Jing-Jing Lee was a Visiting Writer under the Asia Creative Writing Programme at Ntu in June and July 2022. She gave a three session creative writing workshop on Exorcising the Past.
You can find more details at the Asia Creative Writing Programme
SGLit
Singapore Unbound Fellowship Awards 2019
On 12 July 2019, filmmaker Jason Soo and poet Ally Chua received their Singapore Unbound Fellowship awards at UltraSuperNew.
Award-winning filmmaker Tan Pin Pin presented the fellows with their awards, after which Jason spoke about his project in Thailand, and Ally, who will be going to NYC this year, read from her poetry.
The evening opened with beautiful singing by singer-songwriter Vivien Yap, who has just released her debut EP, Fables. Singapore poet Max Pasakorn was MC for the evening.
Celebrating Ponti: A Dinner With Sharlene Teo
Haresh Sharma at Writing the City
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.
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.
Singapore Writers Festival 2016 - No 3
These are the third batch of images from my attendance at Singapore Writers Festival 2016.
More images from the Singapore Writers Festival 2016 are here and also here.
All images are copyright Jon Gresham. Permission should be sought for any use and should be attributed to:
‘Jon Gresham www.igloomelts.com'
Again, please kindly email me for approval to use any image, especially if you are a commercial organisation.
Singapore Writers Festival 2016 - No 2
These are the second batch of images from my attendance at Singapore Writers Festival 2016.
The final images will be posted by the weekend.
Images from the first half of Singapore Writers Festival 2016 are here.
All images are copyright Jon Gresham. Permission should be sought for any use and should be attributed to:
‘Jon Gresham www.igloomelts.com'
Again, please kindly email me for approval to use any image, especially if you are a commercial organisation.
Singapore Writers Festival 2016 - No 1
These are the images from my attendance at the first half of Singapore Writers Festival 2016.
It was a pleasure and a privilege to participate as a panellist, reader, hot dog consumer and audience member. The SWF team, led by Kai Chai, did a wonderful job.
I particularly enjoyed catching up and chatting with new and old friends, as well as:
1) Appearing on the Writing from the Diaspora panel with Cathy Torres, Robin Hemley and Eric Tinsay Valles, and the Singapore Horror panel with Jeffrey Lim, Ng Yi-Sheng and Audrey Chin.
Butch Dalisay has a terrific article in The PhilStar on SWF which profiles our panel.
2) Sitting in the Chamber listening to Gwee and Kim Cheng ('home is where you knock on the door and they let you in') talk about Unwritten Country.
Here’s Gwee’s talk published at Singapore Poetry, and an important quote on the third way (not a given) for the future of Singapore literature.
“In this Singapore, the newsmaking meteors may come and go, but what people will talk more about is writers, books, and their ideas. The press will talk more about these. It will discuss the interests of works and the aesthetics of writers and make connections within literary traditions. The common goal of social beings will be to manifest and sustain the magic of writing, the power of writing.
Our readers will read Singaporean literature not to support Singaporean writing – can we stop saying that already? – but to encounter truly gripping works. Our readers will grow out of a blind awe for literary celebrities and into a committed dialogue with creators as thinkers.
We may have more book clubs – but, above and beyond that, we will have general knowledgeable citizens who understand the social disservice of wanting to pulp books they disagree with. We will understand that writing is precisely that place to experience newness and otherness, what constitutes basic knowledge!
You see, the true future of writing doesn’t lie in an environment with writing, award-winning or bestselling writing, but in an environment conducive for writing. And, for that to take shape, there has to be an understanding and respect for imaginative freedom.”
3) Reading with my fellow writers at the launch of Singapore Love Stories, published by Monsoon Books.
Images from the launch will be posted soon!
4) Taking Sophia to the book launch of Capital Misfits and BooksActually's Gold Standard, published by Math Paper Press. Unfortunately there are no photos of the launch as we had to leave the building for noise reasons and it’s hard to take pictures while wearing a baby harness.
