Wednesday, June 25, 2008

MPH Breakfast Club with ... Elmo JAYAWARDENA

“COFFEE, CURRY PUFFS AND BOOKS:
WHAT A TANTALISING COMBINATION!”

The 14th MPH Breakfast Club on Saturday, June 28, 2008, at 11.30a.m. to 1.00p.m., will be featuring Singapore-based Sri Lankan novelist and short-story writer Elmo Jayawardena, the author of such novels as Sam’s Story (Vijitha Yapa Publications, Sri Lanka, 2000; Marshall Cavendish, Singapore, 2004) and The Last Kingdom of Sinhalay (M.D. Gunasena & Co., Sri Lanka, 2003), as well as a self-published collection of short stories, Rainbows in Braille (Elmo Jayawardena, 2007).

Elmo Jayawardena writes novels and short stories when he is not flying jets for Singapore Airlines or working for his charitable foundation, AFLAC International. His first novel, Sam’s Story, was first published in Sri Lanka by Vijitha Yapa Publications in 2000 and in Singapore by Marshall Cavendish in 2004, and was awarded the prestigious 2001 Gratiaen Prize for the best literary work in English in Sri Lanka. (Michael Ondaatje won the Booker Prize for The English Patient in 1992. In 1993, he gifted his prize money to institute a literary award in Sri Lanka, called the Gratiaen Prize, for the country’s best creative writing in English.) The Last Kingdom of Sinhalay, his second novel, won the State Literary Award in Sri Lanka for the best book of 2005. Jayawardena retired from Singapore Airlines in 2007 and now trains pilots for Sri Lankan Airlines.

Eric Forbes will be introducing Elmo Jayawardena while Tan May Lee will be moderating the session.

Date June 28, 2008 (Saturday)
Time 11.30a.m.-1.00p.m.
Venue MPH Bangsar Village II Lot 2F-1 (2nd Floor), Bangsar Village II, No. 2 Jalan Telawi 1, Bangsar Baru, 59100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Phone (603) 2287 3600

Food and refreshments will be served
All lovers of literature are most welcome


Elmo Jayawardena will also be doing a reading at readings@seksan’s at 3.30p.m. on the same day. Seksan Design is at No. 67 Jalan Tempinis Satu, Lucky Garden, Bangsar, 59100 Kuala Lumpur

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Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Robert RAYMER ... Lovers and Strangers Revisited (MPH Publishing, August 2008)

Sunday, June 22, 2008

ON THE COUCH WITH ... Witi IHIMAERA

WITI IHIMAERA is a Maori novelist and short-story writer. He is also a Professor of English and Distinguished Creative Fellow in Maori Literature at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His latest book is Ask the Posts of the House (Raupo Publishing, 2007), recently shortlisted for the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. He has edited nine anthologies of contemporary Maori literature, including Get On the Waka (2007) and recently completed a screenplay adaptation of his novel, The Matriarch (1986). His novel, The Whale Rider (1987), one of his best-loved novels amongst adults and younger readers alike, was made into a movie and released in 2003. Filmed on the breathtaking east coast of New Zealand, the film has been widely acclaimed. Born in Gisborne in 1944, he now lives in Auckland.

Ihimaera spoke to Eric Forbes and Tan May Lee in an e-mail interview from his home in Auckland, New Zealand.

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How did you find out about the longlist?
Life is insane at the moment with teaching, grrrr, but I managed to open my e-mails between one class and another, and found that one of my students had sent me the news about being on the longlist even before my publishers informed me. Perhaps the student wants an A and this was her version of giving an apple to the teacher!

What was the first thing you did when you found out you were longlisted?
The first thing I did was to check with my publishers and then to laugh out loud—with excitement, I might add. Then I telephoned a couple of friends and we went to a bar for a drink. Even if I don’t get any further I am ahead as they paid. I had vodka.

What do you think of the other titles on the longlist? Are you familiar with any of them? Have you read any of them?
Man, oh man, there are 39 of us. I have just met Anne Enright in Hong Kong at the Man Hong Kong Writers Festival and I have her book—it’s fascinating. I also know Roddy Doyle’s work, so Ireland is well represented with a couple of frontrunners. As a Dr Who fan (don’t tell anybody!), I’m really interested in Robert Shearman and I’ve ordered Niki Aguirre (any publishing company called Flipped Eye has gotta be looked at) and Padrika Tarrant who is one of eight writers from Britain whose books are published by Salt Publishing. Nam Le’s The Boat, from Australia, interests me, as does Jhumpa Lahiri with Unaccustomed Earth, from the U.S., as she’s a raging hot favourite. From our part of the world I have to say that it’s absolutely a pride-bursting pleasure to see Wena Poon from Singapore, Egoyan Zheng from Taiwan and Tubal R. Cain from Nigeria (yeah, yeah, not exactly our region but New Zealand Maori have a strong affinity with Black Africa), and I’ve ordered them all. Writers from Asia don’t often appear on literary lists, and I congratulate Wena Poon and Egoyan Zheng. And, of course, I have great colleagues from Aotearoa with me on the list, Tim Jones, Sue Orr and Elizabeth Smither, all paddling the waka.

