Several announcements for January!

1. Flying Circus Project!

I'm going to Myanmar from 3 to 15 January, to be part of the Flying Circus Project! Here's the blog I'm maintaining at Weebly.

2. OH! Marina Bay

This means I'm gonna miss Evil Empire's OH!: Open House at Marina Bay, a series of interactive art tours that are happening this weekend and next weekend - that's 5, 6, 12, 13 Jan - at Marina Bay. I contributed a short story to their program, titled Block Quotes. If you wanna go, better go early - lines are kuh-ray-zee.

3. Campaign City

I actually designed a poster for Evil Empire as part of their Campaign City: Life in Posters exhibition. It's showing at the National Library, Level 11, from 9 January onwards - huge light boxes on the walls, each featuring an artist's reinterpretation of one of the PAP's propaganda campaigns! I worked with the Speak Good English campaign in a way that celebrates local experimental writing.

4. Choice Cuts

And there's actually already an exhibition I'm involved in on show, at Jurong Regional Library, called Choice Cuts - a little installation by my friends at Studio Kaleido that gives you personal recommendations for Singapore literature, by Singaporean writers. As you can see, I'm featured as a recommender (not as a recommendee), as are Boey Kim Cheng, Wena Poon, Enoch Ng, etc, etc. (Gwee Li Sui is both a recommender and a -dee, ugh.)

The show will move from library to library until it opens in Central Lending around March. I should be able to make it for that launch.

That's all for now. I think!

Book launch in Kuala Lumpur tonight!

Will be speaking at Silverfish Books in Kuala Lumpur this evening, 5:30pm, to promote my translation of "The New Village"! Three books to be promoted, in fact:

1. Robert Yeo’s ROUTES. Robert Yeo, a.k.a Yeo Cheng Chuan, (b.1940, Singapore -), is a poet and playwright, novelist and newspaper columnist on the arts, literary and theatre essayist advocating the establishment of a distinctly Singaporean tradition in writing. He was for many years a lecturer in the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University and was a proponent for the greater inclusion of the study of Singaporean texts in the school curriculum. Poet and critic Aaron Lee has described Yeo as being “the most Singaporean of Singaporean writers”.
2. Dr Wong Yoon Wah’s THE NEW VILLAGE. Wong Yoon Wah (b. 13 August 1941, Perak, Malaysia - ) is one of the few Singaporeans who excel as an international poet, critic and scholar. Prolific in both creative and academic writing, he has published over twenty collections of prose, poetry, and academic writings on Chinese and comparative literature in Chinese or English. For his commitment to promoting literature regionally, he has been awarded the Southeast Asia Write Award (1984), the Cultural Medallion (1986), and the ASEAN Cultural Award (1993).
3. Wong Phui Nam’s THE HIDDEN PAPYRUS OF HEN_TAUI. Wong Phui Nam's poems are regarded as among the best Malaysian ones in English, unsurpassed in their eloquence and linguistic richness. Most of them are contemplative and draw their images from the local landscape. Wong Phui Nam's poetry explores the experience of living in multi-cultural Malaysia. "Before the British set up this country, Malaysia was a totally agrarian society," he says. "Suddenly we get this commercialism and development of plantations to supply a metropolitan power. Even for a writer in Malay, whether he is a Malay or a non-Malay, he has to reinvent the language. All the more so for Indians and Chinese. For a Chinese, when we write in Chinese, we cannot pretend that nothing has happened and try to write Tang poetry. So for us to write in English, we are exiled three times, culturally and spiritually from China, culturally from the indigenous Malay culture, and then writing in English. We cannot claim that it is a tradition. I would say we have appropriated the language. So, in a way, it is a much more interesting medium to work with, to work with the language against the tradition."

Professor Mohammad Quayum, of the International Islamic University of Malaysia, will moderate the event, which will include discussions with regards to the development of Malaysia/Singapore writings in English. 

Venue: Silverfish Books, 

28-1 Jalan Telawi, Bangsar Baru, 

59100 Kuala Lumpur. 

Date: Saturday, 22 September 2012 

Time: 5.30 pm

Admission is free. All welcome, but seats are limited.

