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.

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. 

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.

Writing The City FB Page & Shanghai

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.

2016 The Year In Review

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’.

5. My images in Left-Right

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.

8. Reciting a Bowie inspired poem for the Singapore Writers Festival Pop Up event, Poets Among the Stars, at the Science Centre's Omni Theatre

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.

10. Running Writing the City

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.

Sing Lit Station Prose Bootcamp 2016

Images from the inaugural Sing Lit Station Prose Bootcamp with various writers, academics, publishers, and agents. Thanks to our four prose writers: Teoh Ren Jie, Clarissa Goenawan, Toh Hsien Min and Ng Yi-Sheng, and to the wonderful support from many of Singapore Literature's leaders and supporters including:

• Balli Kaur Jaswal
• Boey Kim Cheng
• JY Yang
• Ann Ang
• Alfian Sa’at
• Suning Kay
• Kenny Leck
• Ng Kah Gay
• Fong Hoe Fang
• Richard Angus Whitehead
• Darryl Whetter
• Neil Murphy
• Suzanne Choo
• Helen Mangham
• Cyril Wong
• Tania Leong
• Andrea Low

... and a big thanks to Daryl Qilin Yam - for doing most of the heavy lifting, Tse Hao Guang - for impersonating Ng Yi-Sheng, Joshua Ip - for whisky and venue, and Krishna Udayasankar - especially for her input on the texts.

I'm looking forward to regrouping in the middle of next year to see how these four texts turn out. 

Loud Poems for a Very Obliging Audience Launch @BooksActually

On Thursday 24 November 2016, Ng Yi-Sheng launched his new book of poems, Loud Poems For a Very Obliging Audience (Math Paper Press, 2016) at BooksActually.

Yi-Sheng, the award winning poet, is one of Singapore’s most engaging literary personalities full of energy, eccentricity and erudition. I've had the pleasure of appearing on a panel at SWF with Yi-Sheng in costume presenting twenty plus slides on Singapore Horror.

He’s not just a poet he’s a writer wearing multiple hats as an editor (see Eastern Heathens), blogger (see also the fascinating East is Everywhere), gay activist, critic, journalist, playwright, fashion icon and cultural commentator (see A History of Performance Poetry in Singapore).

LPFAVOA gathers Yi-Sheng’s best spoken word poems presented over a 16 year period. My goodness, that’s a long time.

I’ve also had the pleasure of reading the early draft of Yi-Sheng’s collection of shorts stories for Sing Lit Station’s 2016 Prose Bootcamp. This collection will be something to watch out for in the future.

Sing Lit Station Prose Bootcamp

Hao Guang's ear, Hsien Min listening to Kenny Leck with Clarissa Goenawan and Hoe Fang's hand in the background

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.