How familiar are you with the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award?
Well, of course, I have read Frank O’Connor. His stories are very reflective of New Zealand Pakeha experiences and, at the same time, they are perceptive, powerful, fearless. I wasn’t aware of the Prize, however, until Haruki Murukami won it for Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman in 2006.

What is the difference between writing short stories and full-length novels?
I believe that writing short stories requires the same commitment as writing a full-length novel. When I write a short story I put the same amount of thought, intensity and commitment into it as I do into a novel. So in Ask the Posts of the House you are getting seven “novels” as it were. One of the stories in my collection, “Ask the Posts of the House,” for instance, took five months to write. Others have been in my head for years, so the thinking process has actually taken as long as any novel I have written. On another level, I also think short stories are harder to write. They have to work so precisely at the micro level where all one’s faults and weaknesses can be exposed. With novels, I am able to obscure my faults with technical trickery and, I think, I can forgive myself a little easier for letting things pass that I wouldn’t pass in a short story.

Short stories appear to be getting more popular. Writers tend to publish their short-story collections after publishing their novels. Jhumpa Lahiri continues to publish great collections. Anne Enright published a short-story collection after her Man Booker Prize-winning The Gathering. What are your thoughts on this?
I began my career with a short-story collection, and then I published novels. Although novel-writing has subsequently been something that I have managed through hard work to crack, I think I am basically a short-story writer at heart. I think this is because I am an indigenous writer and the short-story form is more akin to our traditional literary forms—poetry is closer, but I can’t write poetry—whereas the novel is a very alien, European, form.

What is your personal favourite short story or short-story collection?
Any of the collections by Samoan writer Albert Wendt or Maori writer Patricia Grace. We, like many other Maori and Pacific writers, are trying to write Pacific culture into existence. Writing for us is both a political as well as an aesthetic act.

Publishers find short-story collections hard to sell? Why do you think this is so? What can we do to make people buy or read more of such collections?
I’ll answer this question as a Maori writer. When I began my career, three publishers refused to publish my work; one of them said it was because Maori people don’t read books. Today, although I am now an established writer in New Zealand, I am able to have my work published without difficulty. But younger writers still have problems and so one of the things I do is to edit anthologies of stories by Maori authors. I’ve done nine so far. These anthologies are commercially produced and they’ve been very successful. I like to think that their major success has been in encouraging Maori writers to keep persevering within a very difficult climate. It’s important for this to happen, especially in New Zealand, where the Maori identity must assist to determine the shape of a future in which we are a minority. Yes, well, you’d think that in these days when television is reducing us to bytes of information that they’d be easier to sell rather than harder. Perhaps publishers need to change their priorities and begin to market short stories in a stronger, more positive way. I know that the trend seems to be to publish bigger and longer books. But as far as Pacific and Maori writing is concerned, I would like to think that we will find our own way of getting to the books that will sell to the tribe—and that won’t be commercially driven but, rather, culturally driven.

The six-book shortlist for the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award will be announced in mid-July 2008

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Saturday, June 21, 2008

ON THE COUCH WITH ... Adam MAREK

ADAM MAREK was born in 1974, and has been writing fiction since his teenage years. After leaving film school he worked in the music video industry for a few years, but is now part of the editorial team at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. His first collection of stories, Instruction Manual for Swallowing (Comma Press, 2007), which was recently longlisted for the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, draws us down into the subconscious engine room of modern man, conjuring a bestiary of animals, mythical creatures and unlikely hybrids from the distant future/ancient past all deployed to explore and celebrate the most human of truths. Adam lives in Bedfordshire with his wife and sons.

Marek spoke to Eric Forbes and Tan May Lee in an e-mail interview from his home in Potton, Bedfordshire in the U.K.

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How did you find out about the longlist?
Alison MacLeod, who is also on the longlist, e-mailed me to say congratulations. Alison and I shared a slot at the recent London Short Story Festival and we kept in touch.

What was the first thing you did when you found out you were longlisted?
I got this big stupid grin on my face that lasted the rest of the day. I ran downstairs (I work in the attic) to tell my wife, and then I e-mailed Rob Shearman, who I saw was also on the list—Rob and I did a couple of readings together to launch our books with Comma Press.

What do you think of the other titles on the longlist? Are you familiar with any of them? Have you read any of them?
I’ve read Rob Shearman’s Tiny Deaths, which is awesome. Rob has got a wicked imagination and his sense of humour is spot on. I’m reading—and loving—Alison MacLeod’s Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction at the moment. I look forward to reading some of the other books on the longlist soon.

How familiar are you with the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award?
I first heard about the award when Haruki Murakami won it a couple of years ago for Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman—he’s my favourite writer.

Where do you find the time to do your writing?
I write fiction in my spare time. I get up at six every morning and write for an hour before I go to work, and in the evenings and weekends. I work as an editor for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, so I still get to write all day (mainly advertising copy), and help save the planet too, which is always a good thing.

