Hello! After a four year silence I finally have a work eligible for awards so of course I had to shriek about it, particularly since it’s my debut novel on which I have been working on (off and on, given life emergencies and a fulltime academic job!) for twenty years*! Watermyth was published on 7 … Continue reading ALARUMS: Awards Eligibility Post for Watermyth
I’ve been a plotter, I’ve been a pantser. But at the end of the day I realise I am just a plantser and would like to reject binaries. All stories are different. The way you write each one is different. Sometimes the planning comes first. Sometimes the impulse comes first, like an earworm or an … Continue reading Lyceum Notes: On Being a Plantser
I return to my planned series of posts about creative writing based on my experience as an editor, writer and creative writing educator for over a decade. I’m no longer teaching creative writing because of the programme restructuring over at my Centre; I teach literature, literacy, and popular culture courses for MA and PhD students … Continue reading Lyceum Notes: Seeking the Balance as a Creative Writing Educator
I get why Watermyth is a hard sell. It’s a postcolonial portal fantasy with DEI; a Muslim mermaid; more Malaysians and Muslims (from different diasporas) than you can shake a stick at; a mish-mash of superdiverse cultures on a mythical island that has a diaspora composition that is majority Global South, apart from the autochthonous … Continue reading Syncretic Storytelling; or Why Watermyth is a Hard Sell
Hello, Since I’m not teaching creative writing again for the foreseeable future (I mostly teach Masters courses these days and they’re all Literacy or Literature-based), I decided to share some tips, pointers and notes from the creative writing classes I’ve been teaching at both the BA and MA level since 2011. Today’s tip is how … Continue reading Lyceum Notes: Abundance and Story-seeds