5) Meeting Eka Kurniawan and listening to the panels on Speculative Fiction with Yi-Sheng, JY Yang and Jason Erik Lundberg. Images coming soon.
The Festival was a welcome refuge from the tidal wave of Trump that hit during the week.
More images from the last half of the festival will be appear on my blog soon.
You can also see images from Singapore literature events and readings here.
All images are copyright Jon Gresham. Permission should be sought for any use and should be attributed to:
‘Jon Gresham www.igloomelts.com'
Again, please kindly email me for approval to use any image, especially if you are a commercial organisation.
In Transit Launch @BooksActually
On 2 November 2016 In Transit: An Anthology from Singapore on Airports and Air Travel was launched at BooksActually.
The book is edited by Zhang Ruihe and Yu-Mei Balasingamchow and published by Math Paper Press.
The book features a diverse and interesting collection of poems, short stories and essays, including one of my short stories, The Looker.
You can buy the book on line here or at BooksActually.
All images are copyright Jon Gresham. Permission should be sought for any use and should be attributed to:
‘Jon Gresham www.igloomelts.com'
Again, please kindly email me for approval to use any image, especially if you are a commercial organisation.
Kappa Quartet by Daryl Qilin Yam
I am 50 pages in to Kappa Quartet, Daryl Qilin Yam’s debut novel, and enjoying the read immensely. The book was long listed for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2015.
The prose is crisp and elegant with a sense of mystery and intrigue. The same may be said of Daryl himself.
In his spare time Daryl does all the work at Sing Lit Station where I managed to take a few images of him and he kindly signed his book for me.
Speakeasy 28
David Wong & Antoine Cassar were the guest poets at Speakeasy on 28 September at Artistry.
David read from his outstanding debut collection, For the End Comes Reaching, and Antoine read Passaport, printed in the form of an anti-passport.
‘Valid for all peoples, and for all landscapes. For all citizens and villagers of flesh and blood, wherever they were born. Your worth is not proportional to the population of your country. Entry free of duty, no need for a stamp or visa, the doors are unscrewed from the jambs.’
A hat was passed around with proceeds from the evening going to support the important and valuable work of HOME.
HOME provides counselling & advice for migrant workers, runs a shelter, supports migrant workers in disputes with employers, helps with medical issues, provides education & emotional support, and conducts advocacy campaigns & research including an Anti Sex Trafficking Campaign. I have images from a beauty pageant organised by HOME here.
Poets Among Stars, Rehearsals
I’m delighted to be amongst the writers featured in the SWF Pop Up Event Poets Among the Stars which will take place at 5pm on 4 June 2016 in the Omni Theatre at the Science Centre.
It’s free & you can get your tickets on Peatix here.
Eight Singapore poets will each read a poem against the backdrop of the Universe spread out across the huge, domed screen. The star studded* line up includes:
Award winning, Singapore Literature Poetry Prize nominated, multi-talented, ex -journalist and all round inspiration to both young and old.
Award winning, poet and teacher, writer of A Separation and The Law of Second Marriages, and co-editor of A Luxury We Cannot Afford.
Writer, performer, four-time TEDx speaker and force of nature. Deborah’s recently launched creative non fiction book, Rebel Rites, is an account of her year in the Singapore prison system.
Writer, educator and bird watcher, Ann Ang’s collection of short stories, Bang My Car, a Singaporean classic starring the Uncle has recently been reprinted in a beautiful second edition from Math Paper Press.
Award winning poet, translator and educator, Loh Guan Liang has recently launched his 'knock out', second book of poetry, Bitter Punch, published by Ethos Books.
- Chairul Fahmy Hussaini
Award winning writer and journalist, Deputy Editor of Berita Harian. A creative force in Singapore since the 90s.
Award winning poet, translator, publicist and educator, her poetry collection, They Hear Salt Crystallising (Firstfruits Publications, 2010) was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2012.
Come along it’s free!!
*Excluding your humble scribe.