What is the difference between writing short stories and full-length novels?
There are so many analogies to draw between short stories and novels. How about this one: a short story is like a first date with someone you’re crazy about—you’ve only got their attention for a night; you can strive to be the perfect you, well-groomed, wearing your coolest outfit, smelling of something expensive. You can go out somewhere incredible and unexpected. You can reel off all your best anecdotes and make your date feel like the most magnificent creature on earth. And the kiss at the end of the night will be like no other kiss and you’ll always remember it. Writing a novel is like the relationship that comes after—you spend a long time with this person; your understanding of them is deep and rich; you get to know where all their moles are. But you can’t be perfect all the time. One foggy morning they walk in on you taking a shit and all your illusions fall away. I don’t think it’s possible to have a perfect novel, any more than it’s possible to have a perfect relationship. You can, however, have a perfect night.

Short stories appear to be getting more popular. Writers tend to publish their short-story collections after publishing their novels. Jhumpa Lahiri continues to publish great collections. Anne Enright published a short-story collection after her Man Booker Prize-winning The Gathering. What are your thoughts on this?
I hope shorts are getting more popular. Short stories are where the really exciting stuff happens. The guy who started IBM said, “If you want to succeed, double your failure rate”; I think that because short stories only need a small investment in time for the writer (and the reader), we are more willing to take risks, to make mistakes, to try something that might suck big time, or might be amazing. The fiction I like best is the stuff that makes me see something familiar as if I’ve never seen it before, or that shows me something completely original. For me, that happens most often when I’m reading short stories.

What is your personal favourite short story or short-story collection?
My favourite story has to be Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I read it during one really long bath when I was about 17, and I think parts of me are still wrinkled. I love Haruki Murakami’s Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, which won the Frank O’Connor Award two years ago. There’s also a great collection edited by Haruki Murakami which features one of his stories, but all the stories in it are great and are about birthdays—it’s called Birthday Stories. I love Will Self’s stories, but he makes me feel like such an idiot because his vocab is so ... big. I bought J.G. Ballard’s complete short stories a couple of years ago—it’s the weight of a brick with tiny print, and I dip into it every now and then and always come out dazzled. Etgar Keret’s Missing Kissinger is great—his shorts are really short; they make mine look like trousers. Karen Russell has an imagination that could burn holes through a buffalo—her collection St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves is fantastic. Also, do you remember the little Penguin 60 books of short stories that Penguin released on their sixtieth anniversary?—I loved those. I’m always looking for them when I’m in secondhand bookshops. There was one with four Patrick McGrath stories—one in particular, “The Angel,” has stuck in my head since I read it.

Publishers find short-story collections hard to sell? Why do you think this is so? What can we do to make people buy or read more of such collections?
Hmmm, I don’t know. I guess the market is controlled by the readers—publishers will respond to whatever people are buying. To get more people reading short stories, we need to write stories that are so damn good they can’t help but recommend them to everyone they know. Independent publishers, like Comma Press, should get more support so they can publish more books and promote them better. Maybe short stories need a make-over, a rebranding. They’ve been mistaken for the runty cousins of the novel for too long; bring on the champions of the short story and show everyone what they’re missing.

The six-book shortlist for the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award will be announced in mid-July 2008

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Friday, June 20, 2008

2008 Ubud Writers & Readers Festival

Tri Hita Karana: God, Humanity & Nature
Ubud, Bali
October 14-19, 2008

The established will meet the new.
The East will cross paths with the West.
It will be a literary celebration like no other.

Tri Hita Karana is the theme of the 5th International Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in Ubud, Bali. Tri Hita Karana is a Balinese Hindu concept that translates as the relationship between God, Humanity and Nature. Invited international guests include acclaimed Indian author Vikram Seth, U.S. novelist John Berendt, Mexican author Alberto Ruy-Sánchez, literary livewire Nury Vittachi, Australian novelists Carrie Tiffany and Alexis Wright, 2007 Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author Indra Sinha, Indian poet Tishani Doshi and Canadian novelist Camilla Gibb.

This year’s festival celebrates two dynamic Chinese women authors: Geling Yan and Lijia Zhang. Yan is one of the most acclaimed contemporary novelists and screenwriters writing in Chinese and English today. Her career began in the late 1970s as a journalist covering the Sino-Vietnamese border war and her first novel was published in China in 1985. In 1989, following the massacre at Tiananmen Square, she left China for the United States. Her novels include The Lost Daughter of Happiness and The Banquet Bug (or The Uninvited). Zhang’s spirited memoir, Socialism Is Great!, tells the tale of her life as a former Nanjing rocket-factory worker who spent 10 years among 10,000 comrades, participated in the Tiananmen Square protest and ended up an international journalist. The effusive Zhang is guaranteed to bring the house down with tales of how having wavy hair betrayed a pretend communist’s bourgeois affinities.

The festival will also be spotlighting the emerging stars of Southeast Asia with Malaysia-born Preeta Samarasan and Chiew-Siah Tei and Indonesian Andrea Hirata. Samarasan’s début novel, Evening Is the Whole Day (4th Estate/HarperCollins, 2008), has been described by Peter Ho Davies as “a magical, exuberant tragic-comic vision of postcolonial Malaysia reminiscent of Rushdie and Roy,” while Chiew-Siah Tei is a bilingual writer whose first novel, Little Hut of Leaping Fishes (Picador, 2008), was longlisted for the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize. Set against the backdrop of an ever-changing China, it is a historical novel written with much freshness and a striking immediacy. Xinran, author of The Good Women of China, called it “a powerful and important story of duty and sacrifice in a time when China was threatened on all sides by the West and the smell of opium filled the air.” Andrea Hirata is a young Indonesian author who has become something of a local hero with the publication of his first best-selling novel, Laskar Pelangi (or The Rainbow Warriors). Laskar Pelangi has sold more than half a million copies in Indonesia, a feat that has never been achieved in Indonesia’s literary history. This charming memoir is a story of Andrea’s childhood and friendship with nine boys (the eponymous “rainbow warriors”), growing up in a poor tin-mining community on Belitung Island. His story of school and the inspiration offered by his teacher is refreshing and endearing and reveals the rich rewards that come from sincere friendship.

