My first career was as a journalist with the Business Times in Singapore.

Even before that, however, when I was a student at the university, I was already doing freelance journalism work. At that time, the women's magazine Her World was running an advertising campaign asking men, "Are you man enough to read Her World?"

I took the initiative to write to the editor and ask for a job, saying I was "man enough to write for Her World." The editor, Betty Khoo, could not use me but kindly passed me on to a young people's magazine called Fanfare (which was soon after re-launched as GO Magazine).

I proposed a column that took a light-hearted look at Classical Music and Fanfare accepted it. I did not realise at that time that it was not all that easy to get a journalist job, let alone become a columnist, even though it was merely for a young people's magazine. I was also asked to do record reviews (those were pre-CD days!) along with occasional articles.

My journalism career was launched. For that, I must thank Betty, and the Fanfare / GO Magazine editor Pat Chan.

Despite my initial success, however, I still did not realise that I had journalistic talents. When I applied to work at Business Times (BT) after graduation from university, it was one of a dozen jobs that I had applied for. The rest were mainly for banking and administrative posts.

I just did not know what I wanted to do, or what I was good at.

Once I started work at BT, however, it became quickly clear that I have a talent for journalistic writing. My first article was a lead story on the page. I had a by-line (that is, the words "by Richard Seah") and had to treat the office to a cake, which was a BT tradition.

Very quickly, I was given the more important assignments and also asked to write editorials. I was also given editing functions and I have developed considerable editing skills as well. I was quickly promoted, twice in the nine years that I worked there, from 1980 - 89.

I left BT in 1989 to start my own newsletter on natural health, called The Good Life. I did that for eight years, till 1997, single-handedly publishing 61 issues during the period.

In November 2001, I returned to newspaper journalism with my former BT-editor, Mano Sabnani. He and I were appointed editorial consultants to TODAY newspaper, to help the newspaper improve its coverage of business news. Our initial 6-month contact has been extended by a year. The scope of our consultancy has also been expanded to include general news.

In mid-2001, I had also begun regular freelance work with another ex-colleague, John Lim. John was my section editor when I started work at BT. He now runs an editorial consultancy producing newsletters and magazines for government statutory boards and large corporations.

In this section, you will find selected articles that I wrote for TODAY plua some miscallenous articles such as Letters to the Editor and unpublished articles.

I present the original, unedited versions of these articles rather than the final, published version. This saves me the trouble of having to incorporate the edited changes. It also gives you a better idea of my writing style. In cases where the published version was heavily edited, I will make a note of it.

I hope you enjoy reading these articles. If you would like to use my writing and editing services, please contact me at richard@richardseah.com.