We've collaborated with Singapore Writers Festival to bring you a slew of SEA Focus programmes. Click onto the individual programmes to find out more or visit the official Singapore Writers Festival website!
[email protected] Writers Festival 2022
4 November 2022 - 20 November 2022
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In Collaboration With:
Singapore Writers Festival
04
Nov
Sat
8pm – 9pm (SGT) | The Arts House, Living Room
The lurid glow of neon signs, cutting-edge posthuman technologies, and competing social orders... if these sound familiar, it's because we might already be living in the gritty dystopia of a Cyberpunk landscape.
Between inheriting a post-colonial legacy and vying for space in the modern world, how do new rapidly changing socioeconomic and infrastructural developments in Southeast Asian countries inform and transform these fictions? As we continue to see dystopic elements at play in the real world, these authors tell us how and why Southeast Asia is the dream setting to build a Cyberpunk world.
Speaker(s): Ario Anindito, Cassandra Khaw, Mark Fillon
Moderator(s): Michelle Tanmizi
05
Nov
Sun
8pm – 9pm (SGT) | The Arts House, Chamber
Southeast Asian myths thrive on the page, but what happens when they leap to the screen or...the table? These expert worldbuilders reveal their secrets to shapeshifting familiar stories of regional folklore into magical three-dimensional worlds that have found new life as video and tabletop role-playing games.
Speaker(s): Joaquin Saavedra Cassandra Khaw, Curious Chimeras
Moderator(s): Dennet Krishnan
12
Nov
Fri
7pm – 10pm SGT | Asian Civilisations Museum, Demonstration Room
Translators of SEA literatures may feel like the stakes are against them in terms of nurturing tradition, marketability, and available support. On the other hand, SEA stories are rich in cultural nuances and socio-historical complexities, which will benefit from delicate handling. Translator Nguyễn An Lý from Việt Nam will guide the participants in devising a personal framework for working with the diverse SEA texts, as well as taking care of the translation beyond delivery day.
Speaker(s): Nguyễn An Lý
13
Nov
Sat
7.30pm – 8.30pm (SGT) | ACM, Ngee Ann Auditorium
What's on your shelf right now and why does it matter? These writers discuss how readers play a critical role in influencing the publishing industry and some ways to make room for indigenous and marginalised voices. They share fresh recommendations and favourite reads. Add some Southeast Asian literature to your TBR pile and make your next book haul an act of active decolonialisation.
Speaker(s): Muna Gurung, Criselda Yabes, Nguyễn An Lý
Moderator(s): Hannah Ho Ming Yit
19
Nov
Sun
11am – 1pm (SGT) | The Arts House, Living Room
Worlds are colliding! Join Laotian-American poet Bryan Thao Worra and seek out new experimentations in this graphopoetics workshop where verse and image combine to form new textual experiences. Take your own graphic poem from conceptualisation to creation and form your own unexpected permutations.
Speaker(s): Bryan Thao Worra
19
Nov
Sun
7.30pm – 8.30pm (SGT) | The Arts House, Play Den
Do flying cars and androids alone make a convincing sci-fi Southeast Asian world? As science fiction writing continues to break new imaginative grounds, we talk to these writers from the region about how they keep their fictional landscapes distinctly and believably Southeast Asian without falling into tired tropes, stereotypes, loopholes, and paradoxes.
Speaker(s): Bryan Thao Worra, Cassandra Khaw, Eliza Victoria
Moderator(s): Joyce Chng
20
Nov
Mon
6pm – 7.30pm (SGT) | Asian Civilisations Museum, Ngee Ann Auditorium
Every story needs a memorable villain we all love to hate, and there's plenty to choose from - charismatic serial killers, uber-intelligent con-artists, and the sketchy drug cartels and mafias of the underworld. Who are some of the big, bad guys in SEA fiction? In this conversation, we talk about creating compelling antagonists that hit close to home.
Speaker(s): Prapt, Tsugaeda, Miguel Syjuco
Moderator(s): Joyce Chng
