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Showing posts with label MPH Quill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MPH Quill. Show all posts

Wednesday 26 November 2014

MPH Quill Issue 43, October to December 2014

In this, the last issue of MPH Quill, the cover and main story feature three authors from the MPH Masterclass Kitchens series: dietitian Goo Chui Hoong, baker Ezekiel Ananthan and cooking instructor Sapna Anand. Get to know them.




Also:

  • Three more personalities: Daphne Iking, Zlwin Chew and Owen Yap shares stuff they can't do without - books, gadgets and ... stuff.
  • Who are the minds behind Malaysian YouTube video channel The Ming Thing and videos such as "Let Me Sleep", "Your Accent Come from Where", "How to Eat Mashed Potatoes" and "How to know You're a Malaysian"?
  • Regular contributors Ellen Whyte and Shantini Suntharajah share time-saving tips and ways to boost your self-esteem, respectively. Also by the former, the lowdown on collective nouns for animals, six herbs to need to get acquainted with, and a quiz to gauge how romantic you are.
  • Three book launches: Made in Malaysia by freelancer and columnist Alexandra Wong, new and reprinted collections by Datuk Lat, and Sofia Leong Abdullah's guide to the franchising industry in Malaysia.
  • A couple of recipes from another Masterclass Kitchen cookbook: The Fat Spoon Cookbook for the upcoming festive season.

And more.

Soon to arrive at all good bookstores, for the last time.

Wednesday 20 August 2014

MPH Quill, Issue 42, July to September 2014

Yes, MPH's Quill magazine is still being produced. This issue has radio and TV host Azura Zainal (whose masterclass on hosting we'd published.




(Yes, I may have skipped an issue or two. Work and all that.)

Highlights include:

  • Leon Wing looks at smartphone addiction and highlights some serious mishaps involving the devilish devices.
  • Charmaine Augustin goes from broadcasting to gourmet foods with her venture Passion Doux. Shantini Suntharajah speaks to her about her sweet business.
  • Shantini also chats with HR consultant, cat lady and maestro of macarons Anna Tan on coaching, cats and cakes.
  • HANDS Percussion and their latest production, Tchaikovsky on Gamelan, is also featured in this issue. Several of my colleagues attended the performance last night.
  • Juan Margrita Gabriel went to Pulau Banding and the Belum Rainforest Resort and was captivated by what she found there.
  • Who's "Storm Chase" and how did he/she end up contributing these tips to "rescue your relationship"?

All this and more in this issue.

Friday 15 November 2013

MPH Quill, Issue 39, October to December 2013

...has some funny people: Douglas Lim, Harith Iskander, and Kuah Jenhan (comedian, movie critic, ice-cream flavour, etc) talking about the serious side of stand-up comedy.




Also in this issue:

  • Excerpts from photographer Kenny Loh's photojournal, Born in Malaysia, which is, from what I've heard so far, getting rave reviews for the images and text. But mostly for the images.
  • Also: excerpts from Jojo Struys's Guide to Wellness, from MPH Publishing's line of how-to books from well-known experts in their fields.
  • Nick Vujicic was in town and Juan Margrita Gabriel, one of our marketing elves, was there to see him in action. Her piece on him appears in this issue.
  • Edwin Yapp profiles several kinds of online 'demons' and how you can spot them - and avoid falling for their schtick.
  • Follow Ellen Whyte over one day in Santiago di Compostela in Spain's district of Galicia.
  • Yap Ming Hui seems to suggest that you should only trust your gut when you're hungry. In these uncertain times, investing by gut is not a good idea.

And more. Available soon at MPH bookstores and major newsstands at RM8 a copy.

Tuesday 9 July 2013

MPH Quill, Issue 38, July to September 2013

...features the girls of indie ice cream brand The Last Polka.

From what I heard, the senior editors had a field day with the interview, photoshoot, and presumably lunch at The Bee, Jaya One. The girls were dolled up by the Amber Chia Academy.




In this issue:

  • Profile of three women entrepreneurs: Chantelle Chuah (JesseChantelle Chocolatier), Yoshini Jaya Manogaran (Urban OPI Nail Salon) and Nicole Rodrigues (Mountain Juice).
  • Also profiled are three blogshops: thecalaman.com, trendyconfessions.com, and The Pink Sort (facebook.com/thepinksort).
  • A chat with Philippe Charriol, founder of the luxury brand Charriol, and a feature on actress and poet Hélène Cardona.
  • Kid Chan talks about his past and his book, and Ellen Whyte talks about Angkor Wat.
  • Articles on how to be happy, a quiz to find out what kind of a spender you are, and a (rather oversimplistic) way to tell if your man is a prince or a player.