(And then on Sunday I'm going for Art For Grabs at the Annexe Gallery. Awesome.)

I'm going to the Makassar International Writers Festival 2012!

It's started already - in fact, I was supposed to go yesterday but Garuda Airlines rescheduled my flight. (I complained and they compensated me by upgrading me to business class, so I can't be that mad at them. Also, I'm now wondering if they informed me by phone while I was half-asleep.)

The website's here, btw. And Makassar is the provincial capital of South Sulawesi, located here:

 I've been invited by Lily Yulianti Farid, whom I bonded with at festivals in Ubud and Singapore in 2009. She writes in Bahasa Indonesia: the volume below is Lontar's excellent translation.

Other folks I know (or have read) who'll be at the festival: slammer Omar Musa (AU), short story writer Xu Xi (HK), memoirist Bernice Chauly (MY), poet Jennifer Mackenzie (AU) and Elizabeth Pisani (US), the fabulous HIV activist and author of The Wisdom of Whores.

I'm afraid I don't know the Indonesians. But I'll get to know them! (As long as they speak *some* English. Malu lah, gua tak boleh cakap bahasa nasional Singapura.)

I'll be promoting "The New Village" at Southern College, Johor, on Sunday, 4pm!

Hoe Fang from Ethos Books is driving us up. The poet and some academics will be speaking. I'm afraid that's all I know so far.

Friday reading, Gay's the Word, London, 7pm

As you know, I'm in London promoting GASPP: a Gay Anthology of Singapore Poetry and Prose (in addition to some of my own work.) As part of the tour, I'm doing a reading at the UK's only GLBT interest bookstore.

If you're in London, please come! There'll be wine and Chinese New Year goodies.

Friday, 4 February, 7-8pm
Gay's the Word
66 Marchmont Street
(Russell Square Tube), London WC1N 1AB
020 7278 7654

Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=172960122748942

By the way, the event's been set up by Clara Yee, part of the amazing informal cultural promotion group Creative SINergy. Thanks so much, guys.

I'm going to London!

I'll be there from 28 January to 8 February, just in time to miss Chinese New Year.

Also, I'll be appearing at these two literary events. Possibly a third, if we get our act together. :)

Count on Queers, Singapore!
Friday, 28 January 2011, 5:30-7pm
Room 104 (Senate House, First Floor), Institute of Commonwealth Studies
School of Advanced Study, University of London

Part of a public seminar series on Singapore Politics at the University of London. Queer Singaporean writers Ng How Wee and myself will be chairing the first part of the event, followed by a talk by Dr Simon Obendorf (University of Lincoln) on queer politics in Singapore.

writLOUD
Monday, 7 February 2011, 6.30pm onwards.
RADA Foyer Bar, Malet Street, London WC1E 7JN.

Birkbeck's monthly readings event, organised in partnership with Oxfam. I'll be one of the featured readers.

Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=174827652553310
writLOUD official page: http://www.writershub.co.uk/writloud.php

GASPP at Seksualiti Merdeka

This is a basically a cut-and-paste of the blog entry I put up at my GASPP site. But I do want to reiterate what I said about KL (yeah, I'm self-quoting):

"Now I understand why Alfian and The Necessary Stage people love to go up there so much: because there's this young, idealistic community of activists and intellectuals and artists who can't afford to take for granted the values that Singaporeans are utterly blasé about: secularism, racial harmony, non-corruption, and the right to even heterosexual romance."

Unfortunately, my own photos of the Seksualiti Merdeka festival are lousy. So I'll have to rely on everyone else's photos of our event.

For instance, here's us at the Queer As Books event at 2pm, Sunday 17 Oct in the Annexe!

Remember, this was a joint launch (for us, technically a pre-launch event) of three books. So from left to right: Matahari Books publisher Amir Muhammad, Diana Dirani and Azwan Ismail, co-editors of the Malaysian Malay language queer anthology Orang Macam Kita; Alfian Sa'at, playwright of the Asian Boys Trilogy; and myself, Ng Yi-Sheng, co-editor of GASPP.

(The photographer is our own publisher, Fong Hoe Fang of The Literary Centre/Ethos Books.)

