It was an October afternoon in 2013, at a suburban Kuala Lumpur food court with a name that conjures images of Bob Marley. Two friends met for a long overdue catch up session, one that they would not soon forget.

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Adriana Nordin Manan and Veronica Liew were colleagues in the corporate world, who also shared a love for writing.  Their conversation ventured to a seedling that was germinating in Adriana’s mind. She had had the time to tend to it while studying in New York City the year before.  

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What would it look like if there was a community of writers whose collective enterprise involved exploring and understanding more of KL? It was the city where both women were born and raised, and they agreed that while it wasn’t a bohemian paradise or a glitzy megacity, it was their shared home and definitely held promise as a milieu for stories.

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“What do you think of this idea?” asked Adriana, hopeful but also a bit apprehensive.

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“I think it’s great!” proclaimed Veronica, without skipping a beat.

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And so UnRepresented: KL was born. At its debut in 2014, the programme was generously supported by Poskod.my under its Writers in Progress programme. With the first two editions serving as a proof of concept, future editions were organised (in 2015 and 2016) under the same structure: a period of time dedicated to exploring KL underneath its conventional veneer, followed by a period focused on creating original works.

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Like many things born from passion, UnR lives on the deep belief of those who know it the most. That belief is that a fellowship of writers who cast their lens on a city that presents many stories, is something worth putting into the universe.

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After a brief hiatus and revamp of its format, UnRepresented: KL is happy to return in 2019, facilitated by one of its founders and two alumnae, all of whom are growing as artists and believe in the power of the written word.