SBC Mentorships for
Emerging Writers and Translators
The SBC Mentorships for Emerging Writers & Translators provides emerging writers and translators with 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 Chinese, English, or Tamil.
We are not opening any positions for Malay fiction this year as we have launched a new Malay Writers Residency for emerging Malay writers.
The translation mentees will be translating into English from any of the three mother tongue languages.
The 2026 run of the programme offers mentorship positions for the fiction genre. Each mentee will be paired with an established writer or translator over a four-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 closed. Results will be announced in mid-May.
For enquiries, write to us at [email protected].
Mentors
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.
Prasanthi Ram (English Fiction)
Prasanthi Ram is a writer, lecturer and editor. Her debut Nine Yard Sarees (2023) won the Singapore Literature Prize for English Fiction in 2024, and was shortlisted for SLP's Best Debut and Singapore Book Awards' Best Literary Work. In 2025, she was selected as a writer-in-residence under the NAC-NLB Writers Lab, where she began developing her sophomore novel. Her writing can be found in the Best New Singaporean Short Stories series (2022; 2025) and Making Kin: Ecofeminist Essays (2021) among others. Currently, she teaches academic writing at Nanyang Technological University, and is the co-founder and fiction editor of Mahogany Journal that spotlights South Asian writers born or based in Singapore.
林高 Lin Gao (Chinese Fiction)
林高是新加坡国立大学中文系兼任高级讲师（2018-2024）。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 was an adjunct senior lecturer at the Department of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore from 2018 to 2024. 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.
随庭 Sui Ting (Chinese Fiction)
随庭曾获新加坡金笔奖、新华青年文学奖以及青年艺术家奖，首部短篇小说集《孕鱼》入围新加坡文学奖。目前任教于新加坡国立大学中文系，开设创意写作课程。她创办了线上文学平台“读写岛计划”，也曾多次担任教育部创意写作导师、文学比赛评审，并受邀参与新加坡作家节及早报文学节。
Sui Ting is a recipient of the Golden Point Award, the Singapore Chinese Youth Literature Award, and the Young Artist Award. Her debut short story collection, Fish Birth, was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize. Currently teaching creative writing at the National University of Singapore’s Department of Chinese Studies, she is the founder of the literary platform "Read Write Island." She has frequently served as a mentor for the Ministry of Education, a literary judge, and a featured guest at the Singapore Writers Festival and Lianhe Zaobao Literary Festival.
ரமா சுரேஷ் Rama Suresh (Tamil Fiction)
ரமா சுரேஷ் சிங்கப்பூரை அடிப்படையாகக் கொண்ட தமிழ் நாவலாசிரியரும் சிறுகதை எழுத்தாளரும் ஆவார். மனித வாழ்வின் இருண்ட, மறைமுகமான, அதிர்ச்சியூட்டும் அனுபவங்களை அவர் படைப்புகள் ஆராய்கின்றன. ரகசியம், மர்மம், இருள் ஆகியவை அவரது எழுத்தின் இயல்பான கூறுகளாக விளங்குகின்றன.
2019ஆம் ஆண்டு தொடங்கிய மாயா இலக்கிய வட்டம் மூலம் சிங்கப்பூர் தமிழ் இலக்கிய உரையாடல்களை அவர் தொடர்ந்து முன்னெடுத்து வருகிறார். சிங்கப்பூர் எழுத்தாளர் விழாவில் (2022–2025) பேச்சாளர், ஒருங்கிணைப்பாளர் எனச் செயல்பட்டுள்ளார். 2024ல் சிங்கப்பூர் இலக்கியப் பரிசுக்கான புனைகதைத் தலைமை நீதிபதியாக நியமிக்கப்பட்டார். 2025ல் சிங்கப்பூர் புத்தக கவுன்சிலின் எழுத்தாளர் வழிகாட்டல் திட்டத்தில் வழிகாட்டியாக பணியாற்றினார். Woodlands Street 81, Ambaram ஆகிய நூல்களின் ஆசிரியரான இவர், Singapore Literature Prize, Mu. Ku. Ramachandran Memorial Award கரிகாற் சோழன் விருது உள்ளிட்ட பல விருதுகளை பெற்றுள்ளார்.
Rama Suresh is a Singapore-based Tamil novelist and short story writer. Through the Maya Literary Circle, founded in 2019, she has been actively fostering critical conversations around Singapore Tamil literature. She has participated in the Singapore Writers Festival (2022–2025) as a speaker and curator. In 2024, she was appointed Chief Judge (Fiction) for the Singapore Literature Prize, and in 2025, she served as a mentor for the Singapore Book Council’s Emerging Writers Mentorship Programme. She is the author of Woodlands Street 81 and Ambaram, and a recipient of several literary honours including the Singapore Literature Prize, the Mu. Ku. Ramachandran Memorial Award, and the Karikaar Cholan Award.
Christina Ng (Chinese to English)
Christina Ng is a Singaporean writer and translator based in Berlin. Her Chinese to English literary translations include poetry/fiction by Singaporean poets Liang Wern Fook, Dan Ying and Pan Shou. The Joy of a Left Hand (Balestier Press, 2023), her translation of Liang’s short story collection, was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize 2024 Translation Category. Her translation of The Years in My Hair: Selected Poems by Dan Ying, (Poetry Translation Centre, forthcoming in Oct 2026) received an English PEN Translates Award. She has also translated the works of Taiwanese poet Yinni and Chinese poet Chun Sue, as well as several graphic novels including Chen Xiao-Ya's Four Clear Days in Early Summer. She currently teaches literary translation at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University and leads literary translation workshops worldwide.
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).
Shash Trevett (Tamil to English)
Shash Trevett is a poet, critic and a translator of Tamil poetry into English. Born in Jaffna, Northern Sri Lanka, she now lives in the U.K. Her poetry has been curated by the Poetry Archive and she is a winner of a Northern Writers’ Award. Her poetry collection The Naming of Names (Smith|Doorstop 2024) was shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize 2025 and longlisted for the Michael Murphy Prize. Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala and English Poetry from Sri Lanka and its Diasporas (Bloodaxe 2023, Penguin India 2023) which she co-edited with Vidyan Ravinthiran and Seni Seneviratne, was one of the Times Literary Supplement’s Books of the Year for 2023. Her translations are studied as part of Cambridge’s IGCSE, International O Level, AS and A Level English syllabus. She is currently translating the Tamil poetry of Sivaramani and Selvi for publication.
Shash has been a mentor for both New Writing North and the National Centre for Writing in the U.K, and a mentor for the Singapore Book Council in partnership with the NCW. She has read her poetry and translations in the U.K and internationally and has presented papers on translation at international conferences. She has translated for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, has been an assessor for the PEN Translates scheme and has been a judging panelist for awards run by the Singapore Book Council, the Gratien Trust (Sri Lanka) and English PEN. She is a Ledbury Critic, reviewing for The Poetry Book Society and a Trustee of Modern Poetry in Translation.