And more, coming soon to bookstores and news stands.

Monday 6 May 2013

A New Quill For A New Year

They said they were revamping Quill into a lifestyle mag. However, I wasn't quite prepared for the new look, which was finally revealed last week.


The new Quill, not quite like the old Quill


It's like watching your prim-and-proper little girl grow up into Lady Gaga.

While book-related pieces will have a place in the 'new' Quill, expect to see more everyday stuff behind the covers. As this incarnation of Quill evolves, we hope to feature more great stuff as the mag finds its voice (because now everybody can contribute, not just authors and book people).




What you'll find in this issue:

  • With her new guide book on how to be a successful model, Amber Chia pays it forward. Find out how she made her name.
  • Stephen HB Twinings of Twinings Tea, talks about the beverage and the company, and shares his reading habits.
  • A note from Datuk Abdul Kadir Jasin of Berita Publishing on Tun M's Blogging to Unblock: A Citizen's Rights.
  • An excerpt from Adibah Amin's As I Was Passing II: "A laughter of eggs" and other odd-sounding collective nouns.
  • Chef Malcom Goh from AFC's Back to the Streets re-invents several hawker delights.
  • Strategies to start saving for one's retirement, from Yap Ming Hui.
  • An excerpt from Only 13 the "sordid sexposé" about a young victim of Thailand's sex industry.

And more. It's still RM8 per copy and available at all major bookstores and news stands.

Saturday 8 December 2012

MPH Quill October-December/Anniversary Issue 2012

So, for Quill, magazine MPH decided to combine the last issue and the anniversary issue for 2012 into what I call 'the Syed Mokhtar issue', in conjunction with the release of his biography by Premilla Mohanlall.



Frequent Quill contributor Shantini Suntharajah interviewed Deborah Henry - the author, not Miss Universe Malaysia 2011 - about her first novel, The Whipping Club.



A version of my review/blab about the hilarious New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English (1855) by José da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino also appears in this issue.



Singapore-based student Alycia Lim caught artist and coffee cup beautifier Boey Cheeming on one of his book tour stops around Malaysia and Singapore for his illustrated autobiography When I Was A Kid.



Anis Rozalina Ramli from Tourism Malaysia takes us around old Terengganu and highlights some places to see and things to do there.



There's more, so pick up a copy at a newsstand or selected bookstores. For some reason, it's also available online now. The web site people put it there, so I suppose it's okay to pass it on. Download PDFs here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Maybe it's better that it's available online in PDF. Taking pictures of glossy pages without imprinting your 'ghost' on them is hard. But this might be a one-off thing.

Wednesday 12 September 2012

Well Done

Though he's left the kitchen, everyone's favourite trash-talking chef is still dishing out food for thought


A bitter and angry chef, resigned to remain rooted behind a stove until he dies, lets it rip in an over-testosteroned rant-fest of a memoir dedicated to his ilk and pokes fun at TV chefs, vegans, and the like. He's confident that the book will never get him on TV, take him to exotic foreign locales, or hook him up with more famous, qualified chefs.

Anthony Bourdain has eaten a lot of things since then, including his own words; check out his other books: A Cook's Tour and The Nasty Bits.

Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook is the book fans have been waiting for since That Book, Kitchen Confidential. Profane and profound, his take on all things close to his heart are a joy to read, especially in countries where freedom of expression also comes with a hefty rulebook to safeguard presumably fragile egos.

Hunter S Thompson may be the father of gonzo journalism, but it's this chef-turned-author and travel show host that many of us with an opinion and a shtick to bandy about want to be one day.

From Medium Raw, we learn a bit more about what happened to Bourdain since That Book came out. Why he became a father at fifty. The new targets of his ire. The Top Chef contestant anonymously featured in That Book. The deal behind David Chang, who could be the next Angry Writing Chef. More tantalising are the latest updates about the prominent personalities featured in That Book, and why Bourdain called that restaurant reviewer a dirty name.


