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Interview with Nury Vittachi on the 6th IPEd National Editors' Conference 2013
[wpcol_2third id=”” class=”” style=””]So who exactly is Nury Vittachi? Well, apart from being a crime fiction writer and a keynote at the 6th IPEd National Editors’ Conference here in Perth in April 2013, I’ll let him do the talking: Nury Vittachi in a nutshell? A small, bald Asian writer who was born on earth and still spends a fair bit of time there. Yes, so just so you know,  he’s also exceptionally funny. Writers are cool, right? Yes, but only because few of us earn enough money to pay our heating bills. Why does he want to come to the conference? Why bother? Well, we asked him to – some of…
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Happy Independence Day, Sri Lankans!
Today is Independence Day in Sri Lanka. A commonly held idea is that most of our problems as a nation come from the colonists and so that therefore today is a day to celebrate our freedom from being a colony. I say that if we like to think we are an island paradise then we should also accept the other side of that where humans desire to possess beautiful things and that can occasionally lead to disaster – we had both peace and awesomeness and also wars and other horrifying things long before the Europeans showed up. So I think we should celebrate today accepting everything we are as a…
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Cricket fever pitching rather feverishly low
It’s not quite the same thing. “Only 0.2% of Australians are watching.”  – Australian cricket fan on Twitter. Mind you, this was prior to the India/Australia match. And I have no idea if the figure is right. But it struck me as odd. Those of you who know me have no doubt been giggling over the status updates I have been making over the past few days relating to cricket. Tidbits of information like the fact that the West Indies have won the Cricket World Cup twice. That it started off in 1979. That sort of thing. It’s not that the Australians don’t like cricket, they do. But for some reason,…
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Perth Diary is back!
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International Women's Day: "Woman"
“Woman”. That word scares me a bit. I don’t know what it means to be a woman. No, wait. Scratch that. IÂ do know what it means to be a woman. But I don’t fit. Years ago, I was writing a weekly column for a newspaper. One day, someone asked me if I was a feminist. The question stumped me. I knew I was all for equality but I had never really bothered with the concept of feminism before. I knew the very definition of it had altered so fast over three decades. But this was a good idea for a column and hey, those were in short supply. So I…
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You get to decide the future of Perth Diary
If you haven’t noticed, the Sunday Leader has got a brand spanking new website. I went exploring. Turns out that in the review section they are printing blog posts from the Kottu feed. Turns out there is no Perth Diary anywhere in the pages online or in print. Turns out that they have cancelled Perth Diary and have forgotten or decided not to inform me of the fact. I have emailed my editor because I wanted to know what was happening. I am fine with them cancelling it, but I don’t understand why they could not be polite enough to tell me. They still haven’t replied to my email so…
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Perth Diary for 6th Sept 2009 is online
Marisa Wikramanayake's latest installment of the Perth Diary column has been published in the Sunday Leader. This week she discusses the problem of writing for a living and supporting oneself while doing so.
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NY TIMES article on Civil Wars, how long they last and why
I thought this article was interesting. I present it here for your viewing pleasure (or displeasure as the case may be). The article did not seem to have comments enabled when I looked at it. Someone please let me know if this is not the case. Graham Bowley who wrote it, seemed to have done a good job of getting different viewpoints on the definitions of civil war and different examples. I suppose if the print version had had more space, he could have really gone more into depth on the topic. Given that this is an op ed piece in the “Week In Review” section, it probably had a…
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Journalism & Editing Portfolio
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10/05/2009 Perth Diary Online Now!
Marisa Wikramanayake is a freelance writer and editor and pens the Perth Diary column for The Sunday Leader. This week she discusses the protest marches held on the May Day weekend in Fremantle.
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Article In The Australian On Sri Lankan Refugees
Marisa Wikramanayake is a Sri Lankan born, Australia based writer. In this entry she discusses Paul Maley's report in the Australian on April 20th 2009 about Sri Lankan refugees and the problems they present for the Australian government.
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Sunday Leader Photo Essay: 25 Years Later The Lion Roars
Hi, There is a really well written, well shot photo essay by R. Wijewardene in this week’s Sunday Leader. Apparently the Sinhala diaspora in Melbourne, Victoria banded together and got a huge crowd outside the State Parliament to encourage the Australian government to crack down on the LTTE. Despite what side you are on, it is well worth taking a look at it. You can read it here. It is in PDF format so it will take a while to load, I recommend you download it. Cheers, Marisa.
