happens. Even I'm not happy when someone dislikes me.

KATA-SUARA featuring The Launching of Mustapa Haji Ibrahim's Poetry Book, Gemuruh Alam . which will be launched by Y. Bhg. Dato' A. Samad Said National Laureate Mustapa Haji Ibrahim was one of the artists who was directly involved in the formation of the 'Anak Alam' group, a seminal group of cutting-edge artists, poets, theater activists, dancers and various artistic personalities in the 70s. and not forgetting these fine writers and musicians: Mustapa Hj Ibrahim Siti Zainon Ismail Raja Ahmad Aminullah Dr Iqbal Chuah Guat Eng Rahman Shaari Nisah Haron Date: Saturday, 7th June 2008 Time: 5pm Venue: RA Fine Arts, 6 Jalan Aman off Jalan Tun Razak Food and Drinks Provided. Admission Free. Directions: View Larger Map Or if you choose to take the LRT, take the Kelana Jaya line (Putra line), and drop off at the Ampang Park station. Coming out of the ticket turnstiles, turn right and take the escalators up to get to the Ampang Park shopping mall. Go round Ampang Park and wal

Seeing as my country's government sees fit that me and wife starve to death, I don't think I will be buying more books in the near future. We were amongst the crazy people stuck in last night's crazy jam and spent an hour and half in the car in what usually is a five minute journey to the local petrol pump. Government says that they'll be reviewing the petrol price again next month. Not looking forward to going through that crazy rush to the pump again. Maybe next time I'll just resign myself and sit at home while muttering how cruel our PM is. Or read a good book. Or both. Anyway it all boils down to having less money to spend on books. Which makes me sad. For those curious, I am currently reading: Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses (interesting at first, but gets a bit tedious towards the end. Surprisingly I like the parts with Mahound more...I guess that might reflect something in me?) Jorge Luis Borges's Ficciones (very, very good; but not something to re

(Those who don't follow Doctor Who can just skip this post, thanks.) Woohoo! I am totally stoked about tomorrow's episode of Doctor Who, mostly because it features an infinite library! Shades of Borges anyone? While I'm on that note, I think Donna Noble is excellent as a companion. Who would've thought? I found her absolutely annoying in that one Christmas Special, and before the current season started, would have preferred Kylie Minogue staying on as companion. Alas! It was not to be. I don't have any opinions about Martha Jones because after Rose left, I was left very upset and decided to boycott the show...only for The Master (played by that cool bloke from Life on Mars !!!) to return in that season's finalé! So yes, I regret that now. Nvm! I just hope the Doctor's daughter returns in style. (If I was bothered to update my twitter account, I would probably type in: "is humming the original synthesized Doctor Who theme.")

It used to be that Haruki Murakami was very shy with the press, especially the Japanese press. But in recent years that shyness must have cast off a little. It looks like he's in the news every other month now. While I won't be surprised if he gave a comprehensive interview to a foreign newspaper (it's outside the shores of Japan where he's celebrated as a literary sensation, while he's seen as more of a hack within), it does surprise me that Murakami would give such a long and interesting review to a Japanese paper–the interview spans 5 webpages over 5 days. (Personally I've been hopping with glee with all this Murakami news pouring in!) I guess times must have changed? There's a lot of new and interesting nuggets spilled by Murakami in the interview, which discusses his work translating English classics into Japanese, his next novel(an epic worthy of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle !), how English literature and translating English literature influences his wri

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Fellow blogger and pal, Swifty , has had his short film, Chicken Rice Mystery , become one of the finalists in the BMW Shorties 2008 competition. I've seen it and I think it's an enjoyable watch. Combining elements of noir and several bits of comedy, which to me is very reminiscent of Chow Sing Chi's work in the Nineties, Chicken Rice Mystery is about a boy whose mother used to make really good chicken rice, a dish that everyone in the family remembers with great fondness. But ever since he was born, his mother stopped cooking it and now his father has grown to miss that particular chicken rice. But then there's that issue of his mother not really being able to cook very well... So how is it that his mother was able to cook this magnificent dish that everyone seems to praise? He then takes it upon himself to solve the mystery of why his mother doesn't make her particular brand of chicken rice anymore. The movie is only about ten minutes long but totally worth loadin

Before I get my new hard drive though let me show off my haul from the KLAB. 10x10 : 100 Minutes to Change the World - The Winning Plays of the Kakiscript Playwriting Competition (free, but had to fill in survey form and give up my private and personal details) Colonel Sun by Robert Markham (a pseudonym of Kingsley Amis; free, but obtained via Bookcrossing so will have to pass it on when I'm done reading) Cerpen-cerpen Terkemuka Akutagaw a (free, but obtained via Bookcrossing so will have to pass it on when I'm done reading, but at least I can say I read Akutagawa in the original Malay) Vox by Nicholson Baker (free, but obtained via Bookcrossing so will have to pass it on when I'm done reading) Ask the Dust by John Fante (free, but obtained via Bookcrossing so will have to pass it on when I'm done reading Bruce Chatwin by Nicholas Shakespeare (free, no strings attached) The Malay Peoples of Malaysia and Their Languages by Asmah Haji Omar (free, no strings attached

So even a blogpost needs a teaser? Naw... it's just that I took a lot of photos and even several videos of the KL Alternative Bookfest that I'd like to upload and post on the blog but I seem to have run out of space on my hard drive. Only 300megs left! I'm going out to buy a new drive tomorrow so I'll blog about KLAB then. Other things to get tomorrow: a Mawi haircut. All this long hair is driving me crazy!

I've only recently jumped on the Battlestar Galactica bandwagon. Until recently, I didn't watch a lot of TV and due to recent changes in my life I finally got round to watching some good TV shows (What? Watch them on terrestrial TV? You must be joking!) thanks to the internets. One of the shows I finally got round to watching is the very much acclaimed new version of Battlestar Galactica . I've watched the first four episodes of season 4 already and so far, I like what I see! (I haven't got round to downloading the rest of the episodes but will do so once I get a new hard disk drive for the PowerMac.) The story so far, as I understand it, includes a certain very interesting character by the name of Gaius Baltar. Throughout the series he's been a politician (namely the President of New Caprica), and now, he's becoming some sort of prophet promoting a monotheistic religion, very much in contrast with the more popular polytheistic religion of worshipping Roman-styl