Saturday, December 29, 2007

I've lost a customer!

As a Fridae reporter, I wanted to have some coverage of the Singapore Writers Festival for the benefit of furthering interest in literature of the region. I approached both the Malaysian novelists in English for interviews: Tash Aw said no, Tan Twan Eng said okay but don't pigeonhole me.

So I did an article about Twan Eng and his wunnerful novel "The Gift of Rain", which involves hot gay WW2 sex anyway, but I kept just in line with his demands, and I got hate mail in return:

Post #8 ken34my says (Posted : 30 November 2007 22:29) :

Ng Yi-Sheng , you were trying to trap Twan Eng? ... " æ: What advice would you have for aspiring gay writers in Asia? " ...

.. u didnt understand ... "Though Tan prefers not to discuss his sexuality as an author, Fridae managed to get him to agree to an online interview" ...

amazingly he went along with the interview with you at all ... so im going to get 2 copies of his book now ... (for his level of tolerance) ... and not likely anything of yours ... ever ;)

Haha, well, I've done my job as a journalist (most people in the posting gushed yes, buy the book, and isn't the guy smokin'). I got to meet Twan Eng over cocktails and he was cool with the article anyway.

So that was 80 bucks well earned. For the cause!

3 comments:

xinhui said...

can I open a coffee shop nearby your estate then?

You may be familiar with me. I am your fan and you future colleague in Flying Inkpot, except I have been busy falling in love and getting my heart broken, so I haven't had time to follow through with some stuff yet.

xinhui said...

heh. you could link me as

your blooming Dancer fan

xins.blogsome.com

Ng Yi-Sheng said...

You're Xinhui from ACS IB right?