“Collision of Cultures” will be one of the underlying themes of the 2008 Festival with established and emerging writers confronting the issues of Us and Them. World religions, languages and lifestyles will be examined and discussed together with the subject of migration and its impact on communities. Hot debates addressing crime and punishment in Asia, and more specifically drugs, civil rights and moral dilemmas, will also take centre-stage.

There will be unparalleled dialogue this year in her at Ubud, which lies on the fertile crossroads of two rivers, two oceans and two continents―Asia and Australia. The exotic retreat of the rich and famous in the 1930s, Ubud has now re-invented itself as an international rendezvous for writers, poets and artists from all parts of the world. It has become the stage where voices from China, India, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and more are heard. In 2008 this partnership will be strengthened with writers from beyond the region, from the heart of Africa and Central America.

Satisfy your hedonistic passions with our acclaimed stars by luxuriating in the lush surroundings of Ubud’s elegant hotels and gracious homes at our literary lunches and dinners. Join our Long Table feast in the rice fields featuring acclaimed chefs and food writers as they showcase Bali’s vibrant food culture. Enjoy workshops that teach the craft of writing or cultural activities that offer a peek inti the mystical, magical world of Bali, in between book launches, performances, exhibitions, cocktail parties and celebrations into the early hours of the morning.

On the Indonesian front, we will be featuring a tribute to the late Sutan Takdir Alijshabana, acclaimed writer and father of Bahasa Indonesia, modern Indonesian as we know it today. The Ubud Writers & Readers Festival will honour the contribution he made to the development of this language with a night of performance and readings under the stars in one of Ubud’s majestic temples.

And if that is not enough, the 2008 Festival will take to the streets, literally, with international street performers matching their wits against Ubud’s youth in a carnival of skill and artistry.

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Thursday, June 19, 2008

Steven CARROLL wins the 2008 Miles Franklin Literary Award

STEVEN CARROLL, 58, the author of The Art of the Engine Driver (2001) and The Gift of Speed (2004), has won the 2008 Miles Franklin Literary Award for his sixth novel, The Time We Have Taken (2007), it was announced on June 19, 2008, at the State Library of New South Wales. The first two novels were shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, but did not win. The Time We Have Taken is the third novel in a trilogy about a working-class suburban Melbourne family and their dreams and aspirations between 1950 and 1970. Melbourne resident Carroll said he didn’t have to leave Melbourne to be able to write about the place. The novel also recently won the 2008 Commonwealth Writers Prize for best book in Southeast Asia and South Pacific.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Preeta Samarasan's on the Cover of the July-September 2008 issue of Quill

THERE ARE LOADS of stuff to read in the July-September 2008 issue of Quill, the only magazine about books and reading in Malaysia. And yes, Preeta Samarasan’s our cover girl! Her photographs were specially taken by New York-based photographer Miriam Berkley. Look out for the following stories:

THE QUILL INTERVIEW
The indefatigable Sharon Bakar speaks to PREETA SAMARASAN, the latest Malaysian writer to make it internationally with her début novel, Evening Is the Whole Day. Photography by Miriam Berkley

POINT OF VIEW
Début novelist Preeta Samarasan on why fiction matters in more ways than one in “No More Dirty Laundry: In Defence of Fiction”

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SPECIAL FEATURES
In “More from the Mistress of Anecdotes,” Amir Muhammad enjoys Adibah Amin’s new collection of pithy observations about Malaysian life, Glimpses

Daphne Lee tells us why the Chinese-sounding Tam Lin, a character in Scottish folklore, has such sizzling sex appeal in “Smouldering Scottish Folk Tales”

In “If Only Books Could Talk,” Lydia Teh, the best-selling author of Honk! If You’re Malaysian and Life’s Like That, imagines what books would say to us if only they could talk and speak their minds

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NEWSROOM
Tan May Lee and Eric Forbes talk to 19 of the 39 writers who were recently longlisted for the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award: Niki Aguirre, Elizabeth Baines, Richard Bardsley, Carys Davies, Gerard Donovan, David Gaffney, Vanessa Gebbie, Marianne Herrmann, Witi Ihimaera, Tim Jones, Nam Le, Alison MacLeod, Adam Marek, Donald Ray Pollock, Wena Poon, Mary Rochford, Robert Shearman, Elizabeth Smither and Clare Wigfall

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PROFESSIONAL
Tech-savvy Chet Chin enlightens us on her torrid love affair with digital books in “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways”

Feeling stuck in a career rut with no place to go and no idea how to get out of it? Trent Hamm shows you how you can take action right now and revitalise your career in “15 Things You Can Do Right Now to Rejuvenate Your Career”

