Launch of The Beating and Other Stories and Alfian’s Malay Sketches

E-invite of the launch on March 31st. Do drop by.

Story: The Divers

The Divers, a story for Innsmouth magazine, which publishes dark fantasy and horror fiction set in H.P. Lovecraft’s universe, is out on their website. You can also buy the issue on Amazon and Smashwords, apparently.

Coincidentally, they’re also having a fund raising drive.

Trying out Pinterest

The latest web thingamajig. So what is it good for besides looking good? Anyway I can be found here.

Interview and review over at The Mantle

An interview and review of Gone Case over at the excellent web journal The Mantle, by Vicente Garcia Groyon. I’ve occasionally wondered how Gone Case would go down with non-Singaporean readers. So now I have some idea…

Here comes Morrisey

So Morrisey is coming to Singapore on May 8. Hmm should be a must go. The concert scene is really packed these days, and I have to pick and choose which ones to go to. Death Cab for Cutie would have been a no-brainer, but still on the fence about it. Foo Fighters is too expensive, and I’m just not too swayed by their new material. And OMD? Hmm I always think that some bands just hang around long enough to become your own tribute band; to me that’s the case with bands like these. Sure, it’ll be a nice nostalgic evening, but I’ve never been too big on that.

Laneway 2012

Despite last year’s washout, where I left before the last few acts thoroughly drenched, the weather was far kinder this year for Laneway. The organisers placed the two stages right next to each other, so there was a lot of quick switching around. The starting act, Cults, were kind of soft, so their punchy hit Abducted didn’t quite cut it. Things got better as the day wore on, and I guess one of the highlight was the rendition of “I Will Always Love You” by Girls, with the audience singing along.

I guess I wasn’t really wowed by any of the acts, though The Drums and Girls probably left the biggest impression. The guys behind me kept on talking during Feist, which was pretty annoying, and I left after that. Will I be back next year? It depends. With most of the acts taking 30-45 minutes, things felt a little rushed, and maybe the changeover was a bit too efficient.

Still, you’ve got to give credit to the organisers for bringing in the acts. As expected, not everything went smoothly, but they did a great job.

New book out

I’ve a new book of short stories out, entitled The Beating and other stories. It’s a collection of short stories set in Singapore or about Singaporeans, ranging from one-page works to much longer stories. There’s a mix of magic realism, historical fiction, surreal and other works. It was a lot of work putting it together; both enjoyable and excruciating.

It’s published by Ethos and you can find it here.

A short extract: “In the house, he kept a porcelain statue of Guan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. My sister told me that, after he beat us, he would go to the statue to ask for forgiveness. I refused to believe it. The statue was small and only as long as my forearm: how could it give mercy? It sat there, its eyes mere slits with tiny white pupils. With its right hand clasping a lotus, the statue looked more bored than divine.”

In which I start blogging again..

Well time to startup my blog once more. More updates, thoughts, and other musings.