publishing

Have been having conversations with future room maters-to be and I must say that I am pleased with the way everything is progressing. They seem grounded, down to earth and with a lot of the same interests as me, chiefly literature, social entrepreneurship and of course policy and politics. The moving is going to suck though. I’m going to have to pack up my shit here, ship it to the States and then go back to Singapore and pack up some more shit and ship it to the States and have a break and then do this all before, god, August 29th or something. Somebody KILL ME NOW!

Occasionally it seems like the next two to three years seem kind of positive. I mean I know they will be, its just occasionally I wonder what I’m giving up everything here for. The cleaving is already beginning to happen as my exit date nears. And we STILL haven’t found anyone to take over, notwithstanding ex-Cabinet Ministers of Education applying. (It would be hilarious if that candidate took over! At one point in time, he’s also been the Ambassador of Japan and the Ambassador of Korea). On the other hand, my CEO and founder’s book recently came out (only advanced reader’s editions available thankfully, it hasn’t hit bookstores yet). I make a cameo appearance and it’s rather hilarious because he’s got every single fact wrong about me. Sigh. Also finished reading Monkfish Moon by Romesh Gunasekera. It’s not bad, but not great. Sigh. Why don’t we have great English-language writers like India does? It’s not like we don’t have enough to write about. And an interesting fact that I came across recently, English-language published-abroad authors like Ondaatje and Gunasekera don't have a large following in-country in Sri Lanka because their books retail at US prices. Locally-published authors however have the benefit of reaching a wide in-country audience, however the standard for local publishing is abysmally low due to the near-total absence of local editors. Sigh.