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INTERVIEWS
Best-selling British crime novelist DAVID HEWSON talks to Tan May Lee, Janet Tay and Eric Forbes about crime mysteries, literary fiction, and what he thinks of the Man Booker Prize and the Dan Brown phenomenon

Authors tend to be shy and evasive when it comes to having their photographs taken, but an amazing photographer like MIRIAM BERKLEY manages to capture and elicit the best in her subjects. In “The Eyes of Miriam Berkley,” Tan May Lee and Eric Forbes talk to the famous New York-based photographer about books and photography, among other things

In “The Freedom to Make the Right Choices,” Tan May Lee speaks to cardiologist SARADHA NARAYANAN who decided to hang up her stethoscope and write her first novel, The Freedom of Choice

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COLUMNS
The Monkey Island
In “State of Irritation Address,” our U.K.-based columnist Tom Sykes pokes fun at the realities of culture and life in present-day Britain

That’s Just the Way the Cookie Crumbles
Is chivalry extinct? Not quite, as our intrepid columnist Alexandra Wong discovers much to her surprise in “In All the Right Places”: true-blue gentlemen are still found in an idyllic retreat surrounded by equally blue horizons on the little fishing village of Pulau Ketam

Deconstructing the Classics
In “The Stone’s Famous Story,” Tan May Lee commends translators for the English edition of Dream of the Red Chamber, the Chinese classic that inspired the TV series and the architectural design of two scenic spots in China

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FOOD
In “Malaysians Abroad,” Yang-May Ooi regales us with stories of baked beans, soggy toasts, the enduring nature of the Malaysian palate and how food signifies love and is pivotal to cultural exchange

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TRAVEL
Imagining the lush gardens and plum blossoms portrayed in the Chinese classic, Dream of the Red Chamber, just isn’t enough for Tan May Lee. She headed off to Daguanyuan to see the real thing

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All these and lots more in the July-September 2008 issue of Quill!

CREDITS
Photographs of Preeta Samarasan © Miriam Berkley
Photograph of David Hewson © Mark Bothwell

Contributors
Sharon Bakar / Miriam Berkley / Chet Chin / Trent Hamm / Daphne Lee / Amir Muhammad / Yang-May Ooi / Preeta Samarasan / Tom Sykes / Lydia Teh / Alexandra Wong

Quill is a quarterly book magazine coordinated and edited by Tan May Lee, Rodney Toh, Janet Tay and Eric Forbes and published in Malaysia

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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

BOOK LAUNCH Chiew-Siah TEI's Little Hut of Leaping Fishes (Picador, 2008)

TAMPIN-born and Glasgow-based Chiew-Siah Tei is launching her first novel, Little Hut of Leaping Fishes (Picador, 2008), longlisted for the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize in 2007. It’s a sweeping tale of sibling rivalry, cultural upheaval and the indelible power of blood ties, set against the dying days of Imperial China.

Lovers of literature and aspiring writers alike are invited to meet this inspiring writer on June 19, 2007!

Exclusive Pre-Launch Talk
The evening will start with an exclusive pre-launch talk where Tei will talk about her experience researching and writing her first novel as well as the road she took to get it published.

“A powerful and important story of duty and sacrifice in a time when China was threatened on all sides by the West and the smell of opium filled the air.” Xinran, author of The Good Women of China

Date: Thursday, June 19, 2008
Time: 7.30p.m.-8.15p.m.
Venue: British Council, Ground Floor, South Block, Wisma Selangor Dredging, 142C Jalan Ampang, 50450 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
This is a free event but places are limited, so please RSVP via e-mail to arts@britishcouncil.org.my or call 03-2723-7988 by Tuesday, June 17, 2008.

Launch of Little Hut of Leaping Fishes
Date: Thursday, June 19, 2008
Time: 8.30p.m.-10.00p.m.
Venue: British Council, Ground Floor, West Block, Wisma Selangor Dredging, 142C Jalan Ampang, 50450 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
This event is open to the public. No registration required. The first 50 guests will receive an exclusive goodie bag. Light refreshments will be served.

Little Hut of Leaping Fishes is published by Picador and distributed in Malaysia and Singapore by Pansing

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Monday, June 16, 2008

ON THE COUCH WITH ... Tim JONES

TIM JONES was born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom, in 1960. His family emigrated to New Zealand when he was two, and, not having much choice in the matter, he accompanied them. He grew up in southern South Island, where he still has many friends and fond memories. He now lives in Wellington, where he is a writer, editor, part-time marketing manager for a web company, husband, father, activist on sustainable energy issues, and lover of cricket, music, and many other fine things. He has published two collections of poetry, Boat People and All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens, a previous short fiction collection, Extreme Weather Events, and a fantasy novel, Anarya’s Secret. His second short-story collection, Transported, published in June 2008 by Random House New Zealand, was recently longlisted for the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. He is currently working on a novel and is gradually accumulating enough poems for a third collection. He sees more short stories in his future.

Jones spoke to Eric Forbes and Tan May Lee in an e-mail interview from his home in Wellington, New Zealand.

