This has taken quite a while and we apologise for that. Anyway the editors, Dr Asraf Jamal and Dr Shanti Moorthy have battled it out and produced the final list for inclusion into Silverfish New Writing 7 out of 165 stories we sent them. (We have notified all the successful writers by email, but if perchance you have not received them please check the list below.)
The final list:
- Departing Ways - Yvonne Tham
- A Geography Lesson - Chang Shih Yen
- The Vortex - Helen Yeo
- Sitting on the Fence - Nurul Ikhlas Abdul Hadi
- That Smile - Jane Downing
- The Morning After - Jocelyn Chua Lay Hong
- The Good Lieutenant - Yusuf Martin Bradley
- A writers monologue - Parveen Sikkandar
- The Last Deejay - Peter G. Brown
- Transactions in Thai - Robert Raymer
- Only in Malaysia - Robert Raymer
- Invisible - Saraswathy Manickam
- The Briefcase - Shalini Akhil
- TheFirstTime - Kow Shih-Li
- Check-in - Surya Ramkumar
- Dog Hot Pot - Wena Poon
- The Beggar - Viren Swami
- Beer in Fukuoka - Yeo Wei Wei
- Layang Layang - Yew Kwang Min
By the way, this will be the last in the Silverfish New Writing series. We have decided to stop here. There will be no Silverfish New Writing 8, nor anymore after that in the foreseeable future. To all those who have contributed in the past, thank you for making the series an unqualified success.
What? No Silverfish New Writing 8? Or at all? Just how will the literary world survive?
ReplyDeletehaiyo raman! betul ke ni???
ReplyDeleteThat's really awful news, Raman.
ReplyDeleteHave you considered the fact that, without the New Writing series, there are very few reasons for local young writers to care about Silverfish?
YBLalat
Having received rejection letter after rejection letter from the Silverfish New Writing series, knowing that I can try again in the next edition keeps me writing and trying. Now, what? Yes, I can submit my writings to another anthology but Silverfish is known especially for its literary prominence and having one's writing published in its series is a feather in one's cap. Please do reconsider.
ReplyDeleteI hope that this doesn't automatically translate to Silverfish no longer creating any opportunities for Malaysian writers to compete. Your series has been a household name for aspiring writers, and I believe that it has encouraged other writer-editors to start competitive anthologies (although of different genres) in the same vein. Although none of my stories have been accepted by Silverfish, knowing that some of my friends have been successful in standing out against hundreds of others gives me a sense of pride. The Silverfish New Writing series is the only true national writing competition in this country.
ReplyDeleteThank you for creating this series, and thank you to all the editors who shuffled through all that pile of gunk! I look back at my older entries and I feel so embarrassed of them now (has it really been seven years?).
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CatR.
In conversation about the ending of the Silverfish Anthology series -
ReplyDelete“its life, Jim, but not as we know it”.
Raman,
ReplyDeleteI do hope you reconsider. This series has been a great inspiration for a lot of writers. It's the carrot on a stick that I hold out for my creative writing students (this semester I'm even teaching a class for lecturers), that by completing their story and rewriting it later they have somewhere to sumbit it too, by March 31th. That deadline gets them going! Several of my students have in fact been published in the Silverfish Series (2 in SF6!). I know I have personally benefited, both in my stories being accepted (four including two in SF7!) and also as one of the editors (SF4) who has had the pleasure of discovering some talented writers (including at least two who have popped up in SF7!
Either way, it has been a fun ride and I do thank you.
Robert Raymer
Dear Raman,
ReplyDeleteI read with great dismay about the discontinuance of the Silverfish New Writings series. I am hoping that this would be a temporary set-back and that you would reconsider. For a new or wannabe writer, nothing beats seeing your name in print, in a book that can be kept for generations to come. No amount of Blogging & internet writing can give that same effect. For that matter, thank you for my one magic moment when my first submission got accepted (SNW6)
Dato' M Shan introduced Silverfish to us when he came to NUS for a bookreading. A few of us "hopefuls" responded to the call for new stories, hoping every year to be accepted. It gives us something to look forward to and pushes us to make time to write something for submission. Silverfish writing stories are well-edited and anyone would be proud to have a name in it. And the brilliant idea of anonimity to the editors gives opportunities for fresh new writing styles and ideas to surface. And there is the hope that if this year's editor doesn't pick yr story, maybe next year's would? So in a way this motivates churning of newer, better stories & improved writing styles for one who aspires to be published.
