Monday, January 22, 2007
Hello all! Hope you pple had a good time today. :)
Now it's time to put pen to paper, nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel etc, and start drafting and revising. Here are the deadlines for the various tasks. (Do note that what you hand in will still be considered a draft. i'll help you to look at it and edit.)
1) Task 1: Description of Sultan Mosque (350 words)
by next Monday 29 Jan
2) Task 2: Poem based on burnt shophouse
to be shared, workshop-style, next Monday 29 Jan.
Please type your poem out and make about 15 copies for everyone. (Yes, i'm still hoping to get more new members...)
3) Task 3: Short story set in shop (less than 1000 words). Please type this.
by the end of this term.
4) Task 4: Dialogue (which is basically a euphemism for......)
Er.... obviously we couldn't do this today. Some other time then. :)
Also, remember to hand in your Commonwealth Essays. (Yes, it is compulsory for ALL LitWing members.) Please check the previous post for deadlines etc.
And, those of you who have yet to hand in your writing from the 1st LitWing session this year, please do so! So far, i've only heard from Audrey, Kelly and Pris, and they've all got their 1st drafts back with comments. I'm hoping that all of you will have good, polished pieces ready from this 1st writing exercise by the end of the term.
All the best with drafting and revision! :)
cheers,
:) Your Teacher-In-Charge
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Friday, January 19, 2007
Argh. Signing in and going to the edit posts page is the only way I can read the posts. Can someone who is not a technophobe please fix this? Thanks.
empriss
Friday, January 05, 2007
Commonwealth Essay Competition - Write Around the World
This could well be your ticket to fame and fortune!
Please click here for competition details.
All LitWing members are to submit an essay. All entries to be submitted to Ms Teo by Thurs 1 Feb 2007.
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The Illusionist - Short Story-Writing Contest
Archer Entertainment Asia Pacific Pte Ltd is organising a short story-writing contest in conjunction with the release of the film The Illusionist in January 2007. The contest is open to all currently living in Singapore who is at least 15 years of age as of 31 Dec 2006. Contestants will write a short story in English, on any subject and in any genre, between 1500-3000 words in length. Closing date for entries is 28 Feb 2007.
Contestants stand to win over S$3,000 worth of cash and prizes, with the top prize being S$1,500 in cash and prizes, sponsored by Faber-Castell.
The Contest is inspired by a short story, "Eisenheim the Illusionist", upon which the film is based. The short story is itself part of a collection titled, The Barnum Museum, written by Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Steven Millhauser.
The judges for the contest will be novelist Meira Chand, Singapore Literature Prizewinner Yong Shu Hoong, and QLRS's Short Stories editor Yeow Kai Chai.
For full contest details, judges' biographies and official rules, please visit http://www.archerentasia.com/theillusionist/contest.htm.
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Sunday, November 19, 2006
[The Straits Times, Lifestyle, Nov 19, 2006]
The $10, 000 Singapore Literature Prize has come just in time for poets Cyril Wong and Yong Shu Hoong - they are both moving from their full-time jobs to academia.
By sheer coincidence, the two poets who have tied for the Singapore Literature Prize (SLP) in English are quitting or have quit their full-time jobs. Following decisions made independently before they learnt they would split the $10,000 award, Yong Shu Hoong, 39, left his job as a vice-president at UOB last month, while Cyril Wong, 29, leaves his programme manager job at The Substation arts centre at the end of this year.
The winners of the prize, given by the National Book Development Council, were announced last night. During a chat with LifeStyle last week at Books Actually, a cosy bookstore in Telok Ayer Street, both said they were going to do stints in academia. Yong, who won for his third poetry collection, Frottage, joined the National University of Singapore as an associate with its Centre of the Arts at the beginning of this month. Meanwhile, Wong, who won for his fourth collection, titled Unmarked Treasure, will begin a master's degree in English literature next year at NUS, on a research scholarship. Both said they badly needed a change of scene.
'I stayed in the banking industry for six years only because of the money,' Yong said. 'My department was being restructured, so I took it as a good time to take a break and concentrate on writing.' The freelance journalist has also run subTEXT, a monthly poetry reading at the National Library, since May 2001. He was nominated for the SLP in 1995 for an unpublished manuscript, but did not win.
Academia is also a much-needed breather for Wong, who has been with The Substation since 2004. He is also founding editor of the online poetry journal, softblow.com. 'I'm tired of managing the arts every day because I see how it is kind of a losing battle. The arts are becoming more and more commercialised,' he said. 'There are some people who realise that they can't make money in arts, and so they swing to the other extreme and do it just for the money.'
While both poets agree that artists in Singapore actually have a lot of opportunities, whether it is platforms for their art or grants to fund their work, neither considers himself a product of the Government's push to promote the arts. Both had stumbled into poetry on their own.
