You are invited to
the launch of Iyari
a chapbook of poems
by Sharanya Manivannan on Friday December 22nd
at 7pm
Indie Scene Cafe,
Piccolo Galleria, Bukit Bintang
(between Lot 10 and KL Plaza),
Kuala Lumpur
An evening of readings featuring:
Faridah Manaf
Nizam Zakaria
Fairul Nizam
Tshiung Han See
Sharon Bakar
Priya K
Patricia Low
kG
Nicholas Wong
Jasmine Low
and an open mic
and
Sharanya Manivannan
Notes on the writers:
Fairul Nizam Ablah writes comic and animation scripts, was previously editor of a manga/anime magazine and is in pre-production for two comics. He scripted the animated series Bola Kampung, which aired on RTM1 earlier this year. He would love to get a novel published but he still doesn't know what he wants to write about. His guilty pleasure is watching sport genre movies. In his free time, he daydreams about lying on the beach surrounded by hot chicks.
Born in Singapore in 1974,
Nizam Zakaria is a writer of a blog, poetry, fiction, plays and has a keen interest in digital photography. To pay his bills, he is an Editor at a leading R&D organisation and has written reviews for Kakiseni. He has lived and worked in Malaysia, Singapore and the USA. His education in psychology and a professional career that has spanned journalism and copywriting have provided him with a uniquely well-rounded base for the life of an independent writer. A novel, Susuk, is to be published in January 2007 by Marshall-Cavendish.
Tshiung Han See works as the assistant theatre manager at ISKL. Raised in Canada, he has passable French but understands neither Malay nor Chinese nor Tamil. His interests are web surfing, reading, writing, swimming, tai chi and chilling. He reads Sharon Olds, Hart Crane, Walt Whitman, William Blake and Jordan Davis. He majored in English Literature at University of Surrey Roehampton.
Sharon Bakar is British but considers herself to be a 'local foreigner', having lived and worked in Malaysia for the past twenty years. She is particularly interested in the teaching of creative writing and has set up her company, Word Works to provide training in this area. Sharon is also a self-confessed bookaholic, blogger and an organizer of the Kuala Lumpur International Literary Festival. Her fiction has appeared in Silverfish New Writing 1, Men's Review and The Edge. Her articles appear in the Star, MPH's Quill magazine and online at Kakiseni.com. She is also a columnist for men's magazine Chrome and the editor of a collection of short fiction 'Collateral Damage' (Silverfishbooks), which appeared in March 2004 and has acted as 'book doctor' for a number of local writers. An English lecturer and teacher trainer by profession, she has degrees in education from Birmingham and Exeter Universities, as well as a Royal Society of Arts Diploma in the teaching of English.
Associate Professor
Dr Nor Faridah Abdul Manaf teaches English Literature at the International Islamic University in Gombak. Her areas of specialization are English Renaissance Literature and Malaysian Women's Writing in English. Despite her busy life as an academic, Dr Faridah has also established herself as a creative writer. She writes in both English and Malay and had short stories published by Utusan Melayu Publication, Longman, Silverfishbooks, Deepsouth (New Zealand) and recently featured in anthologies in the United States, Hong Kong and the Philippines. Her first book of poetry on her life as a Muslim woman, The Art of Naming, was published in April 2006 and is on sale in MPH (Midvalley), Pekanbuku (UM) and Silverfishbooks.
Nicholas Wong was a recipient of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2006, Britain's most prestigious poetry prize for young writers between the ages of 11-17. He was awarded the Singapore Young Dramatists Award (SYDA) Third Prize in 2005 for his play Good Morning, Tree, an absurdist piece written in homage to Samuel Beckett and the late local playwright Kuo Pao Kun, and First Prize in 2006 for Death off the Mainland, a contemporary exploration of Singapore-Malaysia relations using the historical context of the merger. He also won First Prize in the National Chinese Essay Writing Competition for Secondary Schools by Singapore Chinese Teachers' Union and Lianhe Zaobao in Secondary 1 and 2. He was Head of Literature Wing at his junior college. His publication credits include the Quarterly Literary Review of Singapore and the "Eye on the World" series as part of the Creative Arts Programme (CAP) Mentorship Attachment in Singapore. Recently accepted into Columbia University, he plans to major in Comparative Literature and Creative Writing. He is very happy to be home.
Branded a migrant no matter where she is,
Jasmine Low holds close to her heart her Malaysian citizenship and closer her Australian permanent residence while she straddles the fence of identity. Having spent her 'formative' 20s in Sydney, Australia, Jasmine returned to Kuala Lumpur in 1997 at her mother's displeasure to discover what Malaysia could unfold for her in her 30s. Back in Sydney in 2002, she found herself devouring the local music scene at endangered dingy pubs which would soon be converted to trendy snazzy clubs with kitchens serving satay, laksa and barramundi chips. A year later and she's back at the muddy estuary. This time, reborn as event organiser of open mic gigs, disco-lover, publicist, pr & marketing communication consultant and short story writer. She still battles with Mum on living in Kuala Lumpur. Mum insists Sydney offers a better lifestyle, better curry laksa, better cheese and weather. The two share a love-hate relationship until today.
kG was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Other than writing, his interests include playing the sitar, Bharathanatyam and theatre. He received primary tutorage in Sitar under the Malaysian Maestro, Samuel J Dass and afterwards under Cameronian Award Winner, Kumar Karthigesu at The Temple of Fine Arts International. He is also an activist in support of Neurofibromatosis patients. In his writing, he tends to explore themes that are sexual, masochistic or otherwise pain-related in nature. He looks forward to furthering his education in the field of journalism and performing arts.
Priya K is a self-declared selfish, untalented dreamer who wishes she could change the world. An extremely witty, thought-provoking and humourous writer (depending on how you see it) and a part-time poet. Co-founder of Project OMG! (Open Mic Gig).
Patricia Low is an English Literature/Performing Arts undergrad in a local university who writes her best poetry in the dark hours of the morning. Besides trying to rhyme strings of words, she also does songwriting (also in the dark hours of the morning, but with her old trusty acoustic) and writing articles for online publications. She is also a playwright and performer, and her most recent work was The Oral Stage's 'fiftynineminutes' and a musical titled 'The Vacation'. She reads more than the average Malaysian, wishes she could travel more often and bakes cupcakes when depressed. She has a purple paper-mache dinosaur as a pet. Co-founder of Project OMG! (Open Mic Gig).
Sharanya Manivannan was born in India in 1985 and grew up in Sri Lanka and Malaysia. A writer, dancer, painter, actress, photographer, journalist and activist, she has performed extensively at public readings in the last five years, and her work has been published in a number of periodicals and anthologies here and abroad, including Softblow, Quarterly Literary Review of Singapore, Collateral Damage, The2ndRule and Poetika. She is working on her first novel and a full-length collection of poems, and recently published a chapbook of poems, Iyari.
