It’s been three years since I got the first idea of writing this novel about ‘kretek’ (clove-cigarette), the signature cigarette of Indonesia. This is the longest period for me finishing a piece of novel. I guess it explains why I always support producing cigarette (especially kretek), though I don’t smoke at all. I got my reason, and the more I dig deeper on to clove-cigarette, the more I see the core of a kretek and how it worth treasure. (In this part, you don’t have to be agree with me, especially if you hate smoking and smokers *wink*)
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I’m lucky enough to get an opportunity to meet this smart funny man, Tariq Ali. My husband, Eka Kurniawan, and I met him at the hotel in Kemang, Jakarta, to give him some books. And you know what, he gave us his book too! Its tittle is Fear of Mirrors. Lucky (^,^)v Then we got a chance to have a chat. I’m not saying it was a light chat, since we talked mostly about politics! Yes, can you believe it? But Mr. Ali was a very positive person whose able to bring the conversation into a nice chat. From Pramoedya Ananta Toer to Cuba, the chat got me carried away. For a man who admit don’t know much about Indonesia (than other Asia countries), he sure knew many about Indonesian history. One funny thing happen, when he saw a news paper named Koran Jakarta. He thought it was about religion. Then I explained that ‘koran’ in Indonesian means ‘news papper’, not ‘Al-Quran’. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to meet again in a future, sometime. I don’t know any other serious writer whose fun like him.

Ada yang tertarik mengikuti kelas online menulis cerita pendek bersama Eka Kurniawan? Rencana kelas baru mulai 14 April 2011, diadakan oleh PlotPoint. Untuk yang tertarik, sila daftar di http://tulissekarang.com. Bisa juga sebelumnya bertanya dulu dengan ngobrol via YM di tulissekarang@yahoo.com. Yang menggunakan Twitter bisa follow@_PlotPoint, yang menggunakan Facebook, sila kunjungihttp://facebook.com/pages/plot-point-workshop.

Anda penulis? Menyebalkan bukan jika tiba-tiba terserang writer’s block? Tahu kan, itu lho…tiba-tiba lagi asik menulis, “terserang” masalah, entah mendadak mood jelek, rasa malas yang akut, mau nulis kurang bahan tulisan, dan lain-lain. Saya sering ditanya, gimana cara mengatasi writer’s block. Saya pribadi, akhir-akhir ini lebih suka membiarkan writer’s block itu sejenak menyerang saya, dan tak memaksakan otak saya untuk menulis. Jika merasa sudah tiba saatnya, saya akan mencoba memancing mood menulis dengan menulis hal-hal sederhana (misalnya menulis blog), atau membaca buku-buku yang menyenangkan, hingga nonton film yang bisa memancing ide-ide baru. Saya yakin, tiap penulis jika ditanya cara mengatasi writer’s block punya jawaban sendiri-sendiri.

Writer’s block itu ibaratnya “habluminallah” (tentu saja dengan tanda kutip, yang secara harafiah ‘hubungan manusia dengan Tuhan’). ‘tuhan’ (dengan ‘t’ kecil) di situ -versi saya- saya ibaratkan diri sendiri, penulis sebagai tuhan kecil untuk tulisannya sendiri. Bagaimana ia bertanggung jawab atas dirinya sebagai penulis dengan tulisan yang seharusnya ia hasilkan. Saya katakan ‘seharusnya’, karena memang banyak penulis yang mandeg begitu saja di tengah proses menulisnya (ya terserang writer’s block itu tadi) dan tak melanjutkan lagi. Tapi, ada lho, “habluminannas” dalam berkarya sastra (yang secara harafiah berarti ‘hubungan manusia dengan sesama’), yang berarti -versi saya- dalam hal sastra adalah hubungan buku yang dihasilkan oleh penulis yang bersangkutan dengan pembacanya.

Pernahkah Anda merasa sebal karena tahu bahwa tulisan Anda tak ada yang membacanya? Bagaimana cara tahunya? Yang sederhana dan paling mudah dilacak adalah ketika Anda melihat laporan dari penerbit, bahwa penjual buku Anda cuma beberapa gelintir saja alias tak laku. Kedua, cari saja orang yang mengapresiasi buku Anda dengan mereviewnya di media/internet, jangan-jangan isinya mencaci maki buku Anda. Atau lebih parah, tak ada yang mereviewnya sama sekali. Sakit hati, bukan? “Sialan, susah-susah aku nulis!” Umpat Anda dalam hati. Yah, tapi itulah resiko jadi penulis.
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Jakarta Globe | Dalih Sembiring | September 27, 2010

Of all the literary works that deal with lesbianism or have lesbians as lead characters, how many have been written in Indonesian?

Try to list them and you will realize that there are very few.

Oka Rusmini mentions lesbians in her novels “Tarian Bumi” (“Earth Dance”) and “Tempurung” (“Shell”).

Then there are Clara Ng’s “Gerhana Kembar” (“Twin Eclipses”), Herlinatiens’s “Garis Tepi Seorang Lesbian” (“The Margin of a Lesbian”), Djenar Maesa Ayu’s “Nayla” and Ratih Kumala’s “Tabula Rasa.”

Other titles include “Club Camilan” by Bella Widjaja, Brigitta NS and Donna Talitha, as well as Alberthiene Endah’s “Dicintai Jo” (“Loved by Jo”) and “Detik Terakhir” (“The Final Second”).

These are not even enough to fill a single bookshelf on lesbian literature — if Indonesian libraries had such a section.

This is why a new anthology of short stories titled “Un Soir du Paris,” French for “An Evening in Paris,” is long overdue.
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There are more than a million books published around the world every year, with short story collections accounting for less than 1 percent of them. Still, the last two years have seen the publication of some of the most intriguing anthologies by authors of all backgrounds, making 2008 and 2009 very successful years for short fiction. In the long run, it remains to be seen if the short story will gain the publishing upper hand. Maggie Tiojakin reports.

Short stories are hard to write, that’s true; but they’re even harder to sell, and that’s a fact.

Ratih Kumala is known for her quirky and sometimes disturbing stories that appear regularly in leading national dailies, including Kompas and Suara Merdeka. She’s the author of three novels – Tabula Rasa (2004), Genesis (2005) and Kronik Betawi (2009) – as well as a collection of short stories, Larutan Senja (2006), distinguishing her as one of the most promising young writers today.

The 14 stories included in Larutan Senja (Potion of Twilight) feature some of Ratih’s best writing to date, recounting anecdotes of a world driven by faith (or the lack of it), mysticism, fantasy and (some) horror. Yet the anthology is almost impossible to find in local bookstores and available for purchase only through the Internet. This is despite the fact that Larutan Senja was listed as one of the few notable books in the year of its publication.

“Our editorial department has often expressed a great interest in publishing short story collections,” says Hetih Rusli, a senior editor at publisher Gramedia Pustaka Utama. “But our marketing department has always been more than a little hesitant to put them out there because they never sell as well as we expect.”

Nevertheless, according to Ratih, the lack of interest on readers’ part in purchasing anthologies of short stories may also be attributed to the fact that local short stories are readily accessible in newspapers’ weekly cycle.
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