Burning bridges
We also learn, in spite of all he has now, why Bourdain doesn't seem happy. In his jottings one still senses the jitteriness of someone who had lost something good when he least expected it - and constantly looks out for the next such catastrophe. If he's not burning bridges, one suspects he's checking to see if someone else will burn them, or if the bridges spontaneously combust.

Probably explains his apparent gusto for the life he's leading now; if he concentrates on going forward, he can forget about looking over his shoulder.

In the prologue, we get a sense of how different things have been for Bourdain since Kitchen Confidential, published over a decade ago. The clandestine gathering of world-class chefs at a secret dinner capped by a taste of the controversial ortolan dish is worlds apart from his old life. He not sure why he's here, other than being a guest of his best pal, who sounds suspiciously like the Michelin-starred chef of Le Bernadin, Eric Ripert.


UK edition of Medium Raw from Bloomsbury with new
cover (left) and US edition from HarperCollins/Ecco


Sure it's fun, exciting. But he also sounds unsure, lost, out of place. Maybe a little guilty. I shouldn't be having this much fun, he seems to be thinking. This is not my circle, which I left - or rather, abandoned - for a more cushier gig.

Is that why he flagellates himself so ruthlessly in the first few chapters of Medium Raw? "Heretic", "sell-out", he calls himself. He compares himself to a prostitute, drops names of chefs who've taken similar paths and explains why they did it, as if it's something needing justification. The calamitous Caribbean island getaway with a crazy rich chick, after the end of his first marriage, must've been very painful to recall.


Paid his dues
He gets over it, though. He's paid his dues, I think, and his new jet-setting life now is much better suited for his age. "If I go back to the kitchen now, it would break me," he confesses in The Nasty Bits.

Besides being less angry, he's also more neutral, finding silver linings in the same subjects he used to run down. Such performances, however, feel forced, like in the chapter on US chef and food activist Alice Waters, the "Pol Pot in a muumuu". And he's still shining the shoes of British chef and Parkinson's disease sufferer Fergus Henderson. It made sad reading.

Similarly forced is the chapter devoted to food porn. Though formulaic, it still had enough mojo to drive one into night markets, looking for placebos to lush descriptions of chicken butt yakitori.

Foreign audiences outside the US, however, may have problems with his references to obscure pop and food culture. He doesn't explain, in one chapter, why he considers Mario Batali and Eric Ripert heroes. When this book was first published, Ripert chaired a New York-based charity that rescues unused food to feed hungry people, and Batali was active in charities for children.

...Well, it is said that he says a lot – and says it damn well, too – about the things he feels strongly for.

In the ten years between Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw, he never really left us at all. He's still slinging it, commenting on more than just food: in the news, online, in the airwaves, on TV - seemingly one of the last honest people out there who speaks his mind with little thought of the repercussions, because some things have to be said.

Keep talking, Tony. We're all ears.


Another version of this review was first published in the July - September 2012 issue of MPH Quill. This review was based on the 2010 Bloomsbury (UK) edition of the book.



Medium Raw
A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

Anthony Bourdain
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (2010)
281 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-1-4088-0934-1

Tuesday 11 September 2012

MPH Quill, July - September 2012 Issue

...is very damn late. I know. But it's out.

I've heard talk about changes in direction for Quill, but no clues about that so far.

Okay, let's see what's inside.


...Luke Clark, editor of Discovery Channel Magazine, on the mag's
relaunch (right)...


...Adam Jacot de Boinod speaks about weird words and his books
about them...


...profile of Dina Zaman and her short story collection, King of the Sea...


...Ellen Whyte spends a night at the Szechwan Opera in Chengdu...


...and more. Of course there's always more.

Saturday 5 May 2012

Still Running

Some may have concerns about recycling old stuff for articles, but I think it's fine in some cases, like highlighting good books, for instance.

Since I wrote this unabashedly pimpin' review, little has changed for the book and the author. And the magazine needed some stuff. So here it is. Meant every damn word, too.

...Never expected it to turn out better than the original review.


Cool running
Jeremy Chin tells Alan Wong that believing in what you do despite the odds is the most important ingredient towards becoming a great writer

first published in the annual issue (2012) of MPH Quill


2010. The Annexe, Central Market. A curious sight, one of many: Who was this bald, dopey-looking, self-effacing Chinese fellow, selling copies of his début novel, Fuel? I bought a copy with some degree of trepidation.

Several days afterwards, a friend borrowed the book and finished it before I could turn to page one. The language in Fuel held her spellbound; its ending made her weep.


