Spring has sprung!
Hello all!
Sorry for being quiet for so long - adjusting to a few life changes. But in the meantime, spring has really sprung here in Prague AND I’ve managed to get a few writing things done.
FICTION
My short story ‘Mr Lim’ was recently published in Pleiades magazine special folio issue ‘Silences of War: Erasure within Conflict,’ guest edited by Hadara Bar-Nadav and Jameelah Lang. You can read a copy of it here on my website under ‘fiction’: https://mayngo.net/writings
INTERVIEWS
What a pleasure it was to speak to Tracey Lien, author of 'All That's Left Unsaid' for Liminal Magazine. We chatted about all things writing, growing up in Cabramatta and trying to find your way as a writer:
https://www.liminalmag.com/interviews/tracey-lien
I had a blast being a guest on the 'White People Won't Save You' podcast that deconstructs white saviour films and reimagines them with POC at the centre. I talked about the atrocious film 'No Escape' starring Owen Wilson about a white family caught in the middle of a coup of a 'Southeast Asian' country. This was made in 2015. Not the 80's. Or 90's. It was terrible in every way that you can imagine.
BOOK REVIEW
https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/edouard-louis/
My final Juncture Fellowship review for Sydney Review of Books is Edouard Louis’ latest book translated into English by Tash Aw, ‘A Woman’s Battles and Transformations’. Louis' explores once again class, and class + literature through the lens of his family, and in this case, his mother:
“What are the stakes he is outlining? He is doing nothing less than trying to wrench class politics from the Right. Perhaps even more radically, he is also pointing out the literary establishment’s complicity in this.”
‘Because I know now that what is called literature has been constructed against lives and bodies like my mothers’. Because I know, from here on, that to write about her, and to write about her life, is to write against literature.’
THEATRE REVIEW
Delighted to share my first ever theatre review! For Podhoubí theatre blog, I wrote about WORKSHOP, a performance that is able to evoke our online life with no mention of either the internet or technology. Performed by ex-actors from legendary Estonian Theater NO99 and presented in Prague as part of the Bazaar Festival, a showcase for independent theatre by theatre makers from Central and Eastern Europe.
WORKSHOPS
I'm doing a workshop on book reviewing! Wednesday 31 May, 7pm.
FB event page: https://fb.me/e/2vMdJhBB8
Book reviewing is a vital bow in many writers’ portfolio; it is one of the most reliable and accessible ways of getting published. In this workshop, I approach book reviews as a meeting ground between the text and a particular reader – you, the critic. The ways to interpret and experience a book are as endless as the people who read them, similarly a review can take many forms.
But critical to a review is the unfolding of a particular viewpoint/s and argument – your own – in response to the text; therefore we will look at ways to construct a coherent narrative within a review. This workshop approaches writing book reviews as an artform in itself.
No need to have studied literature (I didn’t!), just have a love for reading and a desire to understand why we may love/hate/are indifferent to a particular book. The workshop will also touch on practical aspects of pitching and getting published.
Note to Participants - if you can, please come with a book in mind that you might want to review – it can be a recent book or an old favourite. Bring it along if possible. There won’t be time in the workshop to write a review, but we will be doing some exercises which might be helpful to apply to a particular book. Look forward to seeing you!
That’s all for now, hope you are enjoying the spring!
Warmly,
May
Congratulations on the publication!