Eastern Heathens Launch on Sat 23 August, 6:30-7:30pm!

Hey guys! Eastern Heathens is FINALLY going into print!

What is it? Well, it's an anthology of stories inspired by Asian folklore - there's realism, fantasy, historical fiction, oriental steampunk, horror, comedy, sex... and I'm one of the editors! Mind you, it's mostly drawn from the inspiration and the sweat of my co-editor Amanda Lee Koe - and from the contributors. (I tried submitting a story, but we agreed it wasn't good enough.)

We sent stuff to the print shop yesterday and we're holding the launch next Saturday, at the Arts House, aka The Old Parliament House. It's part of the Literally 9 festival to celebrate the arts centre's ninth anniversary. Alfian Sa'at, Cyril Wong and newcomer Bryan Cheong should be reading! I'm hosting, methinks.

Venue: Arts House, Living Room
Date: 23 Mar 2013
Event Timing: 6.30-7:30pm
Free admission
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/442375729179327/?fref=ts

The authors, btw, are:

Bryan Cheong (Singapore)
Hoa Pham (Australia)
Cyril Wong (Singapore)
Jeannine Hall Gailey (USA/Japan)
Alfian Sa'at (Singapore/Malaysia)
Amanda Lee Koe (Singapore)
Jon Gresham (Australia/Singapore)
Anila Angin (Singapore)
Chan Ziqian (Singapore/Poland)
Jennani Durai (Singapore)
Li Huijia (Singapore)
Abha Iyengar (India)
Zeny May Recidoro (Philippines)
Jason Erik Lundberg (USA/Singapore)

Seeya there!

Contradiction approacheth!

And this time we've got a proper poster, too!

ContraDiction 8: Our Very Own Literature
Sat 25 Aug, 7.30pm, 
The Reading Room (21 Tanjong Pagar Road, #04-01 – former Mox Bar)
Our annual queer literary evening is back, with a new focus! Listen to some of Singapore's oldest works of queer literature from the 1980s, as well as works by our youngest writers from the 2010s. Featuring Ovidia Yu, Joel Tan, NUS Poet-in-Residence Jay Bernard and many more.

By the way, we have some video clips from last week's Gaily Ever After event, uploaded to YouTube!

Part 1 (Cyril Wong)
Part 2 (Ng Yi-Sheng)
Part 3 (Tania de Rozario)
... and Part 4 (Anila Angin) is below:

Call for Entries to EASTERN HEATHENS: an Anthology of Fiction Based on Asian Folklore

Dear Writers,

We love Asian folklore. We grew up listening to Chinese legends, Arab fairy tales, Malay ghost stories and Indian sacred epics, and their fabulous images have continued to inhabit our imaginations ever since.


But as adults, we’re sometimes bugged by the moralistic, simplistic way these fables are told. We’re aching to hear these tropes subverted, perverted or simply adapted to reflect our times.

So, we’ve decided to reinvent our heritage. We’re putting together ‘Eastern Heathens’: an anthology of short stories based on folklore from our continent. We're looking for intelligent, imaginative myths, retold for adult connoisseurs.

We’d like you to base your story on a pre-existing Asian folktale. To help you out, we’ve included a list of our favourite traditional stories and sagas at http://easternheathens.tumblr.com. (Do feel free to interpret a story that’s from a culture other than your ‘own’.)

Our deadline is 31 January 2012. Entries should be in prose; poetry will not be accepted. Please include your name and your contact information in your submission. Also include the title of the original folktale that’s inspired your story, as well as a brief summary of that folktale for our reference.

Please e-mail easternheathens@gmail.com for enquiries and submissions.

Yours sincerely,


Amanda Lee and Ng Yi-Sheng
Editors

P.S. Both of us editors are based in Singapore, but we welcome international submissions.

Crime Night, 29 January, 8pm at Prologue, Orchard ION

Haven't mentioned this before, but I'm in Crime Scene: Singapore, and anthology of crime writing set in this country, edited by Richard Lord and published by Monsoon Books. Buy it! I get royalties. :D



There's an event happening later this month, but unfortunately I'll be in London at the time (never mind what the poster says). Go support these writers anyways.

