Singapore
Scene from Sing Lit Station Prose Bootcamp, Singapore, December 2016
Hao Guang's ear, Hsien Min listening to Kenny Leck with Clarissa Goenawan and Hoe Fang's hand in the background
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.
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.
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.
Bloke, New Bridge Rd, Singapore, Leica M9
“What's this place called?'
He told me and, on the instant, it was as though someone had switched off the wireless, and a voice that had been bawling in my ears, incessently, fatuously for days beyond number, had suddenly been cut short; an immense silence followed, empty at first, but gradually, as my outraged sense regained authority, full of a multitude of sweet and natural and long forgotten sounds: for he had spoken a name so familiar to me, a conjuror's name of such ancient power, that, at its mere sound, the phantoms of those haunted late years began to take flight.”
Bridgehead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Bloke, Buddhist Lodge, Kim Yam Road, Rolleiflex 2005
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.
The guest poets introduced by Pooja Nansi at Speakeasy #29 on 19 October 2016 were Tania De Rozario, Alfian Sa'at and Cyril Wong.
This was an evening for juvenilia and the poets read from their very early work. Often emotional, cringeworthy, comic and immature the readings were quite entertaining.
Tania's work was heartfelt and deeply vulnerable. Pooja's diary entries had so much attitude and energy. Cyril's singing was other worldly, angelic and beautiful, while Alfian was his charming, brilliant self.
All images are copyright Jon Gresham. permission should be sought for any use and should be attributed to ‘Jon Gresham www.igloomelts.com'.
Please kindly email me for approval to use any image, especially if you are a commercial organisation.
Image Symbol Department, a Singapore writing group gave a preview of new works at BooksActually on 16 October 2016.
Jennifer Anne Champion (“A History of Clocks”, “Caterwaul”), Amanda Chong (“Professions”), Samuel Lee (“A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore"), Daryl Lim Wei Jie (“A Book of Changes”) and Daryl Qilin Yam (“Kappa Quartet”) read from their new books.
The poets will launch their books, published by Sing Lit Station/Ten Year Series, at Singapore Writers Festival:
Daryl Qilin Yam will also launch his debut novel, Kappa Quartet at Singapore Writers Festival too:
All images are copyright Jon Gresham and should be attributed to ‘Jon Gresham www.igloomelts.com'. Please kindly email me for approval to use any image, especially if you are a commercial organisation.
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.
Rail Corridor, Singapore 2016
“But the fact is that writing is the only way in which I am able to cope with the memories which overwhelm me so frequently and so unexpectedly. If they remained locked away, they would become heavier and heavier as time went on, so that in the end I would succumb under their mounting weight. Memories lie slumbering within us for months and years, quietly proliferating, until they are woken by some trifle and in some strange way blind us to life. How often this has caused me to feel that my memories, and the labours expended in writing them down are all part of the same humiliating and, at bottom, contemptible business! And yet, what would we be without memory? We would not be capable of ordering even the simplest thoughts, the most sensitive heart would lose the ability to show affection, our existence would be a mere neverending chain of meaningless moments, and there would not be the faintest trace of a past. How wretched this life of ours is!--so full of false conceits, so futile, that it is little more than the shadow of the chimeras loosed by memory. My sense of estrangement is becoming more and more dreadful.”
W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn
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.
