By Aiman Zhafran
GOMBAK, 19 June 2023: The IIUM Poetry Club will be participating in the Mini Expo of the international virtual SEA Lit Circle Writers Festival, which will run from 5.00 pm to 6.00 pm (GMT+8) on the 8th, 15th and 22nd of July 2023.
It will be the only student club from Malaysia to be in the mini expo, along with WriterSkill from the Philippines and SMU Literati from Singapore.
The SEA Lit Circle Writers Festival will be held virtually through the entire month of July and will have talks featuring writers in and from Southeast Asia, a Mini Expo featuring publishers, self-publishing companies and literary agencies inclusive of student organisations and a Zine Market where zines or chapbooks can be sold and bought online.
The festival will also hold a Writers Workshop to discuss and give feedback on the writings of SEA Lit Circle members that will feature guest speakers such as Joyce Chng, Vida Cruz-Borja and Marc Nair among others.
The Mini Expo aims to connect festival goers with exhibitors from the Southeast Asian writing industry, where festival goers will be able to explore the virtual Mini Expo grounds and interact with booths to see the available tools and services.
Exhibitors include Tusitala, a digital storytelling studio based in Singapore, Teaspoon Publishing, a self-publishing company in Malaysia, and of course our very own IIUM Poetry Club.
œIIUM Poetry Club aims to reinvigorate an interest in the art of poetry, in which the Islamic world excelled in the past, mentioned the Head of the Department of English Language and Literature and the Advisor of the IIUM Poetry Club, Dr Tanja Jonid, to an inquiry on the direction the club is taking.
œThrough our recent activities, we also wish to get wider exposure for our IIUM talents. Not only on the national stage but now regionally and, insha’Allah, in the future on the global stage, she further elaborated.
œThe SEA Lit Circle Writers Festival is a big skyrocket for the IIUM Poetry Club to be known on and off campus as a club where students can learn to write and recite poetry, said the President of the IIUM Poetry Club, Mohammad Fayyadh Khumaini bin Khamsani.
œThis opportunity is also a learning experience for the club, he continued.
Further information on the SEA Lit Circle Writers Festival can be found here. The SEA Lit Writers Festival will be running a special promotion for IIUM Poetry Club members exclusively, reducing the ticket prices from $27 USD (RM 124.59) to $11 USD (RM 50.76).***
