SBC Mentorships for
Emerging Writers and Translators
SBC has launched a new mentorship programme for emerging writers and translators. The programme aims to provide professional guidance and support for their development, as they work on their manuscripts. Through this initiative, we hope to build a growing community of writers and translators who can support one another in their journey.
The writing mentees can choose to work in any of the four languages (Chinese, English, Malay or Tamil). The translation mentees will be translating into English from any of the three mother tongue languages.
The 2024 run of the programme offers mentorship positions for both genres of fiction and poetry. Each mentee will be paired with an established writer or translator over a six-month period, to work on their project.
Participation in the mentorship is free for successful applicants (there will be an application fee). There will be a selection process as there are limited places.
Applications are now open until 30 April 2025, 2359 SGT. Please view the respective tabs for each mentorship below for more information.
We arent opening any positions for Malay fiction and poetry this year as there is an upcoming pilot programme for emerging Malay writers. Check back for more updates
For enquiries, write to us at [email protected].
The SBC Emerging Writers Mentorship aims to provide professional guidance and support for emerging writers. Each mentee will be paired with an established writer to work on their craft and development, as they work on their manuscripts.
Applicants can choose to apply either for the fiction or poetry category in any of the four languages (Chinese, English, Malay or Tamil). Each successful applicant will work with their mentor on their manuscript. For the fiction categories, it can be either three (3) chapters of a novel, or three (3) short stories. For the poetry categories, mentees are expected to complete 15 to 20 pages of poetry.
The mentorship will begin in early May and last for six months. Mentees have to commit to the entire programme and complete it. Participation in the mentorship is free (there will be a one-time application fee).
Up to two applicants will be selected for each category.
Programme Structure
The mentorship will commence early May and will run over a period of six months. The mentor and mentee can decide how they plan to communicate with each other, and the number of contact times. They can meet in person, virtually, via phone or email. The mentor will provide editorial feedback on the manuscript, as well as professional advice where applicable.
There are four main deliverables:
- 4th month point: Completion of two (2) chapters or two (2) short stories / 10 to 15 pages of poetry; and mid-point review;
- 6th month point: Completion of third chapter or third short story and remainder pages of poetry;
- 7th month point: Final report.
- Public Reading @ SWF (Details TBC)
2025 Schedule
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April 18: Applications close
-
Early May: Selected applicants will be notified
-
Early May: Mentorship begins
-
Mid-July: 1st Mentee Sharing Session*
-
Late August: First deliverable and Mid-point Review
-
Mid-Sep: 2nd Mentee Sharing Session*
-
Late October: Second deliverable
-
November: Public Reading @ SWF (Date TBC)
-
Late November: Deadline for Final Report
Fiction
- Three (3) chapters of one novel OR three short stories.
- Knowledge of the publishing process.
- Public reading @ SWF (details to be confirmed).
- 15 to 20 pages of poetry
- Knowledge of the publishing process.
- Public reading @ SWF (details to be confirmed).
Eligibility
The applicant should:
- be 18 years old or above;
- be a Singaporean or PR;
- not have published one full-length work before (either a novel or a collection)
Submission Guidelines
Please prepare the following materials for your submission. The mentorship programme is free for successful applicants, but there will be an application fee of $10. This fee is used to cover the administrative costs.
- CV
- A cover letter describing your writing journey and how this mentorship will benefit you.
-
A proposal of no more than 1,000 words that describes the manuscript that you plan to work on during the mentorship, and why this project is important to you. Please also include in your proposal your publication goals (this could include submitting to specific journals for example).
- A writing sample of no more than 3,000 words / five (5) pages of poetry. It can be the piece that you plan to work on for the mentorship, or a previous piece of your creative writing.
The submission deadline is 30 April 2025, 2359 SGT.
Successful applicants will be informed in early May 2025.
