Love reading? Enjoy writing? Want to support local writers? Come down to Readings@Seskan this Saturday 🙂 The ever-supportive and wonderful Sharon Bakar invited me to read an excerpt from my unfinished short story collection. Thank you Sharon!
I’ve been meaning to attend for so long, and am so excited that I’m actually days away. (InshaAllah nothing cataclysmic happens from now until then, ahem)
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Update: Hanna Alkaf’s Q&A at Kino was wonderful. I enjoyed hearing her story about her own journey as a prolific reader, and how that shaped her writing. I really appreciated how honest she was about how much hard work writing is.
It was great to hear how supportive her editor (Zareen Jaffery) is in not italicising words in Malay and Chinese. Makes for a much more fluid and Malaysian story. She read her first chapter and I can’t wait to read the rest of it when her book is out on Feb 5th 2019!
Her advice to me? FINISH A MANUSCRIPT. Because I have like three unfinished manscripts, but my “book is in [my] first draft,’ #hannasaid #mustlistenlah
Plus! Her stunning book cover has been revealed! So Malaysian – I mean, just look at Melati’s uniform! Read more here.
Raidah Shah Idil is a student counsellor, poet, writer, and creative instructor with a passion for YA (young adult), fantasy, sci-fi and detective fiction. She was born in Singapore and moved to Australia at the age of 12. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (English) and Bachelor of Science (Psychology) from the University of New South Wales in 2005.
After working as a marketing copywriter and studying the Islamic Sciences in Amman, Jordan for nearly two years, she returned to Sydney, got married, then moved to Malaysia. While working as a part-time tutor at Axiom Learning, she works as an online counsellor for Seekershub Global. She has completed her Diploma of Counselling through the Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors. Her full-time job is raising her baby daughter. Everything else is squeezed in between. Literally. Her writing has been published in The Feminist Wire, SISTERS magazine, Daily Life, Lip Mag and Venture Beat. Raidah’s poetry was recently published in the ‘Armed With Only Our Souls’ online DDFS chapbook by New York poet Caits Meissner. Her debut double-featured novel, “Finding Jamilah and the Story of Yusuf” was published by MyLegacy publications in early 2014.
In her spare time (ha), she reads, listens to audiobooks, goes on walks, and is always on the lookout for tasty noodle soup. She currently lives in a green, leafy suburb in Kuala Lumpur with her husband, three small children and mother-in-law.
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Raidah Shah Idil 