Fern Ridge (Safla Rama) Digest

Updated on 27 July 2018. 2:07pm. I see myself as a writer scholar—a unique position that defines the various engagements within and outside of academia, more particularly as a writer and scholar living and working in Oceania. 'I think of myself as a rower of the ocean, taking the winds and currents of Oceania, traveling in and out of islands, around islands, carrying with me the burden of our collective experiences, always rowing to get somewhere to link up all our peoples, and teaching our people and others to appreciate our cultures, arts, way of life and knowledge systems.' I participated in many activities in the Asia Pacific Region primarily as a writer and scholar of Pacific literature. Last year (2017) I participated as an Asia Pacific writer in the Writers Immersion and Cultural Exchange (WrICE), run out of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University, Melbourne. The program involves a writer’s residency in Philippines, in Geelong (

UPNG Bookshop and Press is active in publishing PNG authors. The Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler said in From Where You Dream (2005) that one must never under estimate the powers inside of oneself that would have one flinch and convince oneself that one is doing the right thing. His reference is to the powers of reading a good book. “Now, of course you must read in order to be a writer, and read ravenously. But there are points in your writing day, and even in your life, when you run the danger of hiding in somebody else’s voice, somebody’s else’s vision and sensibility. A moment comes when it’s time to find your own artistic identity and find a way into your unconscious. And then you will need to manage your reading carefully,” are the wise words of Robert Olen Butler that had me thinking about what to write this week. I have to write three or four articles for this column a month ahead. After that I follow the tradition of leaving the journalistic fi

Dr. Mange Matui It is important to have many books written by Papua New Guineans in all subjects that concern us.   In academia we are reminded again and again that we either publish or perish, a call of the highest order, which at times seems to fall on deft ears. Looking around the corridors of higher learning in Papua New Guinea I see very few Papua New Guineans teaching in our higher education institutions are publishing scholarship in international journals or books. Very few ever get a book published either based on their research for their higher degrees or from their own researches.   The question to ask is what happened to all the research funding allocated to individuals every year through their research committees? Does it not seem futile awarding funding to those who will never have their researches published at all? It beats me to think about the answer. Let’s be serious. Make those who receive government funding for their researches publis