I wish I had Elaine Showalter’s slim but succinct introduction to teaching literature with me then. Turning to p. 111 of her book, I would have had a sense of deja vu in reading the testimony of a fellow sufferer: “It was scary…I knew the material, but I felt I needed a lot

It was tragedy - the Bali blasts in 2002 that led to the birth of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in 2004. Its aim was to use the power of the written word to heal, strengthen and bring visitors back to the resort island of Bali.
Ironically, another senseless act of violence

But literary festivals alone do not inform a vibrant writing culture. Publishing of local talent is also an impotant factor. In terms of local publishing, very few local titles are published in Singapore. According to one report, Marshall Cavendish, Singapore’s largest book

Besides, I never do succeed in wheedling out why it took her seven years to complete a second novel after Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard (1998) - this in an age when publishers warn authors that there mustn’t be a long gap after the first book. Desai’s faraway expression

We are living in the age of digital media, and today when a blog is created every second of the day, I was finding it difficult to be at the cutting-edge of Asian writing in English. While new writers from Asia, some based in the region, and most others making their mark in the