Born to run
Fuel’s protagonist, Timothy Malcolm Smith, is the creative whiz at London ad agency Cream. He’s friendly, charitable, deeply spiritual, philosophical, good with the ladies, and keeps virtually no vices. He doesn’t pray to Christ, he chats with Him, calling him “Jezza” or “Jez”.

There’s this British coffee franchise, Common Grounds, which is older than penicillin, tea bags, even sliced bread. Like bread, however, the brand has gone stale. With his capable and charming assistant Cambria, Timmy swoops in with a plan. The campaign is paradigm-changing. The video ad goes viral. Common Grounds is rescued. One can almost visualise the headlines: “CREAM SAVES COFFEE”.

More ad campaigns follow, including a poem for a charity organisation’s ad that blows everyone away. Rival agencies soon come a-courting, including New York creative powerhouse Oddinary. But, for the time being, he stays put.

And there’s this other dream of his: training in secret since his childhood, Timmy wants to run and win the New York Marathon, taking the entire race by surprise as a dark horse of a champion. No small feat, considering that it means defeating the Ethiopian long-distance running champion, Haile Gebrselassie.

Every phrase, every paragraph has purpose, is strung together well and polished to a showroom sheen.

Did I mention that he’s rich? His self-designed Balinese-style four-bedroom pad, Ankhura, crowns a 18-floor luxury apartment building on the edge of London’s Canary Wharf. It has a garden and fish-filled rock pools, and a sound system that plays ambient sounds of nature: forests, seaside, rivers and so on. His “elephantine mahogany bed”, larger than king-size, has sheets of 1,500-threadcount Egyptian cotton...

...Whoa. Can such a Mary Sue – whose ads everyone wants to copy, whose artistry can bend the fabric of reality so that Brits would start switching from tea to coffee possibly exist? Character, charisma, career, creative chops, cojones, and cash. Timothy Malcolm Smith has it all. Except love, but that’s going to change.

All that was the first 60-odd pages of Fuel, a dark horse of a Malaysian-authored novel. Even before we enter the posh Balinese home of Timmy Smith, it passed the 50-page test with soaring colours.

What follows is perhaps among the most beautiful love stories ever told. Timmy would share his marathon dreams with Cambria, whom he eventually grows close to. They would train together, go to New York and exchange pleasantries with Gebrselassie. And they would, as the novel promises, do the unexpected. What drives Timmy – the “fuel” for his creativity and his dreams – is passion, hence the title.

Despite the reality-warping powers of Timmy Smith’s creativity and charm, the initial contact, courtship and the clincher is well-scripted and believable, albeit a little rainbow-hued. And the true scope of the Common Grounds ad campaign’s power is left to the reader’s imagination. If the atmosphere of a creative agency feels too true-to-life, it’s because Jeremy Chin himself worked in a similar industry in London for a number of years.

But it’s not just the cover’s simple but impactful design. Every phrase, every paragraph has purpose, is strung together well and polished to a showroom sheen. Timmy’s big empty mahogany bed practically screams, “Lonely heart, space available, enquire within.” No need to guess what the 1,500-threadcount Egyptian cotton sheets imply.

“When you take on a dream this big, it is crucial that you know why you are pursuing it.”—Jeremy Chin

The only minor bumps in Timmy’s racetrack to glory are his intermittent narratives in the first person and the prologue featuring lionesses hunting a gazelle. It makes no sense at first, until one realises that Gebrselassie’s native Ethiopia is home to a number of national parks.

Even before the conclusion of Fuel, you’re already cheering for Timmy and Cambria. You’ll want to believe that someone like Timmy can exist, that Timmy and Cambria’s love story can be real, that Timmy can win, that he can move mountains. That you can move mountains, and the fairy-tale Timmy-Cambria romance can be yours.

Yichalal, as they say in Ethiopia’s Amharic language, a word that summed up Gebrselassie’s gold medal in the 10,000 metres at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, despite being injured. “It is possible.”


Tough track
Jeremy had high hopes for the book: he wants it to become an international best-seller. “When you take on a dream this big, it is crucial that you know why you are pursuing it. And those reasons have to be good reasons, reasons you will hold close to your heart till the day you die,” he told the audience at a special talk and book-reading session for the hearing impaired in 2011. “Fuel’s success would buy me a golden ticket to continue doing that which I have come to love, which is to write, to share with the world the best that I am capable of. Believing in what you do. That is the most important ingredient towards becoming a great writer.”