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How did you find out about the longlist?
I found out about the longlist first from Tania Hershman’s blog; then I confirmed it by reading the story in the Guardian online; then my publisher, Harriet Allan of Random House New Zealand, got in touch to tell me the good news. After that, I was ready to believe it.

What was the first thing you did when you found out you were longlisted?
I thanked my publisher for submitting the book, and congratulated Sue Orr, the other Random House New Zealand author on the longlist. Then I called my wife, and then I got back to work on the short story I was writing at the time. (That last part sounds good, but to tell you the truth, I don’t really remember what I did after that—it’s equally likely I fired up some Metallica and performed air guitar solos in the living room for a while!)

What do you think of the other titles on the longlist? Are you familiar with any of them? Have you read any of them?
I think that it’s a very extensive longlist, and that there are some very fine writers included on it. I expect every writer included on the list is a fine writer, but I’m not familiar with many of them and their work. I haven’t read any of the other collections on the longlist, but I have read fiction by a number of the authors. The longlisting has prompted me to seek out work by the authors listed—I’ve been reading and enjoying some of Vanessa Gebbie’s stories, for example.

How familiar are you with the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award?
I had heard of it, and recall hearing of Haruki Murakami’s success with Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman in 2006, but I wasn’t very familiar with it—and I didn’t know Random House New Zealand had submitted the manuscript of my collection.

What is the difference between writing short stories and full-length novels?
Writing ideas either come to me while I’m walking, or are sparked off by something I’ve read: for instance, the story “Filling the Isles” in Transported was sparked off by a misprint of the phrase “filling the aisles” in a newspaper report. Usually the idea is for a setting, a plot, or a “what if?”—the characters come along later.

The next question is, “what sort of idea is this—poem, story, novel?” I can’t really explain how I decide this; it’s a matter of instinct rather than analysis, and the boundaries are often blurred. In my most recent poetry collection, All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens, there’s a poem inspired by the same idea that generated a story in my first short-story collection, Extreme Weather Events. The first story in Transported, “Rat Up a Drainpipe,” about a New Zealander trying to make a go of it in Australia, has also spawned a poem on the same theme called “Accountant.”

Most of my poems have some narrative element, so the difference between poems and short stories isn’t very large. But to merit consideration as a novel, an idea has to call up a network of associations, settings, potential characters, plot points and themes that feel as though they have enough potential to be developed over 300 or so pages.

As for the actual writing process, a short story (if it’s going well) is a pleasure to write, whereas a novel—even a novel that’s going well—is a slog. Turn on computer, write the day’s quota of words, turn off computer. Repeat until finished. I’ve written two novels so far, and one of them—my fantasy novel Anarya’s Secret—has been published. I’m glad to have written them, but I’d be lying if I said it had been fun all the way.

Short stories appear to be gaining more popularity. Jhumpa Lahiri continues to publish great collections. Anne Enright published a short-story collection after her Man Booker Prize-winning The Gathering. What are your thoughts on this?
My interest in reading and in writing started with a field, science fiction, in which the short story was for a long time the dominant literary form—it’s really only the past thirty years or so that the novel has come to dominate the field in terms of both sales success and critical acclaim. In the last ten years, however, the circulation figures of print science-fiction magazines have been dropping steadily, and excellent web-based magazines like Strange Horizons have only proved a partial replacement.

So that’s not somewhere that short stories are getting more popular. But perhaps the picture is better for literary fiction: the length of the Frank O’Connor Award longlist is a sign that publishers are still willing to publish short-story collections, and the award provides welcome recognition of the form. On a purely commercial level, awards sell books, and simply being longlisted for the Frank O’Connor Award has brought Transported attention it wouldn’t otherwise have received. I hope that the establishment of this award has served, or will serve, as a turning point in the fortunes of the short story.

What is your personal favourite short story or short-story collection?
My favourite individual short story is Mikhail Lermontov’s “Taman.” It’s one of the five linked short stories and novellas in Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time: that’s usually described as a novel, but to my mind, it’s more like a linked collection. The stories are about the misadventures of a young Russian officer in the Caucasus in the early 1800s. In “Taman,” he gets in too deep, figuratively and literally, in a seashore town. What I love about the story is that character is revealed primarily through action rather than introspection. Anton Chekhov once called “Taman” the perfect short story, and I see no reason to disagree!

My second favourite, though, is probably a novella, “The Voices of Time,” an early story by J.G. Ballard.

My favourite collection is Jorge Luis Borges’s Labyrinths. Borges is the writer I turn to when I feel tired of writing. A few pages of his fiction—or his poetry—and I’m raring to go again. He’s an inexhaustible source of inspiration.

I’d also like to mention three great collections of science-fiction stories, The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories, by Gene Wolfe; Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, by James Tiptree, Jr. (the writing name of Alice Sheldon); and Expedition to Earth, by Arthur C. Clarke. It was these early stories by Clarke, full of wonder and nostalgia, that first got me interested in writing short fiction.

Finally, I will read anything by Alice Munro with great delight.

What’s the publishing scene in New Zealand like? Is it easy to get your stories published in New Zealand?
Yes and no. New Zealand has a proud tradition of short-story writing—with Katherine Mansfield and Frank Sargeson among the founders of that tradition, and Owen Marshall its best-known current proponent—but that writing is very much in the realist tradition. Some of what I write fits within that, but not all: as well as the realist stories, Transported contains metafiction, satire, and various flavours of speculative fiction. In terms of publishing individual stories, I’ve been able to get the more realist stories published within New Zealand, but have often had to go offshore to find homes for the others. I’m grateful to Random House New Zealand for publishing such a diverse collection.

