Last weekend was the first ever Bangkok Literary festival. Organised by the Neilson Hays library, the day provided a chance to mingle with fellow writers, hear a range of informative talks about all aspects of writing and participate in writing workshops.
I was very fortunate to be asked to speak at the festival. My talk covered two key topics. Firstly, as a new writer, I spoke about the challenges and the opportunities presented by the new publishing landscape. Secondly, I discussed short stories and my view that the short story is very much the medium for fiction in the 21st century. This then gave me the opportunity to tell people about Five Stop Story and its latest short story competition. (This will be the subject of my next blog post, but in the meantime, you can find out more here.)
Before my talk I was pretty nervous – especially when I read through the festival programme and saw the high calibre of the other speakers – including Ken Hom, Stephen Leather and Christopher G Moore. How could I compete with Ken Hom? Before I went into my talk I was wondering if I’d bitten off more than I could chew.
But luckily the audience were very receptive and welcoming. My talk went smoothly and people asked well-informed and challenging questions. And I received a bottle of wine for my efforts, which was certainly appreciated!
After my talk, I decided it would be bad form to crack open the wine immediately so I treated myself to a burger and a beer and then went to see Christopher G Moore and Stephen Leather’s talks. Christopher’s talk took the audience through each of his books, providing us with an insight into how life in Bangkok had changed since he started writing. Stephen shared his first-hand experience creating a best-selling e-book – a real bonus for new writers.
All in all, it was a great day out, extremely well organised by Annemarie Hellemans and her team at the Neilson Hays. I’m already looking forward to the next festival!
A massive honour and achievement, Ruth. You obviously ranked up alongside the best – and shared some inspiring stuff with the audience. Well done!
Ruth,
I so wish I’d been there at the Bangkok Lit Fest, for one I LOVE LOVE LOVE Bangkok. I spent time in the city back in my backpacking days and once with my 3 small children and it is in fact the setting for the sequel to DEAD GAME, WAITING GAME and secondly, I would have loved to have seen you do your talk. I bet you were perfect. You’re Five Stop Story is such a great opportunity for aspiring writers and a great way of giving others the confidence of putting pen to paper. I wholeheartedly embrace and support it. Congratulations. All washed down with a bottle of beer, what more could one ask for!
Claire
Thanks Claire! Bangkok is great, isn’t it? 🙂 There is so much to see and do.
As for the beer – I’m glad I waited until after the talk instead of before to calm my nerves..
What a tremendous platform to share your experiences and talents, Ruth. Do you have a transcript? If so, it would be great to be able to share your speech.
Many congratulations.
Having read your PP presentation, Ruth, I wish I’d been present to hear and see you delivering it. I’ll be keeping the file on my desktop for reference and for inspiration. Five Stop Story will be such a good platform for so many.