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  Last night we received an excellent submission for ROSA that unfortunately had to be rejected. Why? Well it didn’t fit the criteria as it wasn’t an original written specifically for the award. Still, the piece was so good that I really wanted to share it with you. So, our loss is your gain. The guidelines page is getting an update to be a bit clearer about what we expect. Basically, we just want originals written to the criteria of each award. We don’t want to hold your copyright, and the work is always yours. We do want you to read the question carefully. The ROSA award is dedicated to Rosa Parks, but you don’t have to write about her and if you look at the theme ‘non-compliance in the …

  Joyce Chng is a Singaporean author of speculative fiction, with works ranging from urban fantasy to steam punk to Sci Fi. With daring heroines and tumbling prose,  Chng’s adventurous style sweeps us through alternate worlds of vivid imagination. We spoke briefly with the author about her work, as well as her thoughts on the writing scene in Singapore, and the industry in general.  Ed: You’ve written several books on Smashwords.com. Tell us a bit about them, and what sort of reader might find them interesting. JC: The books and stories on Smashwords are targeted at young adults and general readers. The Basics of Flight, Oysters, Pearls & Magic and Winged are YA speculative fiction novellas whereas Rebirth is a short story centring on the Lung, the Chinese dragons in my urban fantasy …

As the days tick over towards Dec 1st, the deadline for the ROSA award, things keep moving forward. Today is election day in the USA. My twitter feed, facebook page, even most of the sites I visit are awash with updates on victories, injustices, platitudes, and threats. The election is a big deal on the internet. Americans make up a large percentage of the English speaking web. Another example of this kind of effect is the recent hurricane sandy, which garnered more tweets, posts and updates then any other elemental force this year. One day it’s likely that voting for national leaders will no longer be a requirement. We’re almost at the point where nations could chose to democratise their policy process. Politicians are, after all, representatives for communities from a time where distance played a …

And so it begins… Being a writer is hard. I know. I’ve tried my hand at just about every kind, from journalism to article writing to fiction and essays. I’ve scoured the internet, from speculative fiction ezines to O-Desk and everything in between. I’ve submitted short stories and waited six months for that rejection letter. I’ve competed in a global marketplace at $2 an article. I’ve churned out copy, I’ve agonised over a verb, I’ve edited endlessly and streamed my conciousness right onto the page. And why? Because I believe, like many people believe, that at some point in my life I will have trained my writing muscles enough to realise the dream. Jack Kerouac once wrote: “One day I will find the right words and they will be simple.” While …