Photo of Jeremy Chin, courtesy of Jeremy Chin (www.fueldabook.com)
He’d quit his job at an ad agency and spent a year to write it, but ran into a number of problems. For one, selling English fiction can be difficult in Malaysia. Also, bookstores worldwide are competing with other forms of entertainment; why read the whole Lord of the Rings when you can watch or even play it? Kind of funny, when you learn that Fuel was originally a movie idea. He approached several publishers with the synopsis and three chapters from the manuscript, but was turned down.

Did readers find it hard to relate to the book, which was set in London and New York? For Chin, it was natural; he’d worked for 10 years in the US and two in the UK. Setting the novel in London was important, and the character was supposed to run in the New York City Marathon. “To give Fuel a Malaysian setting would have been alien,” he stated.

Given the kind of work that went into it, the self-published route was, perhaps, astute. Every word, every phrase was chosen for effect. Each section of the book: characters, milestones, plot, premise and so on, was meticulously mapped out, storyboarded. Chin approached the writing and marketing of Fuel like an ad campaign.

Sadly, his perfectionist streak and dedication to the book didn’t quite pay off. Not all his supporters bought the book. Glowing reviews of Fuel did little to spur sales.

“My journey as a writer, as enjoyable as it was, has become extremely difficult now that I’ve gotten to the stage of promoting Fuel,” said Chin to his audience as he wrapped up the book-reading session. “I’ve walked alone for a year and a half, and it is my sincere hope that each of you here would join me for the next leg of my journey.”

One year later, Chin is still on that journey. He has also released a line of merchandise based on the book’s theme (www.fuelrunning.com). It appears he’s in it for the long run, and still telling naysayers, “Yichalal”.

It’s hard not to cheer that spirit on.

Sunday 22 April 2012

MPH Quill Annual Issue 2012

Cover story for the Quill Annual issue 2012: Tan Sri Dato' Dr David Lai, CEO of housing developer Bandacaya Group.




Phillip Matthews asks whether great editors are born or evolved; Ellen Whyte talks about her obsession with book placement.




Kashini Krishnamurthy delves into the lair of the sleeping giant that is the Malay publishing industry; we catch up with Jeremy Chin, author of Fuel, one year on.




We also have Lau Siew May (Playing Madame Mao and The Dispeller of Worries) talks about the art of writing fiction; Shantini Suntharajah waxes lyrical (almost) over bookshops.




Mary Schneider introduces the old Penang through an old soldier's postcard collection; Tom Sykes explores the genius of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Third World literature of protest.




The Quill April-June 2012 issue is also out, too. Get them both now.

Thursday 16 February 2012

MPH Quill Issue 33, Jan - Mar 2012

This issue is a bit... subdued, but still interesting.


Cover for this issue (left), and the Richard Zimler interview


Andrew Matthews, writer and illustrator of the best-selling self-help Happy books, talks about happiness, attitude, and success. And his latest book on bullying, a departure from his usual theme(s).


Sample shots from the Andrew Matthews feature


...That looks like a real practised smile.

Meanwhile, Eric Forbes speaks with Richard Zimler, author of such books as The last Kabbalist of Lisbon (1996), Hunting Midnight (2003), The Warsaw Anagrams (2011). Also featured is Margaret Stohl, YA author of the Beautiful Creatures series, and the Zapp family who travelled the world in a 1928 vintage Graham-Paige.


First pages of the features for Margaret Stohl (left) and the Zapps


Robert Raymer ponders whether creative writing workshops are fun or torture, while Geoffrey S Walker (The Bomoh's Apprentice (2010) and Blood Reunion (2011)) encounters an otherworldly distraction while writing.

Also included are excerpts of the coffee table book Sikh Community in Malaysia and bits about Charles Dickens, in conjunction with his 200th anniversary of his birth. And visit Cappadocia in the Turkish region of Anatolia, a place known for its chimney-like rock formations. It also has several underground cities where early Christians hid.

There was some talk about an annual issue for 2012, but nothing concrete so far.

Wednesday 14 December 2011

MPH Quill Issue 32, Oct-Dec 2011 - At Last

Frankly, this should be called the MPH Quill December issue. But at least it's - oh dear printing press gods, finally! - out. Flipped through the pages of a copy yesterday morning.