Publishers find short-story collections hard to sell. Why do you think this is so? What can we do to make people buy or read more of such collections?
My answer at this point—I’m responding two days after Transported was officially released—is that bookstores are reluctant to order large numbers of copies, because they perceive, rightly or wrongly, that the public prefers novels. I have friends who’ve told me personally that they don’t read short stories, so perhaps the booksellers are right. I think there’s still a perception out there that short stories are like trainer wheels for people who are practising to become novelists.

What to do about it? I’m not sure. Write more vividly, use all the channels to reach readers we can, and console ourselves with the hope that, in an attention-challenged world, readers who consider themselves too busy to read novels will alight on short stories instead.

Information about Tim Jones’s books is available on his blog. Transported is available to international readers via New Zealand Books Abroad.

The six-book shortlist for the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award will be announced in mid-July 2008

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Sunday, June 15, 2008

ON THE COUCH WITH ... Elizabeth SMITHER

ELIZABETH SMITHER was born in New Plymouth, New Zealand, in 1941. Although best known as a poet, she is also a novelist and short-story writer. She has spent much of her life in New Plymouth where she still lives. She recently retired as a librarian but still work as a book reviewer and journalist. She has two sons and a daughter. She is the author of four other collections of short stories, Nights at the Embassy (1990), Mr Fish (1994), The Mathematics of Jane Austen (1997) and Listening to the Everly Brothers and Other Stories (2002). Her latest collection of short stories, The Girl Who Proposed (Cape Catley, 2008) is on the longlist for the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. She is also the author of four novels: First Blood (1983), Brother-love Sister-love (1986), The Sea Between Us (2003) and Different Kinds of Pleasure (2006). She has published 15 collections of poetry.

Smither spoke to Eric Forbes and Tan May Lee in an e-mail interview from her home in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

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How did you find out about the longlist?
I found out about the longlist from a writer who sent me an e-mail.

What was the first thing you did when you found out you were longlisted?
The first thing I did was to go on Google and check for myself.

What do you think of the other titles on the longlist? Are you familiar with any of them? Have you read any of them?
I’ve just reviewed Anne Enright’s Taking Pictures for the New Zealand Listener and I’m hoping to read as many other finalists as soon as possible.

How familiar are you with the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award?
I had heard about the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, especially since a New Zealand writer, Charlotte Grimshaw, made the shortlist last year with her first collection of stories. It is not only a prestigious award but it seems very open in its judgements.

What is the difference between writing short stories and full-length novels?
The short story, I think, is more intense and perhaps it more resembles the way we imagine our lives to be. Incidents that change us, pivotal events or conclusions, or even something like the beginning of doubt. The short story is a marvellously inventive form. It can not only range from very short to very long, it can also be highly experimental, much more so, I think, than the novel. If a short story is like us looking back on the highlights of our lives, the novel is the whole life, into which highs and lows seem to disappear and dissipate. I was thinking recently that the sharp emotions we have when we are young, even if they are mistaken, may be more valuable than the blander wisdom when we are old. The short story is on the side of the sharp emotion.

Short stories appear to be getting more popular. Jhumpa Lahiri continues to publish acclaimed collections. Anne Enright published a short-story collection after her Man Booker Prize-winning The Gathering. What are your thoughts on this?
I’m delighted short stories are enjoying a renaissance since they are so suitable for our modern lives. Far better to read a riveting short story before you fall asleep than a few pages of a novel. I think the short story needs a big advertising campaign to help it on its way. I think young people particularly are finding they enjoy them.

What is your personal favourite short story or short-story collection?
So many to choose from: most recent favourite is Tim Winton’s The Turning. I also deeply love Mavis Gallant’s Paris stories. Mary Lavin’s Irish ones.

What’s the publishing scene in New Zealand like? Is it easy to get your stories published in New Zealand?
The New Zealand publishing scene, perhaps because it is outside the mainstream, is peculiarly vibrant. Quite a few publishers are publishing short-story collections—not in the same quantity as novels but they are not saying no either.

Publishers find short-story collections hard to sell. Why do you think this is so? What can we do to make people buy or read more of such collections?
I think we need to think laterally. Show the history of the short story and its wonderful practitioners. Televise them, read them on the radio. Put big advertisements on the tube. Leave the collection you’ve just read at a bus stop. Above all have faith in them because they so wonderfully reflect human life.

The six-book shortlist for the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award will be announced in mid-July 2008

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Saturday, June 14, 2008

ON THE COUCH WITH ... Marianne HERRMANN

MARIANNE HERRMANN is the author of Signaling for Rescue (New Rivers Press, 2007) which was recently longlisted for the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Signaling for Rescue also received the 2006 New Rivers Press Many Voices Project Award. Herrmann grew up in Winnetka, Illinois, U.S. She received a BA in Art History and English from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota. She is the recipient of a Bush Artist Fellowship in Literature and a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Fellowship for her fiction. Her writing has garnered awards from various literary journals, including Hunger Mountain, The Journal, The Ledge, Inkwell and Speakeasy. She has served as an editor of Northern Lit Quarterly, taught creative writing at the University of Minnesota, and lectured in art history at the American School in Florence, Italy.

