Singapore Unbound Fellowship

"The goal of the Singapore Unbound Fellowship is to cultivate literary talent and encourage literary achievement by immersing a promising Singaporean author in the cultural life of New York City."

On 19 July at Artistry, the inaugural winner of the Fellowship was announced.

Congratulations to emerging playwright Nur Sabrina binte Dzulkifli. We were treated to the performance of a scene from her play "This is not a Draft".

It was lovely to hear some other emerging writers such as Teo Xiao Ting, one of the six poets chosen for the 2017 Sing Lit Station Poetry Manuscript Bootcamp, and Nuraliah Norasid, winner of the 2016 Epigram Books Fiction Prize for The Gatekeeper.

Larger images are here.

Pink Dot 2017 - Part Two

More images from Pink Dot 2017 here.

Pink Dot 2017 - Part One

Compare and contrast to Pink Dot in 2009.

Monyet

Please support the Jakarta Animal Aid Network and their campaign to end this cruel and inhumane practise. Please donate here.

"Long Tailed Macaques are extremely popluar in Indonesia as they are used as Dancing Monkeys, Topeng Monyet is what they are called in the Indonesian Language.
Therefore this project has a major focus on the Dancing monkeys. This extremely cruel practice is where juvenile Macaques are forced to perform (dance, ride bikes) in the loud and very crowded busy streets of Jakarta. An illegal trade in wild Macaques has built up around this phenomena known as ‘Topeng Monyet’.

JAAN observed a worrying increase in the use of these monkeys on Jakarta streets since 2009 and has started to campaign against this abuse ever since."

Pink Dot 2009

In 2009 cowboy hats and bunny ears were in. There was a lot more space too.

Sing Lit Station Prose Bootcamp June 2017

At the end of 2016, Sing Lit Station held its first Prose Bootcamp with Clarissa Goenawan, Ng Yi-Sheng, Toh Hsien Men and Teoh Ren Jie, and a cast of writers, publishers, agents, academics and editors.

In June 2017 Krishna, Daryl and I regrouped with the Clarissa, Yi-Sheng and Hsien Minh and spent a very pleasant Saturday afternoon going through their manuscripts.

Here are some of the images.

We Rose Up Slowly - Second Edition

We Rose Up Slowly, The Second Edition,
is available at
Books Actually, all good bookstores and online here (free shipping in Singapore).

I must concede I did not take to the cover at first, and argued with the publisher - whose winning argument was that I was too old to know what would sell to the average young Singaporean. 

Now I think the cover is really good and I don't know what I was complaining about.
I think I was too attached to the First Edition cover. Sigh.
Let me know what you think. 

Speakeasy 31 with Yong Shu Hoong & Will Beale

Speakeasy #31 was held on 17 May 2017 at Artistry with poets, Yong Shu Hoong and Will Beale.

Shu Hoong is one of my favourite poets and Frottage one of the best Singaporean poetry books published. Will Beale is such an exciting poet who uses music to great effect.

If you missed this reading, or want to hear more, then do come along to "Singapore & Australia: connections, country & belonging”, a literary roundtable presented by Sing Lit Station on 22 June 2017 at 3A Jalan Kubor. 

Shu Hoong and Will, and also Balli Kaur Jaswal, David Wong and Eileen Chong, will be reading and discussing their Singapore Australian connections.

Tickets are available here.

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows Book Launch @Booksactually

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows was sold out at Books Actually last Thursday night after Balli Kaur Jaswal's book launch.

Another wonderful, warm novel from Balli, and a very enjoyable book launch.

Here's a review from one of my favourite newspapers, The Economist.

Many thanks and hats off to the multi-talented Daryl Qilin Yam for taking most of these images.

All images are copyright Jon Gresham and Daryl Qilin Yam, all rights reserved. Please contact me if you wish to purchase rights to use an image.