MPH Quill Issue 32, Oct-Dec 2011 cover (left) and part of
the contents pages


The cover stories are all about e-books and digital publishing, in conjunction with the official launch of MPH's e-publishing arm, MPH Digital. Oon Yeoh talks about the growth potential of e-books, while MPH Senior Manager of Business Development Rodney Toh answers some questions on e-publishing.

Eric Forbes interviews Marco Robinson (Know When to Close the Deal and Suddenly Grow Rich! (2011)) and Samantha Bruce-Benjamin (The Art of Devotion (2010)). Also featured are authors Neel Mukherjee (A Life Apart (2010)), June Hutton (Underground (2009)) and Lauren Kate (the Fallen series).


Author interviews by Eric Forbes: Marco Robinson (left) and
Samantha Bruce-Benjamin


Quill also speaks to Mohd Khair Ngadiron, the managing director/CEO of the Malaysian National Institute of Translation (Institut Terjemahan Negara Malaysia or ITNM) and Japri Bujang Masli, acting CEO of state library and depository Pustaka Negeri Sarawak (Pustaka).

Amir Muhammad reveals the inspirations behind the catchy book covers from his new imprint Fixi. We would've loved to include the latest release Zombijaya (2011) and the upcoming Tabu and Kelabu, but we were in a rush to close the issue.


Covers and authors of pulp fiction titles by Fixi


Also: Lee Su Kim shares how she put together her book Kebaya Tales: Of Matriarchs, Maidens, Mistresses and Matchmakers. Janet Tay heads for the hills to escape her writer's block, but even so, distractions abound.

Alexandra Wong tries her hand at copywriting and realises that "selling out" isn't so bad, after all. Ellen Whyte takes readers to the Spanish city of Valladolid, the place author Cervantes (Don Quixote) and poet and playwright Jose Zorilla settled in.


Alexandra Wong's corporate writing article (left) and
Ellen Whyte's Valladolid travel piece


Quite a lot of stuff, plus some book news and more.



Quill is a magazine on books and the reading life in Malaysia.

Since 2003, Quill has been recommending the best and upcoming titles in bookstores. The magazine supports Malaysian and international authors, providing exclusive interviews and events coverage. For aspiring writers, there are articles on developing the writing craft by established authors. Find reviews of noteworthy fiction and non-fiction, as well as travel, food and lifestyle pieces.

Quill is free for members of MPH's Readers' Circle. It can also be purchased at newsstands nationwide.

Saturday 29 October 2011

MPH Quill Oct-Dec 2011 Delayed

This quarter's MPH Quill (October - December 2011) has been delayed.

Things were held up by about a fortnight after resources were temporarily diverted elsewhere. While the issue was being put together, the editor went on her much-needed Deepavali break.

I'd guess that it would be another week before the whole issue has been put to bed, which means it would only be out around the middle of next month. I'll put something up when the issue is, hopefully, out.

On behalf of the crew at Quill magazine, apologies for the delay.

Thursday 18 August 2011

MPH Quill, MPH 105th Anniversary Issue

In this special issue of MPH Quill, some author interviews.


Cover of the 105th Anniversary issue of MPH Quill (left; don't ask)
and more Mysore magic and majesty


Eric Forbes speaks to MJ Hyland (How the Light Gets In) And Padma Viswanathan (The Toss of a Lemon) about their books, themselves and their writing lives.


Authors MJ Hyland (left) and Padma Viswanathan are featured in
the 105th Anniversary issue of MPH Quill


Also, an interview piece with first-time author Paul Callan, where he talks about himself and his debut novel, The Dulang Washer.

Paul Callan, author of The Dulang Washer


Other interesting bits include:

Wena Poon's (Lions in Winter, Alex y Robert) sojourn at the 2011 Hong Kong International Literary Festival, where she discovers the international reach of Malaysian and Singaporean women novelists.

Mary Schneider's piece on photographer Dr Ooi Cheng Ghee and his involvement in the coffeetable book Portraits of Penang: Little India, published by Areca Books.

More interesting bits about Mysore, India, courtesy of newspaper columnist and occasional travel writer Alexandra Wong.

Tom Sykes summary on some gwailo novelists' works set in Southeast Asia, and excerpts from A Subtle Degree of Restraint and Other Stories, as well as Looking Back: Monday Musings and Memories, an upcoming reprint of Tunku's original 1970s edition.

...And more!