Got a bit of good news to share.
Several poems of mine will be featured in an upcoming anthology called Malaysian Places and Spaces. It's scheduled to be published by Maya Press around November this year (assuming all goes as planned).
Meanwhile, I'm still plodding along for my current freelance job which will only reach its conclusion in early September.
But not to worry, I've not forgotten about working on Intersection. In fact, as often as I've been able to, I've been drafting new scenes to add to the existing story.
The one I'm halfway writing right now is a sombre lunchtime conversation between two characters which involves the consumption of nasi kerabu. It's one of my favourite local dishes and that's as good a reason as any for it to be featured as part of my novel, I believe. Haha.
Well, if there's one thing I hope to bring out in this novel, it's a sense of Malaysian-ness. I've spent so much of my life being hindered in my writing because I was always thinking up stories with characters and settings that are very different from my life here in my homeland.
In recent times, I've come to realise that it shouldn't be this way at all. Instead, I should proudly infuse my cultural heritage into whatever tales I decide to spin. After all, my readers should be given the chance to see the world through my eyes. That's partly what makes this whole fiction writing exercise worthwhile after all.
I sincerely hope, that somehow, through the things that I write, some reader out there who would not otherwise have had the chance to experience Malaysian culture might gain that opportunity. And maybe, just maybe, they'll come to treasure my corner of the world in the same way that I do.