Hermann spoke to Eric Forbes and Tan May Lee in an e-mail interview from her home in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, U.S.

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How did you find out about the longlist?
I was checking to see if my collection had received any new press and the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award popped up on the screen. It was pure chance. I was stunned and grateful to be included on the list with such gifted writers.

What was the first thing you did when you found out you were longlisted?
My daughter had just arrived home from school and was checking in when I saw the news pop up on the computer screen. I screamed and she ran over and we read about the longlist. I called my husband and e-mailed close friends. I recall that evening as a blur of joy.

What do you think of the other titles on the longlist? Have you heard about or read any of them?
The list itself is a gift. I have read much of Jhumpa Lahiri’s beautiful new book, Unaccustomed Earth, and am deeply impressed by the work of writers such as Anne Enright and Roddy Doyle. What is equally wonderful is the opportunity to discover the work of writers with whom I am not familiar. Avenues to books such as these are missing from the literary landscape, and the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award provides such a path to remarkable writing from around the world.

How familiar are you with the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award?
I became acquainted with the award when I discovered the work of Yiyun Li, who was the first writer to win. After that, I kept track of the winners.

What is the difference between writing short stories and full-length novels?
I’ve been working on a novel for the past few years and the process of writing novels and stories is quite different. Writing a novel feels slippery and uncontrolled, even precarious. One wrong move and things can veer off course. Characters are more likely to take an unexpected turn, as they have more time to develop and get into trouble, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Keeping the scope of a novel in one’s mind is also a challenge, particularly when you must focus on the details and inner life of each character within the greater scheme of this vast landscape of events. In writing a story, I am drawn to an incident in the life of a character, derived from a compelling image or painful event that has haunted me for some time. I build on those events and images, pulling from seemingly disparate elements that I sense are in some way related. When such elements come together in a manner that illuminates and underscores the essence of the story, I feel deeply gratified. There is great mystery involved in short-story and novel writing, but with stories, there is an increased feeling of control.

Short stories appear to be getting more popular. Jhumpa Lahiri continues to publish great collections. Anne Enright published a short-story collection after her Man Booker Prize-winning The Gathering. What are your thoughts on this?
I have always found, on the whole, that some of the best writing is done in the short-story form. This isn’t to say there aren’t brilliant novels, but there are so many superb stories of limitless variety to be found in magazines, collections, anthologies and journals. In twenty minutes, a reader can be inspired, even changed and transformed, in heartrending, unimaginable ways. I can only hope that stories continue to grow in popularity, as a wealth of glorious work exists to be discovered and read.

What is your personal favourite short story or short-story collection? Do you favour the darker themes, or will you also enjoy the light-hearted, exotic ones?
My list of favourite stories is endless. The Stories of John Cheever knocked me out in college. The book is a powerful evocation of American life in the mid-twentieth century, so dark and poignant. I am always fascinated by work that explores darker themes, but I also admire a writer who leads his or her characters to an epiphany with elements of hope and redemption. I adore the work of Lorrie Moore, William Trevor and Alice Munro. James Joyce’s story “The Dead” in Dubliners is a masterpiece. I love finding a Tessa Hadley story in The New Yorker; there is such richness and variety in her work. Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies is a revelation, and Tobias Wolff is so versatile, yet controlled in his writing. When I first entertained the idea of writing stories back in high school, I was drawn to the stories of Ernest Hemingway for their emotional impact and deceptively simple style.

How much did your MA in Creative Writing help you in becoming a better writer?
Earning an MA in Creative Writing gave me the confidence to pursue writing fiction. The encouragement I received from various professors was crucial to my development. The graduate program was also a marvellous place to meet other young writers, people who have become some of my closest friends and provided great support. These are the people who have kept me going through the dark times of rejection. My MA program taught me important fundamentals, yet my real education occurred as I did the hard work of writing and revising and, most importantly, as I studied the work of the finest writers.

Publishers find short-story collections hard to sell? Why do you think this is so? What can we do to make people buy or read more of such collections?
Excellent questions that we as a culture must address. For those of us who love literary fiction, short stories appear to be a splendid fit for our fast-paced life. When we have so little time, a story is perfect for reading during a train or car ride, while waiting for a child to finish a lesson, or just before bed. Considering all of the marketing savvy out there, it would seem that opportunities exist for marketing stories more effectively. At book clubs, readers discuss the difficulty of finding terrific new work. One of the best things about the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award is that it recognises the work of those independent publishers who do not possess powerful publicity machines. For these publishers, it is difficult, sometimes impossible, to get their story collections into widespread distribution. It is heartbreaking to realise that countless astonishing books will disappear before they are ever known. Possibly it will require a troop of maverick publishers working with gifted marketers to come up with a plan to help readers take notice, to provide the essential information regarding what is available. A deep desire exists on the part of the reader to discover beautiful literature, and what a fine thing it would be if the business end of the literary world acknowledged and acted on that desire.

The six-book shortlist for the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award will be announced in mid-July 2008

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