Three writers

My mum pointed out that last Sunday was a notable day for our extended family. For the first time ever, three of us had an article each in the national newspapers; My mum with her piece on reforms to the Child Act, my uncle with his sentimental musings of vacations past, and me with my heretical prediction of the end of books.

Of the three of us, my mum is the one least likely to label herself a professional writer. Her background is law, her writing is about law (and at home, her word is practically law as well). She originally started when asked by the New Straits Times to provide pieces on human rights, but now has extended to 'hot topics in law'.

My uncle is an extremely experienced writer, as well as being editor of Auto Magazine for years. He used to do a column in Audio File in the Star, and so is used to the rigours of deadline-based journalistic-style writing. He has just completed a novel of a family set against the history of Malaysia, stretching from the death of JWW Birch, through the travails in between, up to the chants of Merdeka.

And then there's me. Not a writer by training, but only guided by passion, and directed vaguely by being dipped in an environment conducive for writers and gently tugged by osmosistic pressures.

It just seems a little strange, than for a family who doesn't really have an ancestral tradition of writing, that we've ended up at this point.

Labels: writing