Please email [email protected] if you have any queries.Applicants can choose to translate either fiction or poetry from any of the three mother tongue languages (Chinese, Malay or Tamil) into English. Each successful applicant will work with their mentor on a selected manuscript: For the fiction categories, it can be either three (3) chapters of a novel, or three (3) short stories. For the poetry categories, mentees are expected to complete 15 to 20 pages of poetry.
Up to two successful applicants will be selected for each category.
There are four main deliverables:
- 4th month point: Completion of two chapters or two short stories / 10 to 15 pages of poetry; and mid-point review;
- 6th month point: Completion of third chapter or third short story and remainder pages of poetry;
- 7th month point: Final report.
- Public Reading @ SWF (Details TBC)
2025 Schedule
-
April 18: Applications close
-
Early May: Selected applicants will be notified
-
Early May: Mentorship begins
-
Mid-July: 1st Mentee Sharing Session*
-
Late August: First deliverable and Mid-point Review
-
Mid-Sep: 2nd Mentee Sharing Session*
-
Late October: Second deliverable
-
November: Public Reading @ SWF (Date TBC)
-
Late November: Deadline for Final Report
Outcomes
- English translation of three (3) chapters of one novel OR three short stories.
- Knowledge of the translation and publishing process.
- A public reading @ SWF (details to be confirmed).
- English translation of 15 to 20 pages of poetry.
- Knowledge of the publishing process.
- A public reading @ SWF (details to be confirmed).
Eligibility
- be 18 years old or above;
- be a Singaporean or PR;
- not have published one full-length work of literary translation before (either a novel or a collection)
Submission Guidelines
- CV
- A cover letter describing your translation journey and how this mentorship will benefit you.
- A proposal of no more than 1,000 words. The proposal should include information about the original Sing Lit author and the importance of the source text that you plan to translate. Please also include in your proposal your publication goals (this could include submitting to specific journals for example).
- A sample of literary translation of no more than 3,000 words or five (5) pages of poetry. This can be a translation of the proposed work, or a previous piece of your translation. Please identify the source text.
The submission deadline is 30 April, 2025, 2359 SGT.
Selected applicants will be informed in early May 2025.
Mentors
- 2025 Emerging Writers Mentorship (Fiction)
- 2025 Emerging Writers Mentorship (Poetry)
- 2025 Emerging Translators Mentorship
Jemimah Wei (English Fiction)
Jemimah Wei is the author of THE ORIGINAL DAUGHTER. She was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and Felipe P. De Alba Fellow at Columbia University, and has received awards and fellowships from Singapore’s National Arts Council, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and more. Her fiction has won the William Van Dyke Short Story Prize and appears in Guernica, Narrative, and Nimrod, amongst others.
Meira Chand (English Fiction)
Meira Chand is the 2023 recipient of the Cultural Medallion, Singapore’s highest cultural accolade. She is of Indian-Swiss heritage and was born and educated in London. Before coming to Singapore in 1997, she lived for many years in Japan and also India, and is now a Singaporean citizen. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Western Australia and is the authorof 9 novels and a collection of short stories. Her novel about pre-Independence Singapore, A Different Sky, was a book of the month choice by the UKbookshop chain Waterstones, long listed for the IMPAC Dublin literary award 2012, and was on Oprah Winfrey’s recommended reading list. The hit Singapore stage production, LKY: The Musical, was developed from her original story.
随庭 Sui Ting (Chinese Fiction)
何颖舒，笔名随庭，生于中国，2016年于新加坡国立大学中文系获得硕士学位 。作品曾获2015年新加坡大专文学奖小说组首奖、联合早报金奖及金笔奖小说组首奖。2019年出版首部短篇小说集《孕鱼》。担任新加坡华文剧评网站“众观”的驻站剧评人和《联合早报》特邀剧评人，发表剧评二十多篇。
He Yingshu, whose pen name is Sui Ting, was born in China and earned her masters degree in Chinese Studies at NUS. In 2015, her short story won first prize in the Singapore Golden Point Award and the Singapore Tertiary Chinese Literary Awards, and she was awarded the Lianhe Zaobao Gold medal. Her first short story collection, Fish Birth, was published in July 2019. She is a practicing theatre critic. Her reviews have appeared in re-viewers.org and Lianhe Zaobao.
