“Monkey Beach” accepted by Secret Attic, a British anthology, via a contest

It was impulsive.  I admit it.  In the Malaysian Writers Community, Tutu Dutta highlighted that it was the last day to enter the Secret Attic contest.  The prize awarded was minimal 25 British pounds.  No fee to enter, and since it was a new contest, I figured there wouldn’t be hundreds or thousands of entrants to compete against.  She said they were hoping to reach 60, the reason for the last-minute push.  They ended up with 78.

“What the hell,” I thought, and entered a novel excerpt set in Penang, titled “Monkey Beach”. In my rush, I failed to notice that they preferred under 1500 words.  Naturally it didn’t win.  To my surprise, however, I was one of ten chosen to be published—I wasn’t aware that was a possibility, an unexpected bonus.  Two of the ten writers are from (or based in) Malaysia.  The rest from the US, Canada, UK or Wales. 

That’s the beauty of international contests, you get to test your writing skills against those from other countries.  What may be ‘good’ in Malaysia or Turkey may not be so good in the UK.  By good I mean...your story-telling ability and the high standard of writing and all that it implies.  Having published short stories in all three of those countries (from my collection Lovers and Strangers Revisited—ten countries in all), I have a right to compare.

I admit I have not entered a short story contest in far too many years for various reasons (stories needed revision and I was concentrating on writing and revising novels).  Entering writing contests was how I came to write those 15 stories in that original collection (now 17 stories).  Back in the late 80’s, Malaysia had several major con­tests, The Star, Her World, New Straits Times (as an expat I could not enter).

“Neighbours”,  originally titled “The Aftermath” was a consolation prize winner in The Star contest thirty-two years ago.  By the way, during our Covid-19 lock­down, I have been asked to answer questions from the students at UITM next month via Google meet about that very story—still being taught!  *Here is the actual Google-Meet with students at UiTM-Penang.

The best thing about contests, besides the prospect of winning some serious money and the prestige, is the dead­line!  You either write and submit your story by the deadline or you miss out.  Many of those stories that I wrote were rushed to meet that deadline and didn’t win.  Of course not, they didn't stand a chance...they were rushed early drafts!  But, and this is the point, they got written!  I polished and entered them in future con­tests.  After I had enough stories and a good publishing track record, I compiled them into a collection.

I have also been on the other end, as judge and have blogged about what judges look for. One caveat, entering contests can be expensive when converting local currency into dollars, pounds or euros.  You must weigh the cost versus the benefit and your realistic chances of winning.  If the contest (or an anthology accepting submissions) is free, you risk nothing, so go for it!  Also, is there one winner or, perhaps, several?  More winners, increases your odds.  Are they publishing only the winner or are finalists considered for publication?

I admit that this contest that I entered was a pretty small.  It’s new.  It will grow.  The biggest contest I ever entered had over two thousand entries.  I sent in six stories, increasing my odds.  Naturally I didn’t win.  I won twice!  Third prize, RM2,000 and a consolation prize, RM500.

So, enter those contests!  Big and small—you never know.  More importantly, get those stories written!  Even though you may never win a contest you may have enough stories for a collection and, who knows, that collection itself might even win a contest!  That’s what happened to me when Lovers and Strangers Revisited won the Star-Popular Readers’ Choice Awards.  In addition to the money and the recognition, I received a pretty nice trophy for my efforts.

If you do win a contest, please think of me…and think of all those writers around the world who would love to be standing in your place.  Remember, if you don’t enter, you cannot win!

Good luck and may the best story win!

  --Borneo Expat Writer

My interviews with four Malaysian novelists and one poet: 

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.

Chauh Guat Eng author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change.  

Also, Malachi Edwin Vethamani, author of Complicated Lives and Life Happens.

Lovers and Strangers Revisited, a French connection?

Looks like Lovers and Strangers Revisited might have a French connection.  A publisher in France with an interest in South East Asia has expressed an interest in translating Lovers and Strangers Revisited into French, after reading two of my stories, “Neighbours” from my website and “On Fridays” in Cha.  Nothing is official, but they just ordered two copies of the collection to explore that very possibility.  That’s a good start.  Now they need to know the details of my contract with MPH so we can work out a solution, a win-win for all three of us.

Two of the stories from collection have already been published in France, though in English. “Sister’s Room” was published in the French literary journal, Paris Transcontinental back in 1992 the year before Heinemann Asia brought out the original Lovers and Strangers in Singapore.

 

Then in 2003, “On Fridays” was published in Frank as a joint publication with The Literary Review after Frank’s editor, David Applefield was their guest editor for the Expat Writing issue.

Is this the start of my European period?  Last month Dr Rashidi, a friend who teaches Lovers and Strangers Revisited at USM here in Malaysia saw one of my short stories in Silverfish anthology at a German university, and then I was contacted from The Netherlands, when the Expatriate Archive Centre at The Hague requested a copy of Tropical Affairs: Episodes from an Expat’s Life in Malaysia for their library.  And now France. 

*Here's an update - it's official Lovers and Strangers Revisited is going French!

