Sorry about this, but Ali (short for Alison) Whitelock has to be revealed to the world for once and for all what she is: the best writer of sad and funny stories that I've ever personally known.

She's on the brink of signing a contract for the Australian publication of her first book. And her Australian publisher is sending a copy of her manuscript to a firm in her native Scotland to see if he can get it in print there too.

Meanwhile, Ali herself is experiencing one of her periodic crises of confidence, and has emailed me with a plea to reassure her that her work's not just, to employ the expression she habitually uses in a critical context, "a heap of shite."
This is by no means the first time I've felt it necessary to confront Ali with the stark reality of how talented she is. But previously it's always been person-to-person, or in the relative comfort of a small and sympathetic audience of a dozen or so fellow or would-be writers. But now it's time I went public on the subject, so she realizes I've been so sincere in my praise for her work all this while that I'm prepared to proclaim her virtues to the whole world.

And you and your fellow 50,000 or so daily readers of malaysiakini are as big, sophisticated and cosmopolitan a slice of the world as I've ready access to right now. So, with apologies for involving you in what is, after all, a matter of personal if also professional interest, I'll press on with my efforts to dispel Ali Whitelock's self-doubts forever by encouraging and no doubt embarrassing her on a massive international scale.

But first, one small but vital disclaimer. Ali and I are and always have been, as her husband and my wife will I'm sure be happy to attest, just good friends. No, we're more than that. Best friends. As undoubtedly attractive as she is, I love her not for her face or any other physical features, but for her wit and her way with words. Plus the fact that she's had the tenacity to not only keep writing through all her doubts and fears, but to also remain a steadfast soulmate despite our having lived in separate countries for years.

Horror and hilarity

None of her outstanding qualities were evident the first time we met, one evening of an eight-week adult creative writing class I was teaching back in Sydney. But Ali did stand out from the 18 other newcomers to the course by virtue of her attitude. Invited in her turn to introduce herself to me and her classmates, she stated her name and occupation, then issued a declaration along the lines of "and if after tonight I think this course is a load of shite, you won't see me here again."

So I was agreeably surprised in week two to see that she'd not only turned-up again, but had completed the 500-word "Why I Write" exercise I'd set and was prepared to read it aloud to the group. Which she proceeded to do, first to the discomfort and then the dismay of all of us there in the room.

Why she wrote, as it turned out, was to exorcise the terrible memories of her Glasgow childhood as the daughter of a loving mother and an abusive, alcoholic father.

And as she read her first story to the whole stunned roomful of us, she became so emotional that her voice was racked by sobs, and tears streamed down her cheeks and trickled off her chin. I and her horrified classmates begged her to stop reading if she was finding the experience too harrowing, but she just choked-out "I have to finish" and read to the bitter end. The bitter-sweet end, actually. Because the magic of Ali's first story and the dozens that I've heard or read in the years since was its unique and astonishing blend of horror and hilarity.

If you ever get to read Ali Whitelock's soon-to-be-published book, I promise you'll either laugh til you cry or cry til you laugh. I really don't know which, and nor, I suppose, does it matter. What does matter, and very much, is that here is a woman with a gift for marvelous writing, yet the modesty to imagine, at least in her darker moments, that it may all be nothing but shite.

She's also taken lots of time and great trouble over the years to appreciate the stuff I write. Stuff that is, to say the least, not to everybody's taste, and could hardly be more different from her own. So she's as broad-minded and big-hearted as she's talented, and living contradiction of US novelist Gore Vidal's wry comment on writers' legendary bitchiness towards and envy of each other, "Success is not enough; friends must fail."

So you see, I hope, as self-indulgent as it may have seemed at first on my part, and as at odds with the role of malaysiakini in its accustomed coverage of the Malaysian political scene, at least my exposure of Ali Whitelock has provided a tiny glimpse of literary politics.

Beyond that, what I hope this public praise of my friend has achieved for her and for any other aspiring writer who happens to be reading this, is the realisation that nobody but yourself can teach you to be a writer. What it takes is a modicum of ability, the courage to be true to yourself and a tonne of hard work. Plus all the self-belief you can muster, or else have someone you trust forcibly and, if necessary, publicly impose on you.