N.B. It's on Amazon too!

National Columbarium of Singapore

My short story, "Nostalgia", on Five Foot Way, based on artist Michael Lee Hong Hwee's installation at the National Museum.

I'm not actually happy with the written version yet, so it's best if you listen to it in audio. It's supposed to be a little creepy. :)

(Image by Stephen Black).

This is how much I rule.

First off, I've actually completed one of those DIY wooden dinosaur skeleton models you can buy for $6 from the Science Centre. They always used to elude me when I was a kid, and I'd break the pieces. Now, I have matured:



Beaut, innit? This one's a dragon and a phoenix battling over the sun. Way cooler than a stegosaurus, huh?

And just as importantly, I've published my first novel, "Eating Air". It's already selling at Kinokuniya.



As noted before, it's actually a novelisation of the movie by Kelvin Tong and Jasmine Ng, which I lerrrrved when it came out in 1999. Last year I was commissioned to write it by National Library Board, and it's finally out, together with Dr Yeo Wei Wei's novelisation of Royston Tan's "4:30" and James Toh's rendition of Eric Khoo's "12 Storeys".

And damn, we had a pretty posh launch. It was held in The Pod @ the National Library (i.e. that weird bubble on the 17th floor). There was an absurdly theoretical moderator:



And an absurdly solipsistic question from the floor:



And, as you can see, hordes of library officials who had no idea what they were doing there.

Strangely enough, Royston, James and Eric failed to appear at this launch. Only the "Eating Air" folks came out in force: Kelvin, Jasmine and I more or less dominated the panel. Following which, we went over to VivoCity's Sushi Tei to get stoned on sake, soba and salmon sashimi. Sedap.

Here's me, Kelvin and Jasmine.



Here's (from left to right) publisher Enoch Ng, fellow writer Dr Yeo Wei Wei, a grinning Kelvin and a derisive Jasmine. Almost in the picture is Kat, Kelvin's assistant director at Boku films.



And I plunge back into obscurity. Just watch me. :)

UPDATE: Ooh ooh ooh! Channel News Asia has an article about the book! (But not, sadly, about my mad woodcraft skillz.)

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/355416/1/.html

Book launch for my first novel, Eating Air

How could I forget?

By the way, if anyone official asks, this is a film novelisation, so I'm still eligible for all those other first-novel grants and prizes when I finally compose an independent opus.

Anyway, details:

Friday 20 June
3-5pm
THE POD, Level 16
National Library, 100 Victoria Street
Dress code: business attire. (Yeah, right.)

The books being launched are 12 Storeys by Dr Yeo Wei Wei, 4:30 by James Toh, Eating Air by myself. Hope to seeya there!

Lee Low Tar aftermath.

Yay! My banned short story "Lee Low Tar" got Tomorrowed. For better or worse, many people think it's a genuine letter from the MDA... fail English compre already!

This is me at MDA. The posters in the background warn that if you let children watch violent and sexy movies, they'll become axe-wielding serial killer kids who have oral sex in the classroom.

I was at their office today to pick up our completely approved licence for ContraDiction 3, our queer literary reading. I met Veronica Looi, who's a small, very nice-looking woman with a big smile, long hair, and a black scarf. I gave her a print-out copy of "Lee Low Tar", telling her she'd probably be offended by it, but since her name was being used in the censorship of so many things, I thought she should know what it was she was censoring. She smiled, apparently without pretense, and said she'd read it.

It's also of interest that I have a good friend who actually works at MDA - Leon Lim, who's in Strategic Planning (not any censorship board; he likes culture too much for that). We were in French class together back in secondary school. Watched Toy Factory's "Big Fool Lee" with him tonight and we agreed that it was a mediocrely written idol-worshipping paean to a Chinese cultural centrist that was more suited to TV or film than the stage.

I suppose my point is that as fun as it is to joke about MDA - how it seems to use its authority to deprive us of rather than to develop media - no institution is homogenous, and the corporation that kicks you in the knickers will very often contain people who are very nice but uninformed, or who are actually sympathetic to your cause but not yet in positions of influence.

