The Places You Will Go

Truth in Fiction

From StarMag, 19th June, 2011

By DAPHNE LEE

IT’S been several years since Kuala Lumpur played host to a literary festival, so the city’s book lovers were understandably excited when Malaysian writer and poet Bernice Chauly announced the Writers Unlimited Tour KL/Makassar 2011 a couple of months ago.

At the time, there was some doubt whether the festival would happen as the organisers were having problems raising the necessary funds (a common problem faced by arts and literature groups all over the world). Fortunately, Chauly’s appeal for RM22,000 was met in the nick of time by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Institut Terjemahan Negara Malaysia.

Time, I Need More Time!

I've not been very successful at keeping my new year resolution to update this blog more regularly. I have reintroduced the Picture Book of the Month sidebar though - pat on the back!

Can I plead two fulltime jobs: "journalist" and Mother?

(I feel uncomfortable calling myself a journalist because I think I do it very badly ... but that's another story.)

I wish I could buy or borrow more time for every thing I want to do. Every day brings a new project of some sort - for example, the children's book festival I'm organising with a few kindred spirits. I'm losing a lot of sleep over this festival, but it seems to be shaping up nicely.

If you'd like to read my Tots to Teens piece on the festival, click on the continue reading link. I've reproduced the article in full because links to stories on the Star Online always expire after a week or two.

I have another book-related project up my sleeve, which I will reveal in a few months. I divide the time I'm not being a "journalist" and a mum between this and the festival and so you can understand why this blog goes so long without anything new in it.

But enough of excuses. Starting next week, I'm going to try to find a few spare minutes at least once every few days just for The Place You Will Go.

I've just read The New Policeman by Kate Thompson and in that book, the reason why no one has time to do anything is cos it's leaking into an alternate universe - time is literally running out. The hero of the novel, which won last year's Whitbread children's book award, eventually finds the leak and manages to seal it. If only that was all that was happening here.

I think, in my case, it's just a matter of trying to cram at least 40-hrs worth of stuff into 24 hrs. Either that or I'm just really bad at time management.

World Book Day

World Book Day was celebrated in the United Kingdom and Ireland yesterday (2 March 2006).

To mark the event, The Guardian Unlimited held an online survey about readers' tastes in endings in novels. The results show that most people prefer to close their books feeling happy, and Pride and Prejudice seems to be a big favourite when it comes to novels with happy endings.

Read more here and here.

Other World Book Day celebrations included children's authors entertaining kids in The Guardian's Newsroom Theatre. You can listen to Malachy Doyle reading his picture book The Dancing Tiger; Ian Whybrow singing songs; and many more.