ரமா சுரேஷ் Rama Suresh (Tamil Fiction)
சிங்கபூரில் வசிக்கும், இந்தியாவின் தஞ்சாவூரைச் சேர்ந்த ராம சுரேஷ், தன்னை ஒரு ஆர்வமுள்ள வாசகராகவும், எழுத்தாளராகவும், பேச்சாளராகவும் நிலைநிறுத்திக் கொள்கிறார். இவரது முதல் நாவலான அம்பரம் சிங்கப்பூர் இலக்கிய விருது 2022 பெற்றது. அவரது சிறுகதை கோல்டன் பாயின்ட் விருது 2015 இல் இரண்டாவது பரிசைப் பெற்றது. மேலும் அவர் கோல்டன் பாயின்ட் 2017 இல் சிறந்த முதல் பரிசையும் பெற்றார். சமூகத்தில் அவர் காணும் பலதரப்பட்ட மனிதர்களின் குணாதிசயங்களையும் அவர்களின் விவரங்களையும் எப்போதும் தன் கதைகளில் பதிவுசெய்யும் எழுத்தாளராக வலம் வருகிறார். அவரது முதல் வெளியீடான “உட்லண்ட்ஸ் ஸ்ட்ரீட் 81” சிறுகதை தொகுப்பு 2018 இல் தமிழ்நாட்டின் கா.சீ.சிவகுமார் விருதைப் பெற்றது. மாயா இலக்கிய வட்டத்தின் ஒருங்கிணைப்பாளராக சிங்கப்பூரின் புனைவுகள் குறித்த உரையாடல்களை முன்னெடுத்து வருகிறார்.
Rama Suresh is an acclaimed India-born writer, and storyteller residing in Singapore. Her novel, Ambaram received both the Singapore Literature Award 2022 and India's Karikar Cholan Award 2023. Additionally, her short story collection, Woodlands Street 81 earned her the K.S. Sivakumar Award in 2018. She clinched first and second prizes for her short stories in the NAC Golden Point Award in 2017 and 2015 respectively.
Cyril Wong (English Poetry)
Cyril Wong is a poet and fictionist. A two-time recipient of the Singapore Literature Prize (2006 and 2016) and the National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award for Literature (2005), he completed his doctoral degree in English Literature at the National University of Singapore in 2012. His most recent work is Beachlight, published by Seagull Books in 2023, and his writings have appeared in international magazines and anthologies by W. W. Norton and Everyman’s Library.
周德成 Chow Teck Seng (Chinese Poetry)
周德成，2009金笔奖和204新加坡文学奖得主（获奖诗集《你和我的故事》）。目前为英国剑桥大学博士生和南大教育学院的兼职讲师。写诗、散文、小说，创作书法绘画，兼及艺术和文学翻译。最近除了出版新诗集《用整个白天使黑夜安静》（获选入2022早报书单）， 他也参与音乐化自己和其他诗人诗歌的项目（与创作歌手白欣平合作），并改编微电影《第四个男人》和经典作品《红楼梦》成现代小说文本，同时翻译孟加拉在新客工诗歌。
Born in Singapore, Chow Teck Seng won the 2009 Golden Pen Award and 2014 Singapore Literature Award with his poetry collection The Story of You & Me. A PhD candidate at Cambridge University and part-time lecturer at NIE, he writes poetry, translates and worked on art and calligraphy. Besides musicalizing his poetry, he published a new poetry collection The Daylight Makes the Night Fall into Silence (Lianhe Zaobao booklist 2022) and adapted a microfilm The Fourth Man as well as the Chinese classic Dream of the Red Chamber into fiction works.
