Why is Teddy reading?

One recurring question from the previous post:

Why is Teddy reading?
Because he wants to :D.

Teddy was reading as a participant of the Monthly Readings series organized by Sharon Bakar. Readings is an event aimed to showcase local writers and encourage new writing talents. The series is a monthly event and Teddy was reading for the June 2007 installment of it.

What happens is participants go up and read out passages of their writing : prose, poetry or both. Participants are writers lined up beforehand, so yes you may go and watch and no you don’t have to be a writer to attend. You don’t even need to be artsy-fartsy inclined. The event is held at the art gallery Seksan in Bangsar, which explains the work of art in the background.

This is my first time attending a local literary event (although I’ve been meaning to attend one since last year! Procrastinator!). It was interesting. Let’s go through my observation of the readers.

David Byck – I liked his reading style. Nice. But the story was a bit of a bore, not something I will rave about. But oh! His reading was bea-u-tiful.

Teddy – HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. And I’ve read the work he’s reading too. If I didn’t have to keep my hand steady for the video I might have been rolling on the floor clutching my sides. See video here.

Gary Ooi – I actually have no other opinion other than it being nice.

Liyana – Terrific prose and poetry, terrific delivery. I’m in love with this goth-ish chick.

Andre – This is the one read I did not enjoy. Andre has a heavy accent and rolls his ‘rrr’s while reading. I discovered then that my internal reading voice has an accent just like mine and this ‘rrr’s accent threw me off balance and I stopped listening. I tried tuning in now and then but his subject matter of pain and suffering and subjection (it was the “moaning and groaning”, as opposed to “let’s do something about this”, tone) turned me right off again.

Sharon – Her reading is very calm, but the strength of her works is staggering. Her first prose about her mother’s illness gave me goosebumps (yes it was that good). I have a line of another of her stories stuck in my head – “You did not hear the ‘if’ in my sentence”. I like, I like it very very much.

So, are you coming to the next one? Look out for announcements for the upcoming ones from Sharon.

Related:
See Sharon’s write-up here.
See Teddy’s write up here.
See Ash’s photos here.
See Sufian’s photos here.