Have plenty to say at the talk I'm giving on Sunday in lieu of the short story reading. Seeya there.

B).

LEE LOW TAR

For the short story that MDA banned, please click here - Alex Au's posted it on Yawning Bread.

I wrote it for the "Tall Tales and Short Stories" event on Sunday. I won't be able to read it at this point, but come anyway - Ovidia Yu will be reading from her story "Pierced Years" and I'll be giving a talk, because indoor talks do not require a licence.

"Tall Tales and Short Stories"
Organised by Sayoni.com
Sunday, 5 August
7:30pm
72-13, Mohamed Sultan Road

Below is the rejection letter we received:

****************************************************************
To: JEAN CHONG
CC: Amy TSANG <Amy_TSANG@mda.gov.sg>, Liane LOO <Liane_LOO@mda.gov.sg>,
Norsabariah TUBI <Norsabariah_TUBI@mda.gov.sg>
Subject: Arts Entertainment licence - "Tall Tales and Short Stories"
From: Veronica Vivien LOOI <Veronica_Vivien_LOOI@mda.gov.sg>
Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 14:25:02 +0800

Dear Ms Chong

Your application for a story reading session, entitled "Tall Tales and Short Stories", has been approved on condition that the reading of Lee Low Tar is taken out

The content of Lee Low Tar has been disallowed as it had gone beyond good taste and decency in taking a disparaging and disrespectful view of public officers.

Regards,

Veronica
****************************************************************

There's a small parallel case here of Tan Tarn How's play "The Lady of Soul and the Ultimate S-Machine", which was not permitted to be staged for some time because (among various reasons) its main character was a male civil servant who was having an affair with a male Minister-of-State.

But it's a different Singapore now. The arts scene has progressed to an extent where people (including journalists) are interested in the cases of censored work, and the Internet's technologies allow banned texts to be distributed freely (go watch Royston Tan's "Cut" on blip.tv, or Martyn See's "Zahari's 17 Years" on googlevideo, or Tan Pin Pin's "Lurve Me Now" on her university's site).

And while a filmmaker or stage director will suffer large financial setbacks if his/her work is banned for screening/performance - a writer loses very little. Isn't that odd? (Authorities may now try and prove me wrong by making it difficult for me to have future works staged - maybe they'll claim "Georgette" espouses Marxist values?)

This being said, "Lee Low Tar" is an amateur piece of writing - I am not an experienced short story author, after all. And the entire setup is, on a certain level, a wanky artistic gesture, an attention-getting device (compare with the works of Lim Tzay Chuen). And it may hurt the gay movement or the socially-engaged arts community in the long run. I don't know.

But I do like how it works in testing the bureaucratic systems of censorship we have in this country - they are such strange, antiquated, self-sabotaging entities, like warthogs on Pulau Tekong, that it seems to be vital to engage with them before they go extinct (which they will, dear children, they will - someday they'll set up the artist-run system of self-appraisal based on ratings systems rather than muzzling, just like FOCAS suggested).

You see, yes, censorship is violent and stupid.

But it is possible to dance with violent and stupid people.

I gave MDA a test, and they failed it. I'm not the victim. They are.

INDIGNATION 2007!!! (already one event kena banned!) UPDATE: My story kena banned too!

Heya! I'm involved in two events for IndigNation, our Queer Pride Festival- doing a short story reading with Ovidia Yu on Sunday 5th August and organising/curating ContraDiction, a poetry/literary/music performance on Sunday 12 August, both at 7:30pm at 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road.

MDA licences pending. And really, we can't take anything for granted - they just banned Alex Au's Kissing Project photo display, according to the calendar. Not unexpected - the point for us is to keep on pushing the limits, to keep on challenging the unjustified rules until they change.

UPDATE (31/7.07): Jean Chong of Sayoni, who's the organiser, got a call from Veronica Looi at MDA saying that my short story was not approved for licensing. (Poor Veronica, she's only an Admin Assistant but she has to deliver the dirty news with all her boss, Deputy Director Amy Tsang - and she never even gets to read the things she bans.)