Archive for March, 2007

KL Book Events - the photos (2)

Here are some pics from the Readings event on the Saturday afternoon, when I had the privilege of reading my work alongside talented, local writers.

Pic 4: With Sharanya Mannivanan, poet, and Eric Forbes
Pic 5: With Wong Pui Nam, celebrated playwright; Shan Mughalingam, well-known writer and his friend Christina
Pic 6: With Ted Mahsun, writer and blogger and his friend, Amina
Pic 7: With Mike, journalist for The Star and blogger
Pic 8: With Sharon Bakar, literary hub of the KL writing scene and Chet, writer
Pic 9: Reading from my work in progress

For other write-ups of the events by KL bloggers, see:

Kenny Mah’s blog - Kenny is a talented photographer and graphic designer in his spare time, in between blogging and writing and his day job. It looks like he may have found himself a new career as his recent photos and banner designs have resulted in some commissions to design book covers and posters for local books and events.

Sharanya Mannivanan’s blog - Sharanya is a young and impressive poet with one chap book to her name. She is working on her first novel and read an extract at the Litbloggers Breakfast - she has a strong command of language and imagery.

KG’s blog - KG is a writer and blogger, among many other talents. As it turns out, before he started poetic, literary writing, he wrote thrillers, too - very eclectic!

Xeus’s blog - Xeus is the pseudonym of Lynette Kwan, author of the macabre collection of short stories, Dark City. She has been inspired by our discussion on the state of Malaysian writing at the breakfast club to start a writers circle for Malaysian writers to critique each other’s work and mentor each other. Great stuff!

Posted by Yang-May Ooi on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 7:01am

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KL Book Events - the photos (1)

I’m now back in London after a week in Kuala Lumpur and most importantly, I’m back at my computer and able to do fun things like upload photos and blog in writing about my whirlwind visit to my hometown.

Breakfast with Litbloggers

I will start off my series of written posts about my KL trip with a recap of the book events I was invited to in KL last Saturday. In the morning, I spoke at the inaugural meeting of the Breakfast with Litbloggers series organised by booksellers and book publishers, MPH. You can listen to my phoneblog (episode 6) about the event here. It seemed that anyone who was anyone in the blogging world was there - and I was thrilled that the latest UK-published Malaysian-writer Tan Twan Eng was also there. You can also read Sharon Bakar’s write up of the event over at her blog in her post Litbloggers Breakie and Yang-May for Breakfast - she also has some great photos, some of which I’ve reproduced below.

Pic 1: The Breakfast Club at MPH
Pic 2: With Eric Forbes, editor at MPH Publications
Pic 3: With Tan Twan Eng, author of The Gift of Rain

Posted by Yang-May Ooi on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 7:00am

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Modern Music

Yonner came to fame recently when his nose trumpet videos on YouTube brought him to the attention of Channel 4, the UK terrestial TV station. He was featured on their Homemade series on T4 in January this year.

These days I don’t watch much terrestial TV (there never seems to be much worth watching…) so I had never heard of him until I came across this. I love the way he has cut the rhythm bits and the harmonies together and the whole idea is wonderfully, hilariously creative.

He also does the UK and US national anthems on his nose trumpet but they are less interesting without the rhythm and harmony sections. From the comments on his site and his YouTube channel, it looks like he has inspired others to try out nose trumpeting. Maybe we will soon see a full swing band a la Glenn Miller with nose trumpets, nose trombones etc!

You can find out more at www.yonner.co.uk.

Posted by Yang-May Ooi on Monday, March 5th, 2007 at 7:00am

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