Marc de Faoite

I had the pleasure of interviewing Ivan Alexander Francis Gabriel for Penang Art District. Read here   photo credit Opalyn Mok

In the early part of the pandemic I spent a lot of time editing this fascinating book. It was challenging because the information kept changing day by day as the coronavirus advanced and mutated.  The main thrust of the book is that extractive neoliberal capitalism created the conditions for COVID-19 to flourish, from the exploitive encroachment into different ecospheres, to market-based healthcare, to the inadequacies of just-in-time supply chains, and more.  A fascinating snapshot of the pandemic from a unique perspective.

  Am I the right person to tell this story?  Should non-Asians even write Asian stories? I honestly don't know, but I wrote a story inspired by some elements of my 15 years in Malaysia and some of the many disturbing news stories and events I followed during those years and some people liked the resulting story well enough to want to include it in this new book. Buy it, read it, and make up your own mind.

While I wrote this specifically for the Malaysian context there are a few pointers that are applicable everywhere. https://penangartdistrict.com/how-to-get-your-writing-into-print-a-beginners-guide-to-publishing/

I will be presenting the October 2021 episode of Readings - Malaysia's longest running monthly literary event. The readers are: Wan Phing Lim, Kopi Soh, Elizabeth Smith Alexander, Tash Aw, and Sarah Sharum. Wan Phing Lim was born in Butterworth, Penang and lives in Kuala Lumpur. Her short stories have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies in UK, USA, Canada, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. ‘Two Figures in a Car’ is her first short story collection and is published by Penguin SEA. Kopi Soh is the pseudonym of a US based Malaysian Author and Illustrator. Her first book, Oh, I Thought I Was The Only One, published in 2012, is a self-help book aimed at creating awareness of common psychological issues. In 2013, she published her second book, Oh... I Thought I Was the Only One 2, which focuses on how children experience various stresses in their daily lives, and teaching them skills to overcome them. Her latest book Looking After the Ashes is published by Penguin SEA, which als

I wrote a little article for The Irish Times about how the pandemic has affected me living in Malaysia. You can read it here . As might be clear from this short piece I am actively looking for work, preferably writing or editing related, but I will consider anything in any country where I can work legally. I have a BA in Hotel Management and have worked in various positions in the hotel and restaurant trade, including running my own tiny café for several years. I am fluent in English and French. I also speak passable Dutch and Spanish. I have a basic understanding of German and a smattering of another half a dozen languages. I have written a collection of short stories and had my writing in fiction and non-fiction featured both in print and online, including quite a number of book reviews for major Malaysian news outlets (links to most of of my published work are featured on this site). I have edited and proofread more than a dozen books, details of some of which can be found on my ed