#SGLit
On 6 and 7 October Sing Lit Station and Grapple Max presented Sing Lit Body Slam, the inaugural Poetry & Pro Wrestling Performance, at Aliwal Arts Centre in Singapore.
What a night. The room was packed with standing room only at the back. My doppleganger Jon Gresham would be proud.
Here are the images:
And here is the aesthetic case for the event from Hamid Roslan.
All images are copyright Jon Gresham. All rights reserved. Please ask beforehand if you wish to use an image.
On 6 October Sing Lit Station and Grapple Max presented Sing Lit Body Slam, the inaugural Poetry & Pro Wrestling Performance, at Aliwal Arts Centre in Singapore.
What a night. The room was packed with standing room only at the back. My doppleganger Jon Gresham would be proud.
Here are the images:
All images are copyright Jon Gresham. All rights reserved. Please ask beforehand if you wish to use an image.
The October Writing the City will be a Playwriting Workshop with Haresh Sharma, presented by Writing the City and the NLB SG Author Series, and will take place on 21 Oct 2017 at 2pm at Toa Payoh Library.
Haresh Sharma has been the Resident Playwright of The Necessary Stage since 1990. He was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 2015. To date, he has written more than 100 plays which have been staged in over 20 cities. His play, Off Centre, was selected by the Ministry of Education as a Literature text for 'N' and 'O' Levels.
Haresh has 13 publications of his plays, including Trilogy, Shorts 1, Shorts 2 and Don't Forget to Remember Me. His works have been translated into Malay, Mandarin, Greek and Italian. He was awarded Best Original Script for Fundamentally Happy, Good People and Gemuk Girls at the 2007, 2008 and 2009 The Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards respectively.
He is the first non-American to be awarded the prestigious Goldberg Master Playwright by New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 2011. In 2014, he was conferred the Southeast Asian Writers (or S.E.A. Write) Award (Singapore), which recognises and honours literary excellence in the ASEAN region.
"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.
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, 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 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.
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.
SingPoWriMo 2017 closing party at Sing Lit Station.
The roti prata was very nice. The poetry even nicer. Well done to all the winners. 'Bread talks, but the kopi tiam.'
Don't forget to support the SIngPoWriMo 2017 Anthology at Indiegogo
This year's anthology will be edited by Ruth Tang, Stephanie Dogfoot and Daryl Qilin Yam.
French Concession, Shanghai 2007
Writing the City, the craft based writing workshop for Singapore based writers run by Sing Lit Station now has a Facebook page here.
So do join up!! The schedule for workshops this year is below. Do email me if you would like further information.
The Valentine’s Edition of Speakeasy was held at Artistry on 10 February 2017 to a packed and sweaty audience overflowing to the tables outside.
I was privileged to read some of my favourite love poems, and thankful that I was placed first so by the end of the evening everybody had forgotten me. On stage I took my glasses off so I couldn’t see anyone, but forgot to raise the microphone stand to suit my height. This means that the only photo of me reading shows me as a hunchback with toothache. Thanks to Shu Hoong for that photo.
I should also thank Shu Hoong for giving me me my very first reading in Singapore at the Book Cafe near Mohd Sultan Road in 2003 where I read my story We Rose Up Slowly. Prof. Kirpal Singh spoke on that evening a long time ago too about creativity.
Back at Speakeasy, you can see by these images that Shu Hoong has done well to retain his youthful, calm thoughtfulness - to be contrasted with Ashley50 whose up front good looks and virulent utilitarian pragmatism remain as erotic and enticing as ever.
The set list, courtesy of Pooja, was as follows:
1. Jon Gresham
2.Marylyn Tan
3. Balli Kaur Jaswal
4. Darryl Whetter.
5. Paul Tan
6. Yong Shu Hoong
7. Ruth Tang
8. Daryl Yam
9. Will Beale
10. Ian Chung
11. Barrie Sherwood
12. Samuel Lee
13. Renee Ting
14. Ashley 50
15. Cyril Wong
A larger version of the images is here. Please in all cases ask me for permission if you wish to use any image.
I note I am available to take promotional, marketing portraits or event shots for a fee. Please contact me if you are interested.
2016 has been a productive year for me. Despite Brexit, Trump, the loss of David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Carrie Fisher, and, possibly, the beginning of the end of life as we know it, 2016 was full of joyful, creative progress with lots of fun with our baby growing up. In this mixed up, sad, insane, dystopian world I was privileged to have lots to enjoy.
Some of the creative things I got up to included:
1. Being a featured author at the Singapore Writers Festival.
Sneaking into the green room, scrawling graffiti on the white board … and not being able to operate the capsule coffee machine were highlights … together with being on panels with Robin Hemley, Cathy Torres, Eric Tinsay Valles, Jeffrey Lim, Audrey Chin & Ng Yi-Sheng.
2. Finding a home for a new story, The Looker, within the anthology In Transit
I am very happy with the way The Looker shaped up. I beta tested a romantic white saviour ending versus an open ended, lyrical ending … you'll have to read the story to see which ending I chose for The Looker
3. A Long Bicycle Ride into the Sea finds itself in Singapore Love Stories
ALBRITS is not autobiographical, although it very well could be. This anti-love story ends with our arrogant protagonist bewildered and alone in a bed-sit in Bermondsey.
4. My photo story, The worker from Jiangxi, is published in This is Not a Safety Barrier
I want to do a whole book with photo stories like this one. The good news is that the worker's compensation claim was upheld in December 2016.
TINASB is edited by Marc Nair and Yen Phan. TINASB also includes a ruthless poem about the photographic gaze by Verena Tay inspired by one of my images ‘Old Man at Tekka Centre’.
More of my images inspiring Verena Tay’s poetry were published in Left-Right. This is a wonderful Singapore Photography book edited by Geraldine Kang and Kenneth Tan and I would recommend it to anyone unfamiliar with the quality and vision of Singaporean photographers and writers.
6. The Finger published on line at Singapore Poetry
Thanks to Jee Leong Koh for publishing The Finger, available free on line at Singapore Poetry. Singapore Poetry is an important outlet for Singapore writers and provides fresh and intelligent views on Singapore literature.
7. The Model published in Esquire Singapore
Thanks to Amanda Lee Koe for publishing a story, The Model, in the April 2016 edition of Esquire magazine.
I really enjoyed taking part in this multi-media show. The Science Centre & SWF teams were extremely professional and easy to work with. I do hope they repeat the presentation in 2017.
9. Teaching creative writing for a few weeks as Writer in Residence at School of the Arts
Mr Chips eat your heart out. It’s hard work and a fascinating process trying to influence and persuade and communicate to people. Exhausting and very rewarding.
Writing the City is a monthly creative writing workshop community held at Toa Payoh library and supported by NLB and the British Council and run by Sing Lit Station.
We are looking for a sponsor if you are interested in helping us pay the facilitators and guest presenters.
11. Mucking about with Sing Lit Station
Sing Lit Station has achieved a lot thanks to the hard work and talents of a large number of volunteers and interns and the leadership of Daryl Qilin Yam and Joshua Ip - and it's not even a year old. Watch out 2017 for more poetry, prose, bootcamps, workshops and zombies.
