The ROJAK experience….

This is an anthology of 19 short stories written by members of The Singapore Writers’ Group. Best-selling New Zealand author of Purple Heart, Andrew Fiu, has been the inspiration behind the anthology and has also contributed a story to the book.

The stories in the anthology tell of numerous experiences of Singaporean and expatriate nationals living in Singapore.

They bring together the experiences of 19 writers with rich diverse backgrounds. From a San Franciscan woman adjusting to her new life in Singapore; a Singaporean Army Lieutenant patrolling territorial waters; an Indian servant wrongly accused of stealing in Bangalore; a murder in Colonial Africa – the stories focus on people living across continents, with different views from their windows, different ways of adapting to life in their chosen country. But all of them experiencing something of what it means to be conscious of where you live – whether you are at home or thousands of miles away from where you were born.

ROJAK is a Malay word meaning eclectic mix. This is at the very heart of this anthology of short stories from The Singapore Writers’ Group – a group rooted very much in the Garden state from where it originated but also with links to other countries, other backgrounds and experiences.

Sink into another culture….

ROJAK is a book to dip into– an opportunity to escape for a few pages into another world, another culture.

Short stories are by definition, concise. They sum up big ideas in small packages. The stories here paint pictures of a thousand worlds and how we, as humans, fit into them. Sometimes easily, often not. The disconnect immigrants feel in the place they call home is real and visceral. These stories will appeal to anyone with experience of this – or just to those who enjoy a good yarn.

ROJAK will be published as both an Ebook and a hard-copy physical book. Each hardcover copy also includes an Ebook version at no extra cost. Pour a glass of wine and open up one of the stories and enter into another place, a different reality.

The Plan….

ROJAK has been edited and revised and is now complete and ready for publication.

The next steps for ROJAK are:

June 2014: Print run and marketing campaign.

1-31 July 2014: Hard copy book printed. Soft launch on Amazon. Packaging and delivery of sponsorship packages including shipment of hardcover books

17-20 July 2014: Publicity outreach of the book at the Asia Pacific Writers and Translators Conference in Singapore

1-5 October 2014: Ubud Literary Festival Launch

6 November: Official Launch at the Earshot Café at The Arts House, Singapore

All hardcover copy preorders will also have the choice to receive a free copy of ROJAK in Ebook format available in July/Aug!

Your support when preordering or becoming a patron and sponsor is to endorse The Singapore Writers’ Group in their endeavours to encourage writers from all walks of life and from all places, to come together in a spirit of community and mutual collaboration.

Thank you for your support and being part of this cooperative effort to get ROJAK read and enjoyed by others.

About The Singapore Writers’ Group….

The Singapore Writers’ Group was founded in January 2012. Its first meeting was at the Pigeon Hole café on Duxton Hill, Singapore. Since then, the café has sadly closed down, but The Singapore Writers’ Group goes from strength to strength with now over 500 members.

Meeting once a month, the SWG members read aloud from their works in progress or merely listen to others’ writing, whether it be excerpts from novels or plays, whole short stories or poems. The composition of members is eclectic – Singaporeans are mixed in with British expats; Filipino writers jostle next to those from France and America, from Australia, from Germany.

The word ROJAK is often used in terms of food and of cooking. The stories within these pages have been home-cooked by the blend of writers living in Singapore. Wherever they are from, wherever they were born, they live here now in the humid tropical climes of this city state. These stories are a product of their experiences from elsewhere and from living here – for how can one separate the two?

Samoan born, New Zealand author Andrew Fiu is the best-selling author of Purple Heart, and inspired the SWG to put this anthology together. He has contributed his short story Not my Mother to the book.