Call for short stories on everyday life during Khmer Rouge era

The Khmer Writers Association is collaborating with the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam) to organise a short story competition on the topic of life under the Khmer Rouge, with the winner receiving the Sleuk Rith Literature Award.

To preserve the historical record of Cambodians during the Pol Pot regime and promote Khmer literature, the story must be about the everyday lives of Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge.

“Contestants wishing to enter should write an original composition about the daily lives of Cambodians in Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea. However, the story should not focus on genocide,” the Khmer Writers Association said this week.

Just quickly...

Click for the opportunity to get trained to lead a writing workshop in Cambodia with Writing Through. You don’t need to be a writer, poet, or teacher and you don’t need to move to Cambodia. Training is scheduled for Friday, 27 October in Central Singapore.

Just quickly...

I'm very pleased that The Elephant Bar, a short story I wrote for Illustrated London News / Raffles Magazine  is now online.  Never mind the words, I LOVE the illustrations. Click here to see them! The story is set in colonial-era Siem Reap, and concerns an ingénue mixing it with a mysterious Russian photographer...

Sue Guiney: Philanthropist And Author

Sue Guiney is the British-based American founder of Writing Through, a charity working with children in Cambodia to promote conceptual thought and self-esteem, through the teaching of creative writing. Instruction is in English, so classes also help students develop fluency in a language that opens doors otherwise closed to them.  

Sue is also a poet, and a novelist.  Her novels explore modern-day Cambodia.  I met her in Singapore, to discuss both her philanthropy, and her writing.

Writing Through: Cultivating Voices in Sala Bai, Cambodia

Student Uk Sreytouch reading her poem

Writing Through Cambodia is a programme using creative writing to improve Cambodian students’ fluency in English, both spoken and written, to develop their capacity for conceptual thought, and to enhance their self-esteem.  It also works with Cambodian teachers.

Writing Through Cambodia was founded by Sue Guiney, an American-born, British-resident poet, novelist and educator. When she is not volunteering with Writing Through Cambodia, Jeanne McKay is a conservation biologist living in Singapore, from where she manages a conservation research project in Sumatra, Indonesia. 

Jeanne and Sue collaborated on a guest post exploring the role of Writing Through Cambodia.