*Update, the 20th anniversary of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, my collection of short stories set in Malaysia

**Update: Book orders for Trois autres Malaisie.   E-book orders.  Or recommend it to your friends, especially those who would like to know more about Malaysia or have an interest in Southeast Asia.

  

Here's a link to the intro and excerpts, and to four reviews of Trois Autres Malaisie in eurasie.net, Malaisie.org, easyvoyage.com, and Petit Futé mag.

***Here’s an update to the French blog about Trois autres Malaisie and my meeting the French translator Jerome Bouchaud in Kuching, and my involvement in a French documentary for Arte (June 2017) on The Sensual Malaysia of Somerset Maugham.

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 

“Neighbours”: Story Behind the Story of Lovers and Strangers Revisited

Hearing some persistent moaning coming from a neighbor’s house two doors away, I went to investigate. With the help of another neighbor, we took the Chinese man, in his mid-fifties, to the Penang General Hospital, where he eventually died. He had drunk the weed killer Paraquat.

For me the story began when I returned to the man's house and found several neighbors gossiping. I was fascinated by all of the comments the neighbors were making, the wild speculations about the family and why the man had taken his life. Some of the things they had said were mean and spiteful. Later, when the man’s wife and daughter returned home, they quickly dispersed, so I was left with the task of having to inform them about the man’s death.

This was the story that fascinated me. The story I wanted to tell was not a first person narrative of my finding this man and all that took place that day (although later I will write about it). Instead, I chose to write about the neighbors themselves and what they said about this family in the aftermath of the suicide. When I began to write the story, after some years had passed, all the details were fresh inside my journal, including details that had completely slipped my memory. This is one of the reasons I insist that my writing students keep a diary/journal.

In writing the story, I decided to leave me, as a character, out of the story. I felt the story would be better without a Westerner or a mat salleh in it. I wanted the dialogue to be natural, spontaneous, and an expat present would alter the dynamics of the group, including the dialogue. My goal was to show how self-centered everyone was, and despite all the bad stuff being said about the man, I wanted the sympathy to shift back to him.

I purposely wrote the story in a neutral tone with the viewpoint of an observer, to avoid racial bias, so no one race in this multiracial society is talking down to another, which became crucial twenty years later when it began to be taught in SPM literature in schools throughout Malaysia. I also wanted to make the story universal, so readers around the world could relate to the characters and also learn about Malaysia, where different races freely mix and socialize, and yes, gossip.

Initially, too many people were coming and going and it was difficult to get a fix on any one character. There were far too many for a short story, so I merged a few characters to make it less cumbersome. I also slowed down the pacing by balancing it out with descriptions and even added a dog, a Pomeranian Spitz (which, I just noticed, was misspelled in the first collection!).

The original title of the story was “Aftermath” and it first appeared in Commentary, a Journal of the National University of Singapore Society, in 1990 and then in Northern Perspective in Australia. By the time the first collection Lovers and Strangers came out, I changed the title to “Neighbors”, which is what the story is about.

Over the years, I changed the names of several of the characters. Sometimes you need to trust your instincts as to whether the name is appropriate for your character. Other times, you try the name on for size and if it doesn’t fit, try another. It’s a not unlike naming your children, but in stories we usually know their character, their traits in advance so that helps.

The story originally began with a paragraph or two of description, to help set the scene, but after revisiting the story for Lovers and Strangers Revisited for the second collection, I opened the story with dialogue: “I suppose there’s a mess in the back seat!” This sets the tone of the story and pulls the reader in quicker. This is the version that was accepted to be part of the 6th cycle for SPM literature (Big L) to be taught throughout Malaysia 2008-2112.  (*Link to the story, revised after French translation.)

For the latest MPH collection, I still had some difficulty getting that initial description of their arrival from the hospital and where the neighbors lived just right, so I kept working on it. I also experimented with the present tense. I liked the effect this created and it seemed to solve some problems, too and it gave the story, and the neighbors, a timeless quality. In 2008, this was published in Thema, in the US, 20 years after I first wrote it.

There used to be an on line discussion of "Neighbours" for students and teachers created by MELTA (Malaysia English Language Teaching Association) on its forum for literature, which had over 20,500 hits and 30 pages of comments before it was archived.

Here's also a link to Denis Harry's article on Mrs Koh in NST 28 August 2010!  Comment: Are you a Mrs Koh?

Also, I’ve adapted “Neighbors” into a play, turning a tragedy into a comedy titled, “One Drink Too Many”, which had been play read twice by Penang Players. I then made a 10-page version of that, "Back from Heaven", ideal for schools or competitions.  At least one school had a good run with it. Just contact me via my website (below) or Facebook if you want a copy. A good story can be expressed in many different ways.

*Here is link to a recent Google Meet with students at UiTM-Penang during a Q-and-A session about "Neighbours" and the motivation of the various characters and why I ended the story where I did. 

Lovers and Strangers Revisited is now getting translated into French as Trois autres Malaisie.

 Here is a review in The Star (MPH) and a link to the other story behind the stories for Lovers and Strangers Revisited.

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