Category: The Literary

Being literary and other stuff.

Ally’s Adventures! Bilingual book series

I was trying to find some Singapore based Malay books for children because I can’t find any at Popular Bookstore. The only things I found were assessment books and no stories in Malay.

My friends instead recommended me to check out Ungu Pen online store.

Basically, there are a number of Malay books for children but Singapore based ones aren’t that many comparatively and there is a difference between Singapore, Malaysia and bahasa Indonesia too in terms of context.

Ally's adventures with Dawn the cat

I bought Ally at Home and some other books (will review that in another post) from Ungu Pen but then I decided to check Poppet World where the Ally series is from to just check out what more is available.

And I got more books and received a sticker sheet and also got a limited edition Ally plushy doll for a child because they can have story time with an actual Ally!!

Ally at Home by Norlin Samat

The Ally’s Adventure series is written by Norlin Samat and it’s a board book style which has a lovely smooth texture where kids can touch and turn too.

Ally is at home today

This is Ally at Home, you can see that it is in both English and Malay. They use simple languages so that your child can read or be read to, to know the story.

Also as you can see, the windows are “HDB” styled, if you live in Singapore, these things will seem more familiar to you.

Ally at the library

In Ally at the Library, it amuses me that Ally is with human children but let’s ignore that because this is a children’s book. I want to see more cat friends though!

And the library does remind you of the ones we have here at the National Library children’s section.

Ally at the zoo

For Ally at the Zoo, if you read this to your children, you can go to our Singapore Zoo and point out the animals or say “Hey, this is where Ally went!”.

I am amused that there are tigers and that Ally is a different kind of adventuring cat.

Join Ally at Poppet World

I won’t spoil the endings or how the story goes for each book but they are fun for you to read out to children in both English and Malay so that they can recognize words and understand them.

At the time of this post, you can join Ally at their facebook page to know if they have online activities or offlline ones too.

Ally's adventures stickers

Since I bought more books at the Poppet World website where they are the publishers, I managed to get a sticker sheet (while stocks last)!

Ally plushie doll

Also the Ally plushy doll is limited edition because of course, they wouldn’t be able to make thousands but just enough so if you want to get an Ally plushy, just get it.

She is really cute and her backpack actually opens and you can put maybe an eraser or something in it.

Anyway, feel free to recommend me Singapore based Malay books for children and young adults too! I feel like there’s too many angsty ones aimed for adults and the fun ones for children, there’s not enough?

Nanowrimo in Singapore

 

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on this even though it happens yearly! We had our kick off party, well we call it “gentle nudge” because it wasn’t November yet but had all the briefing and info for newbies to know what would happen for the National Novel Writing Month.

For us, we brought our own food, some people brought snacks to join in the “food pile” and also random prizes for random quiz questions related to Nanowrimo to get participants to remember facts like “What do you win for Nanowrimo? Answer: Nothing! YAY!!” basically things like that.

To remind them that they don’t win anything but their own first draft of their story and a digital badge and all those things.

Mainly, it’s a marathon for yourself to complete your story.

And after the ‘official’ announcements and the whole programme bit we usually have a bit of cake and whatever snacks we’ve pooled in together and talk to each other.

It’s not often you meet other writers who are doing this too.

Besides the kick-off we have write-ins which are just scheduled meet ups somewhere to just type away.

This year’s gear for me is my phone and a keyboard attached to it. Also, yay for bagels, I do have a fondness for those with cream cheese.

Anyway, it’s simple enough, you can still join Nanowrimo. The rest is pretty much up to you to keep on course for your novel! 50,000 words in November. That’s it really. All the rest is up on the official website with the FAQ.

Escape from Reality

Escape from Reality

Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy (an imprint of Two Trees) is calling for submissions for a fantasy short story anthology to be published in 2015.

DEADLINE: 7 march 2015

Email submissions only: fantasy@twotrees.com.sg

Eligibility:

Open to Singaporeans and Malaysians anywhere
Open to anyone living in Singapore and Malaysia
Open to any age, any educational background, any outlook

For more details check out: http://twotrees.com.sg/Submissions.php

GUYSSS. Always saw those tumblr prompts or wanted to write a story with them? WELL. You should try it for this.

Also… yes. Any ‘outlook’ is our code for WRITE WHATEVERS YOU FEEL and by any outlook, you should know what I mean.

Your characters can like anything or anyone they like as long as it makes sense.

Anything as long it is FUN to read. That’s our criteria. It better be entertaining and fun and not with IN YOUR FACE agenda. It can have the message inside but no blatant ones because the main thing is that the story has to be engaging read.

Do look through the pdf in the fine details, it’ll tell you how to submit your story.

Basically, when you’re feeling down. Or bored and you want to read something that takes you away from all this. That’s what we’re looking for. Write something that takes you away somewhere else.

It can be urban fantasy, fantasy fantasy, high fantasy, soft fantasy.

Just… just take us away, ok?

Gadis Melayu Yang Terakhir

Ok.

Just a brief post, it’s about Nanowrimo. There’s still time if you want to join it.

By the way, my story is going to be in English, the title is just somewhat of a pun reference thingy.

Here is the start:

The history books said that Singapore was a sleepy fishing village.

That was a horrible lie.

I had no idea where I was but I knew I was somewhere in Singapore. Or rather, Temasek. I only knew this because either this was a very elaborate period set or that I went back in time somehow.

I know, one might think I am sounding utterly too calm for this but I assure you reader, I am not. On the exterior I am such a cool person but on the inside I am wondering what the heck did I do to deserve this.

And that’s how you know that you don’t really have to have quality when doing Nanowrimo, just write the story out first.