林高 Lin Gao (Chinese Poetry)
林高是新加坡国立大学中文系兼任高级讲师。2013年赴韩国参加为期三个月的Toji文化馆驻馆作家计划。2014年获新加坡文学奖（小说）。2015年获颁新加坡文化奖。他的作品包括《一只飞行的水晶》、《记得》、《孤独瞭望：英培安小说世界》、《林高微型小说》、《遇见诗》、《框起人间事》、《被追逐的滋味》等。2023年出版了首部诗集《一只飞行的水晶》以及英译版。
Lin Gao is an adjunct senior lecturer at the Department of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore. In 2013, Lin Gao spent three months in South Korea as a writer-in-residence under the Toji Cultural Residency programme. He was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 2015. His notable works include The Feeling of Being Chased, Reading by the Window, Flash Fiction by Lin Gao, Poetic Encounter by Lin Gao, and Framing the Worldly Matters. His first poetry anthology and its English translation, A Flying Crystal, was published in 2023.
இன்பா Inbha (Tamil Poetry)
இன்பா ஆறு கவிதை நூல்கள், ஒரு சிறுகதைத் தொகுப்பையும் வெளியிட்டுள்ளார். இவரது "லயாங் லயாங் பறவைகளின் கீச்சொலிகள் நூல் 2022 இல் சிங்கப்பூர் இலக்கியப் பரிசைப் பெற்றது. கவிமாலை சிங்கப்பூர் அமைப்பின் தலைவரும், திணைகள் இணைய இதழின் ஆசிரியராகவும் இருக்கின்றார் . சிறுகதைத் தொகுப்பிற்காகத் தஞ்சாவூர் தமிழ்ப் பல்கலைக் கழகத்தின் கரிகாற்சோழன் விருதையும், அயலகத் தமிழ்க் கவிதைக்கான தமிழக அரசின் கவிதை விருதையும் பெற்றுள்ளார். சிங்கப்பூர் மற்றும் அதற்கப்பால் உள்ள இலக்கிய நிலப்பரப்பில் தனது முத்திரையைப் பதித்து வருகின்றார். நிலத்தினை மையப்படுத்திச் சமகாலக் கவிதைகளை தனக்கே உரிய மொழி நடையில் நுண்ணிய அனுபவங்களை அழகியலோடும் உயிர்ப்புடனும் எழுதுவதில் ஆர்வம் காட்டி வருகின்றார்.
Inbha has published six poetry books and a short story collection. Her dedication to her craft culminated in the poetry collection Layang Layang Birds Tweet, which won the 2022 Singapore Literature Prize. She has also received awards such as the Karikala Cholan Award. She is the head of Kavimaalai Singapore and editor of Thinaigal e-magazine.
Christina Ng (Chinese to English)
Christina Ng is a Singaporean writer, journalist and translator based in Berlin. Working between English and Chinese, she has interpreted for film and theatre productions, as well as written and translated essays, interviews and features on art, travel, and culture. Her Chinese to English literary translations include poetry by Singaporean poets Dan Ying, Pan Shou and Liang Wern Fook.
Annaliza Bakri (Malay to English)
Annaliza Bakri holds a Master of Arts from the Department of Malay Studies at the National University of Singapore. Her research interests include the interplay of ideology and ethnicity in shaping the dominant narratives in literature, language education and the intersection between translation, history and humanity. Her writings, interviews and literary translations have been published by Prairie Schooner, Brooklyn Rail, Transnational Literature, s/pores, Budi Kritik (2019), Asymptote and Centre for Stories. She edited and translated a poetry anthology featuring places in Singapore and her surrounding islands titled Sikit-Sikit Lama-lama Jadi Bukit (2017). She co-translated award-winning poet Alvin Pang's What Gives Us Our Names (2011) into Malay - Yang Menamakan Kita (2019).
