The
next intake for the Silverfish Writing Programme will
be on 14 July 2012, and run for 10 Saturdays from 10.30am to 12.30pm, and will be opened for registration in
early June 2012. The past few programmes have been extremely popular and
we have had to turn away many late inquiries, because the maximum number of participants we can accommodate is 10(ten). So we encourage those who
are interested to register early, and avoid a last minute rush. (Please, also,
tell your friends who are interested.) The registration fee will be RM1000.00 per participant for the full ten week programme, but an early
bird discount of 10% will apply until (and including) June 30, 2012. The world is full of stories. Humans are the strangest of all animals. We may miss meals (ask your teenager buried in a book or your aunt or mum hooked on a television soap) but not our stories. Even in famine stricken zones, while people wait for the food trucks to arrive, they tell one another stories to keep alive. In war zones, where life is in danger every single minute, people cannot resist telling stories. All religions have tons of stories that are constantly repeated. Stories are part of our very being, our claim to be human.
We are surrounded by stories every waking minute of the day. When we turn on our radio or television to listen to the news, or to watch a drama or sitcom or even a cooking show, when we open our newspapers or surf the net for news, when we go to the movies, to a dance, listen to a song, or look at a painting, when we go to the office, pitch a proposal to our boss, our clients, meet our co-workers when we relax over tea and gossip, or tell them about our day, or listen to their stories. When we read books, we read stories. And stories will make us laugh or cry or angry, and dozens of other things. We will love characters or we hate them. Good stories never leave us indifferent. We have a desperate need to tell stories in whatever form. That’s why some of us want to become writers: to tell our stories. But what do publisher's want?
That's what the Silverfish Writing Programme is all about: what publishers are looking for.
READ MORE ABOUT THE PROGRAMME and REGISTER
Mr
Ramachandran, Executive Director of the National Book Development
Council of Singapore, announced on Monday, 28 May 2012 that Malaysia
will be the 'Country of Focus' at next year's Asian Festival of
Children's Content (AFCC). Now in its fourth year, the AFCC is held
annually in Singapore to promote Asian content for children. More than
80 sessions were organised during the Festival covering topics on
writing, illustrating, editing, translating, apps for children and
critique sessions. Book launches and author signings added to the buzz
and there was also an inaugural rights fair. An estimate of more than
700 people attended over 80 sessions held over the four days while total
attendance from the public at various events were estimated at 3000.
Sixteen countries from Asia, South Africa, UK and US were represented at
the AFCC. This year's country of focus was the Philippines which made a
strong showing with 10 speakers, a stand showcasing books from the
Philippines accompanied by musical performances. Norhayati Razali,
officer at the Kota Buku, a body set up to promote the Malaysian book
industry, said the Kota Buku is pleased to play a leading role for
Malaysia's participation at AFCC 2013 which will be held from 25-28 May
2013.
The latest news is that Apple has offered to settle
its e-book price fixing charge in Europe, but vows to fight a a
similar battle in America because the charges against it by the
Department of Justice are "simply not true". Forbes.com reports, 