Whatever the reason, I do hope for some salvation. And IF Silverfish resurfaces, I hope you keep that name. It's really cool. - JH
Dear Silverfish New Writing - I have been happy to get hold of every issue so far - usually when I am passing through Singapore on my way to visit my family in Australia - and I look forward to each edition and each story. You have helped to put Malaysia and South East Asian writers on the literary map. So - I'm sorry you are stopping the series and I shall treasure my copies of the books even more. Elizabeth in London, UK
ReplyDeleteTo those who had been published before: treasure the fact you are among the honoured. To those who shall be in No.7: Cherish the fact it did not end with no.6. To those without the option to submit for future editions: let this news be a boost to work harder, as there is one less opportunity for aspiring writers.AM
ReplyDeleteIn the end, there's only so much charity you can do.
ReplyDeleteIt was a great and valiant effort, but if we're really honest about it, it made as much impact as a pebble in the sea.
We're too fond of calling everything a "success", so much so that we don't do proper post-mortems. The simple fact of the matter is that it didn't sell enough to cover costs. It was a diamond, dug from the ground at a great cost, painstakingly ground and polished by experts, and then sold at prices more befitting cheap glass.
How would it have survived ? therein lies the paradox of the writer, you want success but with success comes money, and money corrupts writing. You see it all the time, most financially successful writers' second novels are never as good as the first.
A lot of writers have been corrupted by the money. In order to succeed, to be a good writer, you almost always have to suffer. It's hard to suffer when people are treating you like a god, and throwing large amounts of money in your direction.
So in the end, another knight in shining armor becomes one more can of meat for the dragon.
And life goes on.
I dont think it's the money that bothered Raman. It's the failure of the series to expand and cultivate a writing culture among Malaysians that killed the series off.
ReplyDeleteThere is perhaps a need for a regular competition format, which caters to a shorter term objective than the SF New Writing. A one-off writer may not, at time of winning a contest, have the loftier ideal of being part of the Msian writing culture. Raman might cringe at this but better have some work in circulation, even one-offs, than none. We used to have some other avenues which unfortunately, are no longer available eg NST-Shell competition, some local mags that used to publish short stories also seem to have stopped. Mph? Times? U guys there?
ReplyDelete"It's the failure of the series to expand and cultivate a writing culture among Malaysians that killed the series off."
ReplyDeleteRome isn't built in a day, and the books have highlighted some very good writing. Many of the writers are still working hard at their material. two have completed and published novels, and I've heard extracts from at least one more in progress which is excellent. Others (I can name at least 4) are completing their own collections of short fiction.
That really doesn't look to me like too much of a failure. Does it to you??
Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will a viable writing culture.
There has to be a sustained effort. The series has been one of the things that has worked best, and there is a big gap without it, which needs to be filled. But only by something which emphasises quality as much as this series has.
Raman has done more than his part to get things moving and maybe it's time for others to share the responsibility and burden he has taken onto his shoulders for so long.
Yes, quality is important. I've seen anthologies slapped together because they had about 20-25 stories, but chosen from how many? 30? Yes, that few. With SF there was typically 140-300 to choose from. It also takes perseverance and persistence to get your work published. I heavily revised my work, so if they get rejected one year, I go through them again and again to ensure they get published next time around. During the launching of 25 Malaysian Short Stories, Best of SFNW 2001-2005 where about a dozen or more of the writers from that collection plus some other writers showed up, Raman asked me to inspire them so would write more, so I casually asked how many of them had submitted stories to SF6. I expected a half dozen to a dozen hands to shoot up. Not one. I was appalled! And these were "successful writers". I was thinking, what were they waiting for, a personal invitation? I had submitted at least 3 or 4 stories. As it turned out none of my stories were accepted, which I thought was odd; nevertheless, I revised them and one of the stories was published in Off the Edge and Thema (USA) and two others in SF7. Persistence.
ReplyDeleteI had also pointed to these writers that the best benefit from the series was the networking. For example a SF writer based in Australia contacted me about publishers in this region, including Malaysia, and I then contacted a SF writer based in Singapore who had published a book in Indonesia, so we had a three-way email dialogue going about the various publishers we had links too and we all benefitted. Other SF writers whom I've never met have contacted me as well, and I've contacted a few myself. To stay in the game, you got to be on top of what's going on out there, whether locally in Malaysia, regionally, or in my case, the larger world of the UK and the US.
I think Sharon has something up her sleeve, so I've waiting to see what it is. Whatever it is, quality will be behind it and some persistence and perseverance, too. Good luck.
Robert Raymer
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I
ReplyDeletewould leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have
enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Alena
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