I've never been a particularly big fan of early Japanese art. It's not that I didn't like it—it just didn't move me the way classical European paintings do with their deeply intense, emotive imagery and light and shadows, such as Anguish by August Friedrich Schenck. When I first saw this painting—housed in a large room with more …
Hola!
Hi, guess who's back... back again! I'm terribly sorry—it's been such a long time since I've checked in on here. Life has been incredibly hectic with me finishing up my MA in Publishing and Communications (at the fabulous University of Melbourne), being pregnant (this has a sad end... a story for another day), moving house, …
Showdown: Writer vs Editor
Some days, that's my reaction. I'm angrily, frustratedly, despairingly screaming in my head (or sometimes at the loquat tree in the backyard)—NEVER AGAIN!!! Some days, some editors drive me up the wall with edits that have nothing to do with the writing or the story, but everything to do with personal preference. And then there are …
True Singapore Ghost Stories
It's no secret that I'm a firm believer in literature/the arts being able to shape society and create a collective identity/forge a collective bond. It's also no secret that I'm a big fan of horror literature, and even more so of Singaporean (Singapore pride!) horror literature. As a kid growing up, my friends and I …
Of reverse sexism and moving backwards
A (not so) long, long time ago, I was proofreading the final copy of a magazine (I won’t name it, for obvious reasons) as a favour, and I was happily going about my business until one of the articles (purportedly written by a self-professed “feminist”) made me want to cover my face with my hands …
Writing for different purposes
Being a good writer in a particular genre, on a particular medium, does not necessarily mean that we're able to transpose that same writing ability and apply it to different media. To put it in no-nonsense terms... different media require different styles of writing! While writing an academic/research paper more often than not requires rather long …
Of course we need editors!
So in response to my previous blog post wondering whether we need editors in this technology-infused world... YES, WE DO. (As you can also tell from the title of this blog post...) But why do we need editors when Word has spell-check and most modern phones have auto-correct? The answer is: this and this. As we …
On yet another side note…
If you guys were wondering (I may just be overly excited) — here's where I'm currently doing my Masters degree (in Publishing and Communications, if you were wondering)... The beautiful University of Melbourne. A few days before the semester began, I decided to wander around on campus, just to get a feel of the school …
Geraldine Stallard 