And here's GASPP itself:

We had a promotion going on: for every copy of GASPP or Collected Plays Two: The Asian Boys Trilogy we sold, you got a free copy of Charlene Rajendran's Taxi Tales. (No, she's not gay herself. But she's supportive!)

The launch was actually a private event, hence the low levels of publicity. Folks were afraid of attracting undue attention to Orang Macam Kita, a real danger since the queer Malaysian English language anthology, Body2Body, recently got pulled from the shelves after a complaint.

But still, we had readings from the contirbutors, such as Nizam Zakaria (wish my Bahasa Melayu was good enough to follow what was going on) before I goaded Alfian to go up and read something from our own book: Irfan Kasban's short prose work Dua Lelaki.

Yes, that is an expression of consternation on Alf's face. Dua Lelaki is kinda provocative.

Here's a shot of me reading from my short story Lee Low Tar, gleaned from the Facebook album of Dib Jual Kata. Yeah, we sure established ourselves as unsavoury types.

Adrianna Tan was originally supposed to come too, but she had to cancel suddenly for health reasons, so the event really ended up being quite a sausagefest. Hopefully this won't be the case for our Singapore launch!

This last shot's by Malaysian artist Jun Kit. At one point during the Q&A, I got asked whether we'd be able to sell the book openly on the shelves in Singapore. And I had to admit, well, actually, things are much easier for us in Singapore than in KL. Yes, we complain about censorship, but that hardly ever happens to books (only when important government figures get directly insulted) and what happens to plays is R-ratings and funding cuts and text changes: the whole production does not get shut down.

When we compare ourselves to London or New York or Stockholm, our freedom of speech record is lousy. But we're in a better situation than Malaysia, and we should remember that.

Plus, we should buy their books. Orang Macam Kita can be bought from Matahari Books by mail or from Amazon. Alfian's book should be available in all major Singapore bookstores, and if it's not, demand it.

And as for us, we're coming soon... :)

Brazil pics!!!

These are way overdue. I was in Brazil back in freakin' April. But, behold!

Statue in Park, Curitiba

Iguaçu Falls, Foz do Iguaçu

Muqueca with rice, Bahían restaurant, São Paulo

Catedral de São Pedro de Alcântara, Petrópolis

Sexy tourist beach boys, Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro

Churrascaría (buffet steak restaurant), Leblon, Rio de Janeiro

Live piranha, Amazon jungle

Pavement, Curitiba

Arpoador Beach, Rio de Janeiro

Bedroom interior, Novotel São Paulo Jaragua Convention

Wire Opera, Curitiba

Lamp post, Rio de Janeiro

Graffiti, São Paulo

Manaus Opera House

Tree stump, Ipanema Beach, Rio de Janeiro

Street corner, São Paulo

Sandcastles, Ipanema Beach, Rio de Janeiro

Japanese crafts shop, Liberdade, São Paulo

View from favela condominium, Rio de Janeiro

Liana, Amazon jungle

Pharmacy, Curitiba

Interior, Catedral Metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro

Bus stop, Curitiba

Politically incorrect (but useful!) suntan warning sign, Ipanema Beach, Rio de Janeiro

Cute tour guide, Manaus Opera House

Botanical Garden, Curitiba

Lamp post, São Paulo

Museu Imperial, Petrópolis

Grilled prawns for breakfast, Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro

Subway, Rio de Janeiro

Fat-friendly bus notice, Rio de Janeiro

Jabuticaba berries, sweet flavour, Curitiba

Para Ti Community School, Favela of Vilas Canoas, Rio de Janeiro

View from Novotel São Paulo Jaragua Convention

View of Sugarloaf Mountain, Rio de Janeiro

Cacao juice, Manaus

Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba


Insect, hotel interior, Amazon Jungle

Coixinha, between Curitiba and São Paulo

Christ the Redeemer (facsimile), Rio de Janeiro

Japanese Cultural Centre, Liberdade, São Paulo

Fruit shop, Favela of Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro

Phone booth, Manaus


Favela Chapel, Vilas Canoas, Rio de Janeiro

No Smoking Sign, São Paulo

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