Popular-Star Readers’ Choice Awards: "The Merdeka Miracle" – a Hat Trick of Winners!

Congrats to all of the recent nominees and winners of the 2015 Popular-Star Readers’ Choice Awards, Cheeming Boey for nonfiction for his book When I was a Kid 3, and especially to Tunku Halim for his winning book Horror Stories! He had been nominated several times and this year he finally won.  The award makes it a hat trick for “The Merdeka Miracle!”  

Back in 2009 Tunku Halim, Lydia Teh (who had already won the Reader’s Choice Award in 2008 for her bestselling Honk if You’re a Malaysian) and I were asked by our publisher MPH and the editor for Going Places to write a joint short story about 2020 for their Merdeka, August issue.

They gave us less than one month to write it!  At the time I had never met Tunku Halim or Lydia Teh, though I finally got to meet Lydia  at the 2010 Bookfest where our books were again nominated, though neither of us won.)

 

At the time of our unusual request, I was in Kuching (on the island of Borneo), Lydia in Kuala Lumpur, and Tunku Halim on vacation with his family, traveling between Paris and London.  I quickly got an idea and the opening of the story; then we would rotate among us until we completed a draft. We continued to do so, draft after draft, frantically sending emails back and forth until we were relatively satisfied and out of time!

That same month when “The Merdeka Miracle” appeared in the August issue of Going Places, I won the 2009 Reader’s Choice Award for Lovers and Strangers Revisited  for fiction. 

  

On my MAS flight to KL for the award ceremony, not knowing I had won, I picked up some copies of "The Merdeka Miracle".  I picked up some more on the return flight later that day while carrying my award home.  I’m sure I was beaming with pride, itching to tell the other passengers, “Hey, open up Going Places to page…”  If only a stewardess would announce it over the PA system, “Ladies and Gentlemen on board we are privileged to have one of the authors of ‘The Mereka Miracle’ featured in our current issue of Going Places.  Please open to page…”  

Of course I was too shy to mention it to anyone, except maybe the little girl across the aisle who kept staring at me, perhaps wondering, why the color of my skin was different from the other passengers or why my nose was so...

Again, congrats to Tunku Halim for winning and for completing our version of a hat trick!  Lydia and I couldn’t have written “The Merdeka Miracle” without you!  Here’s a toast to more awards in our writing future!  

           —Borneo Expat Writer 

“Neighbours” (6th Cycle texts) Extended Again (SMP 2008-2015)

My short story “Neighbours” from Lovers and Strangers Revisited  as part of the 6^th cycle texts for SMP Literature has been extended again through SPM 2015.  The 7^th cycle texts (so far unknown, I think) will begin for SPM 2016. 

 

Again the stories from that original collection, after 20 years, is still going strong, heading into its 21^st year (and even 22^nd year).

Let’s hope another of my short stories from the collection will be selected for the 7^th cycle, perhaps “Home for Hari Raya” recently taught and filmed by Ohio University, or “Merkeda Miracle”written with Lydia Teh and Tunku Halim for Going Places (August 2009), the in-flight magazine Malaysia Airlines.

*Here are links to four of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I 

 

The Month of August and my 500th Publication!

“Capturing the Spirit of Malaysia” published in the July-August issue of Senses of Malaysia, which I posted yesterday, is my 500^th publication, and it falls on August, too.  I love August, my birthday month, which over the years has often been a good month for me as a writer.  August is a big month this year for Malaysians, too.  Not only is it the fasting month of Ramadan, but also its Hari Raya and then Merdeka! (Malaysian’s Independence Day).

Last August Cha: An Asian Literary Journal accepted my 100^th short story sale, “On Fridays” and even linked it with the blog, The Story Behind the Story.  Most of those short story sales have come from Lovers and Strangers Revisited (the French translation is due out very soon, originally slated for August, though it’s looking more like September), including my last short story sale “Home for Hari Raya”.  Just in time for this year’s Hari Raya.

In August 2009, I had a short story, “The Merdeka Miracle” (written with Lydia Teh and Tunku Halim) published in the August issue of Going Places, an article “Becoming Malaysianized” in Pop Club (Popular Books), and then I won the 2009 Popular The Star Reader’s Choice awards for Lovers and Strangers Revisited—a rather nice belated birthday present.

Of course for reporters and those who write weekly newspaper or online columns, 500 isn’t such a big deal.  They’ll reach that in 10 years, assuming they write nothing else.  My friend Mary Schneider, who I just met with in Penang and who writes for The Star (and has a birthday in August) has already passed her 700^th column!  (Not easy to come up with all those ideas, she tells me.)  So I have a long way to catch up to her and I began publishing years before she did.  Hmm, perhaps I should look into writing a column of my own. . . . My 500 total, by the way, doesn’t include the 224 blog posts.  Many in fact are actual articles that have gone onto being published elsewhere.

“Capturing the Spirit of Malaysia” will also be repeated in the August issue of The Expat (still awaiting my copy).  I have another article or two that should be coming out this month (not confirmed), plus this weekend I do have a creative writing workshop in Kota Kinabalu (if you haven’t signed up, or know someone who may be interested in KK, please contact the organizers).  Already this August is shaping into a pretty good month (we even spent my birthday in Penang) and there’s still 21 days to go! Of course my birthday wish this August is an agent and a book contract for one of my novels (two did rather well in the recent Faulkner-Wisdom novel contest). That would make this particular August absolutely divine…

Here are links to some of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I 

The Merdeka Miracle, a look a year later...

Recently I was at a conference when a woman stopped by to pick up an autographed copy of Tropical Affairs. She introduced herself by telling me how much she had enjoyed reading the short story "The Merkeka Miracle" that I wrote with Lydia Teh and Tunku Halim for the August 2009 issue of Going Places. With Merdeka coming up on the 31 August, I though I would repost "The Merkeka Miracle" for those who had missed it and as a timely reminder for all of us not to take our lives for granted.

Someday, I would like to revisit this story with the other two writers, perhaps expand upon it and make it a fuller story, something we were unable to do with tight word limit (and the even tighter time restraint!) that we had to work with. Originally we were given about three weeks and 1200 words, but I pleaded for at least 600 more! Based on what was cut out in the early drafts, we could've easily doubled that. Perhaps the story can even be taught in schools...





HAPPY MERDEKA MALAYSIA!

*Update, the 20^th anniversary of Lovers and Strangers Revisited 

Here are links to some of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I 

"The Merdeka Miracle" Going Places (Malaysia Airlines), August 2009

Short story sale 98 was a collaborative effort with two other Malaysian writers, Lydia Teh and Tunku Halim, whom I've yet to meet, written for the Merkeda issue of Going Places. (Finally got to meet Lydia in 2010 at the Popular Bookfest_. Click on page to increase the size.

Here are links to some of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I