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CONVERSATION - Am I slowing down?

PERSONALLY, AM I SLOWING DOWN? - CONVERSATION

Which segment if I may ask?

Stage work maybe. Due to age and lack of new songs, even Britney Spear is no longer in (I covered her Lucky, Hit me Baby One More Time, Stronger and Born To Make You Happy those days) Currently I am just looking forward to only emceeing for some charity organizations and commercial institutions. Even that I am very selective. The 90s and right up to the year 2018 I have given my full blast. I started my year 2020 emceeing for Bookexcess Malaysia (which is very appropriate) - my 2nd year with them.

Any new book?

2 of my latest books are still selling. In fact, Manusia which I co-wrote with Fahmi Mustaffa is now on 2nd print at Fixi Malaysia. The lastest has CURHAT released in November 2019 a selection of shorts compiled into a storyline about a young girl listening to her caretaker as a story-teller and later changed it into a manuscript for PBAKL 2020. Curhat received tremendous support from my readers, it can be found (read purchase) at any Karangkraf Malaysia store and Book2U, published by Pojok.

What else?

Aside from anthology will all-female authors entitled Untuk Perempuan Yang Bernama...... by Helium Book ( which I so looking forward this coming March at PBAKL 2020) I am still active training young Malay writers on my Wattpad page (using all of my literary and stage experiences to basically guide them, not to say that I am a real expert). I have edited some of their work for free and beta read some up and coming books by some author friends. When Manusia got stuck due to some unforeseen reason for GTLF2018 (not our fault) I understand very well that each creative product has a list of people supporting behind it, without any of them it will not be materialized. What an author can do after submitting her work is to pray in silence. (at least that's what I did).2020 is the year to read. In fact, I started reading so many books since 2018 (mostly local books) or international distributions especially the one written by Malaysian.

Your verdict?

of what?......Your read and findings..

Oh! Some are really good and some are NOT up to my expectations, mediocre (Like catching a movie I might give 15 minutes and for books up to chapter three if it's not interesting at all let's forget about it). But that's normal, 'one man's meat is another man's poison'. You can read my review on Goodreads each time I finished reading it (some will just be listed - I make sure it's no longer a habit to review bad books - as a writer myself, I can pretty much understand the situation very well - might as well be polite - I don't jump into literary scene to be rude or sensational - I just want to be among good authors, useful and be meaningful)

I have seen and read some of your translations work.

Oh! yes...another passion of mine. I started off just to impress my readers BUT on a later part of translating I noticed it has contributed so much learning avenues and findings. Poems by our SN or anything that caught my eyes and emotion will surely be translated. Mind you some of them are by our own young poets... it's amazing really, but still, I still translate on work that I fancy and it's for free. I want to be selfish here, or maybe more of self-indulgence. (currently translating shorts and certot by Bissme S a journalist whom I have so much respect - I am already toying with some selfish ideas about those translated pieces).

English to Malay or...

Both, I tried my best. I wanted my young readers and writers to understand the beauty of some selected works, let them sense how important language can be, the beauty of Bahasa/English without trying hard. On the first day when they published Saras Manickam "Ibuku Si Pattu" that won Commonwealth Prize, I spent the whole afternoon to translate and edit it the best I could to do justice. That short was read by so many of my social media friends, more than 500 of them. It has given me personal joy.

You seem to enjoy lambasting the phrase 'trying hard'

OMG... you noticed eh? Sorry, it's my bad. It's supposed to be my personal observation. Be it in any language or dialect, I hated when narratives do not sound effortless, especially novels written in Bahasa Malaysia. I guess it's okay if redundancy and jargon are applied in Poems for the sake of being poetic. I can notice poetic license easily but trying so hard to sound intellect is another pet peeve of mine. (the choice of words, not taking short cuts or simply lost in translation). Again, so sorry it is my bad!

Your 2020 plans?

With age and the level of patience, I am enjoying right now... I am taking it slow and easy. Nothing rigid, each quarter year I roughly plan what I will be doing... e.g: Jan - March - read anything and write something. April - Fasting season is the laziest month... I might want to do some costume pieces of jewelry and maybe will do some new paintings and this year I will want to learn how to do a raisin art project.

What excites you?

So many actually. A display of seriousness while being creative. Be it local movies and productions. I am lucky to be in Georgetown, excitements they are plenty... Literary festivals here are superb. Weekly free art projects are surely fun. But on a serious note: I look at life as an artistic endeavor. Observing and feeding stray cats, churning our some new or traditional recipes in the kitchen, talking to some college students on the topic of SOGIE and answering some questions on sexuality is fun and blessing at the time. I guess meeting an intelligent, doubtless, humble and polite anyone is super exciting.

Thank you.

Terima kasih...

NOTE: an interview by a trainee journalist at Taman Armenian: Karen Wong.