Ok, that’s it for this post. GO JOIN if you want to.

The Noq store!

The Noq store!

Hey ho! Have you checked out the Noq store? It’s a newish online store for books here in Singapore. It’s the e-commerce side of Times Publishing! So besides the other bookstores that I’ve talked about before years ago, this is a new one to hit the internets that seems promising.

For one thing, it’s not just books! They have stationery and other accessories too like Moleskine. Alright then.

I was given a voucher by Noq to try out their store so this post will be updated when my purchases arrives in 7-14 days.

There’s 7% GST so make sure you account for that when you do purchase your books.

Since it’s quite new, the search function seems needing a bit of an update.

It can be a bit ‘slow’ while the pages load and some things might be weirdly categorized (why IS John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars in the stationery section?).

And their ‘price’ sort order is a bit iffy since they’re also showing things that are out of stock and thus cost $0.00. Besides all that though, if you know the title of the book you’re searching for, it seems to be able to search it ok! Try it on the computer, not the phone since some options are kind of hard to press if so.

The popup for the search by author/isbn/title needs a good hovering of the mouse before you can click it.

Also, I was searching for a book that just came out on 6 May and YESSS IT IS IN THE STORE (it’s 11 May on the time I clicked purchase). That’s wonderful so that means their stock is pretty up to date even if their current web search isn’t.

You know what I like about the checkout part? They DO have an option where you can checkout as guest. Means I don’t have to signup if I want to. Just buy and go.

Well, not go because I’m at home when I’m doing this so yeaaah. So that is nice. They don’t have a notification of how much you have purchased as a highlight on top where checkout is though but that’s just the designer in me going meh. You can find out your ‘total’ when just clicking it anyway.

At the time of this post they’re having free deliveries for orders of $25 and above. PLUS YOU get 15% discount if you type in SARAH until 30 May 2014 in the Noqstore. So cool right?

Ok, we’ll wait until my books arrive and I’ll update THIS post with the info of how the books are delivered then.

It’s really just books actually

Bubble G.U.M!

SEE THIS BOOK? It’s Bubble G.U.M and it’s in stock at Books Actually if you’re not buying it online here. BUY it this 21st to 30 April especially from Books Actually. Why? Look at this message:

Dear Customers/Friends of BooksActually:

We humbly ask another big favour of you: please drop by to buy books/vintage trinkets for yourself, your friends, family, or all your loved ones. From 21st to 30th April, we will hold a 10-Day 25%-Storewide Sale to raise money so we can buy a new shop space for our bookstore. (WE REALLY NEED TO STOP RENTING/THEY HAVE TO STOP INCREASING OUR RENT.)

We are finally crossing the next step and making one of our biggest strides forward.

BooksActually is not what it is today without the people who have walked through our doors for the past (almost) nine years. They are that German gentleman who comes in every other day to buy a book before heading over to Jerry’s for a jug of beer; that family who visits us every Sunday after breakfast across the street; the father who comes every Christmas to buy books for his missus and three daughters; the writer who sits behind our counter on quiet afternoons helping us to stamp-chop paper-bags; or the young dating couple who took a picture of themselves in a giant birdcage, creating an illusion of lovebirds (their son is now almost two).

The bookstore is not what it is today without every single one of you who has loved us, hated us, and lightly nudged (or forcibly pushed) us to move forward — to be better, climb higher and dream bigger.

With our deepest gratitude,
The BooksActually Team

So yeah. Cause it’s silly if their rent keeps increasing and whatnot. They might as well buy a piece of property to keep things low since the price of rent is ridiculous. THUS! BUY A BOOK or some random goods from them.

There’s stationery, bags, vintage gear too. If you have no idea what to buy, here’s a suggested list of BOOKS by my friends and me:

Continue reading It’s really just books actually

Survive

NANOWRIMO kick off 2013!

Click to enlargen the poster! Or you can download it here. The Nanowrimo Kick-Off party will be at the possibility room (level 5) of the central library on the 26th October! Don’t forget to actually sign up in the main Nanowrimo website though. The RSVP thread will be out in October.

What do we do at kick-offs? We have intro to Nano, quizzes, fun and stickers.

If you don’t know how to get to the fifth floor of the central library. You can take a lift, that’s just a video of me taking the escalator and trying to get up there as fast as possible. Starts at 6pm to 8pm but generally for those who have been to the parties know the ‘main’ part of it ends around 7pm and the rest is the major mingling and cake time.

And if you’re not Nanowrimo-ing… JOIN THE ZOMBIE WALK!

SZW-teaser-venue

It’s on the same day but different time! REGISTER here.

Time:

  • 7.30pm – Party at our Undead Festival:  Back for Seconds. There will be rock music performances, prizes and Wii games for participants to enjoy.
  • 9.oopm – The 2nd Singapore Zombie Walk begins

Venue: The Cathay at 2 Handy Road

Attire: Zombie Attire

Admission Fee: Free! Though we are asking all participants to bring at least 2 canned foods or non-perishable food items in support of the walk’s charity:  Food Bank Singapore

Get more info on their registraion page!

Continue reading Survive

Save the date – The Nanowrimo Kick Off Party

No proper post on account of sick. Instead… SAVE THE DATE.

26 October.

Starts at 6pm.

FOR THE NANOWRIMO KICK-OFF PARTY.

Also, for those who have attempted, past, present, future and alternate dimensions, this is the FB group for the Singapore Nanowrimoers.

Ps. Ok. We know the location is going to be the Imagination room  Possibility Room of the central library but all those things we’ll be putting it in a nice poster soon.