22.08.2004
Contests will spark interest, says writer
PETALING JAYA: A small payment of RM10 for a poem published in the Malacca Times was one of the motivating factors for 10-year-old Shirley Lim Geok-lin to embark on a lifelong career in writing.
“The idea of being rewarded for my writing and knowing that someone would publish and read it was a psychological boost to me,” said Prof Lim, who is now based in the United States.
Prof Lim, now 60, is a professor of English and Women's Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She gave a public lecture on creative writing at Menara Star on Friday. The lecture was organised by the Lincoln Resource Centre and the Asian Centre for Media Studies.
Prof Lim felt that more competitions should be organised and rewards, no matter how small, be given to spur Malaysians to write with the knowledge that their writing is valued.
She agreed that it was very hard to make a living out of writing unless one was able to build up a fan base like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling.
She added, however, that a successful writer was an independent thinker, an initiator and one who continued to write even without recognition.
“If you write for the money, you will stop writing because the money will stop coming in at times,” said Prof Lim.
The Malacca-born writer has won numerous international awards like the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for her first book, Crossing the Peninsula, in 1980 and the American Book Award in 1997 for her book Among The White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir Of Homelands.
“Take one step at a time and stop complaining how hard it is to get published when you have not written a book yet,” Prof Lim advised would-be authors.
She encouraged those who were interested in writing to join or start a writers' community to sharpen their skills.
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