Just Five Months To Go!

I’m excited… just. This will be my first Singapore Writer’s Festival. Why am I excited? This is one one of the very few festivals in the world that simultaneously celebrates the literature of four different languages. That’s a big mission/achievement. The reason why I’m only a little excited is because there is a distinct lack of detail on the SWF’s official website. Sigh! I do recall Wena Poon and Sharon Bakkar mentioning that they’d be appearing at the festival but anything else is conjecture.

That’s not quite true. We do know that it will be held at The Arts House and we also have a date: 24 Oct-1 Nov, 2009. Put this in your diaries now!!!

To whet our appetites, SWF is offering some pre-fest events. So far there’s the Tash Aw book release this Monday 1 June. Also in the nearish future:

Experience Singapore Literature: Nostalgia will take a poetic tour of  Shenton Way, through the CBD to Toa Payoh presented by Kenny Leck, co-owner of the bookstore of Books Actually and a native of Toa Payoh. Saturday 6 June at NLB. Free event but registration essential through the above link.

Experience Singapore Literature: Changes is similar to the Nostalgia session. Presented by poet Cyril Wong, this is a glimpse of Changi Airport, Raffles Place and Armenian Street that many people will be unfamiliar with. 11 July 10am-12am. Like the Nostalgia presentation, this is free but requires registration.

So that’s it. I’ll leave you with the SWF vision and mission statement. See you there!

Vision
A city where writing empowers and transforms lives.

Mission
The mission of the festival is to not only present the world’s major literary talents to the people of Singapore, but also to promote new and emerging Singapore and Asian writing to a wider public

Just In

Breaking news, folks! This just in from Seriously Sarah (aka Sarah Coldheart).

Wena Poon, Suchen Christine Lim, Alvin Pang and a mystery guest all under one roof. Date is June 3 at 7pm. Since I haven’t received any info, here’s Sarah’s post. http://www.seriouslysarah.com/blog/2009/05/28/of-semi-secret-events-and-sales/#more-359

And to all book sale lovers, she also points out that it’s Popular’s 85th birthday and they’re celebrating with a sale at the Expo centre this weekend. Details also at the above link. Thank me later!!!

Inspector Singh

Shamini Flint is releasing Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder in Singapore. The book is the first in a series of crime novels written by Shamini and published by Little, Brown UK.

 

 

A lawyer, Shamini gave up that profession to become a full-time mother here in Singapore. She took up children’s writing, noted for her Sasha series of books, before turning her hand to crime fiction. Here’s the link to her website: http://www.shaminiflint.com/index.html

A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder will be released here in Singapore on 20 June, 2009 over a beer and curry. Invitation by RSVP to info@sunbearpublishing.com

Laura Wilson of the Guardian says this of Inspector Singh: “Down these mean streets a man must waddle … It’s impossible not to warm to the portly, sweating, dishevelled, wheezing Inspector Singh from the start of this delightful debut novel.”

And The Daily Telegraph had this to say: 

 

“Welcome to Malaysia, the first stop for Inspector Singh as he travels throughout Asia solving crimes. He’s a crime series hero like no other – fat, cantankerous, cynical but utterly endearing – and could do for Asia what Mme Ramotswe has done for Botswana,” – Daily Telegraph. 

 

 

HSWG

This group is something of a mystery. The legend from the deep recesses of time goes something like this.

In response to NaNoWriMo, this group formed to have something to do in the other eleven months of the year. The philosophy of the Happy Smiley Writers Group is to write material that isn’t depressing, a trait of Singaporean writing. Their tag: “Because we want some happy endings, darn it!” As Sarah Coldheart told me ,”basically it’s for us to write stories with at least a hopeful or happy ending because depressive stories tend to win competitions around here.”

Sarah is a good contact for the group and is also the NaNoWriMo liaison officer for Singapore. Check out her blog here http://www.seriouslysarah.com/blog/

More on this group when I know more!

Writer’s Podcasts

I found the following site the other day listing 10 writer’s podcasts. These are another great tool to get ideas and inspiration. Find the link here http://www.writerstechnology.com/2008/09/10-podcasts-for-writers-worth-listening-to Thanks to Dustin Wax for the compilation.

Note: Number 10 is not to every one’s taste, as the compiler notes.

Wena Poon also has a podcast. Go to the itunes store and type her name into the search engine.