Wong started out writing horror stories while studying at St Patrick's School, and was published in the school journal, Shamrock. He tried his hand at poetry only during national service. Wong, an NUS English graduate who received a Young Artist Award last year, said: 'In school, I had wanted to write screenplays, or novels like Stephen King. I wanted to write The Shining. 'But after a while, things caught up with me.' There was a period, he said, when he suffered from bouts of depression. 'NS came and made me feel so lousy about myself. So I ended up with all that literary energy turned inwards towards myself, to dig up issues about my insecurity, my psychological problems, and I couldn't stop writing.'
Meanwhile, Yong, an NUS computer science graduate who has an MBA from Texas A&M University, started writing only while doing his master's in 1993. He was inspired by a book of Jim Morrison poetry.'It was like some of the Biennale installation artworks, where you look and think that anyone could have done it. So I thought, why don't I give it a try?' he said with a laugh.
While winning a literary award might then seem like a coup for these late bloomers, they are worried it might lead some to see them as part of the establishment, or mainstream. Said Yong: 'It's good to win because of the recognition, which will make it easier to get grants. But on the other hand, I have not always agreed in the past when someone was picked over someone else.'
He was referring to the year when Boey Kim Cheng's critically acclaimed poetry collection, Days Of No Name, was passed over in favour of Roger Jenkins' From The Belly Of The Carp, which was considered more nationalistic. Boey has since taken up Australian citizenship.
Wong agreed: 'My friends are not so forgiving. When I got shortlisted, I immediately got SMSes saying, 'So when did you become mainstream?'
So they say the tie is a happy occurrence. Both were told of the results a week before the ceremony, and Wong was so excited that he e-mailed some friends and acquaintances, ruining the organiser's hopes of keeping the literary community in the dark until the awards were officially announced yesterday. Said Yong about the tie: 'It's a good compromise because you're winning it, and at the same time you are sharing it.'
Both also noted that the winning collections do not deal with overtly Singaporean themes. Frottage was inspired by Yong's visit to a Max Ernst exhibition in Australia, while Unmarked Treasure is a deeply personal collection about love, loss and loneliness. But does wanting to remain 'a best-kept secret', as Yong put it, mean that they considered themselves inaccessible to the general public?
The poets are the first to admit that outside their literary circle, it is not always clear who their fans are. 'The only impression I get of my audience is when I get strange e-mail messages, or when I read blog entries about my poetry,' said Wong, who thinks his Singaporean readers are mostly young adults.
Still, they stressed that their poetry was meant to appeal to different people on different levels.Yong said: 'I do feel that my poems are not difficult to get into, and I think that there are certain layers that people can peel to get into the poem's core.' He said some of his non-poetry-reading ex-colleagues have bought his books just to support him, only to return the next day to tell him that they actually did not find the poems difficult to understand. 'These are people in the financial world who have probably lost touch with poetry a long time ago,' he said. 'But, of course, if Cyril or other poets read my poems, then there are a lot more things they would be able to get, which even I myself am surprised to discover. Though, of course, when they point these out, I say I intentionally put them in.'
Both poets were also aware that, for better or for worse, there was going to be increased scrutiny, and obvious comparisons, between their works. Yong, who re-read Wong's collection after hearing of the tie, said: 'For Cyril as a confessional poet, he basically lays down all his feelings, spreads them out on the table. As for me, I tend to look at things in a sort of subtle, detached way.' Wong added: 'Shu Hoong takes a situation and lifts it, peers underneath, sees a bit, turns it around and offers new perspectives on the situation. 'I am not that subtle, or rather, my subtlety lies elsewhere: I will stab the thing, open it, take it all out and then I will play subtly with the insides.'
by Stephanie Yap
Friday, November 10, 2006
The NUS Literary Society's annual Creative Writing Competition is welcoming submissions for the Poetry and Short Story categories.
The competition is open to students from pre-university, tertiary institutions, and NS. The judges are Yong Shu Hoong (Poetry) and Suchen Christine Lim (Short Story).
Closing date: 30 Dec 2006, 5pm
Prizes:
Poetry
1st: $150
2nd: $100
3rd: $50
Short Story
1st: $150
2nd: $100
3rd: $50
Prizes are subject to change without notice.
Each poem / short story must be submitted with a $2.00 administrative fee. To obtain a registration form and additional information, please email:
nuslitsoc@yahoo.com.sg
More information is available on http://literarysociety.wordpress.com
This competition is sponsored by Singapore Press Holdings.
So is there money to be made in writing? The answer is.....
..... a resounding YES!!!
IF your writing is good.
Poets Cyril Wong and Yong Shu Hoong have just been jointly awarded the Singapore Literature Prize 2006 - that's $10000 worth of booty to share between them.
Check out the collections that won them the award.
Yong Shu Hoong's Frottage and Cyril Wong's Unmarked Treasure.
Congrats Shu Hoong and Cyril for work well done! :)
Hello all,
i think the post title says it all. This blog needs a revival! So please do feel free to use this space to talk about all things literary, and then some. :)
I'll try to keep you guys up to date with events and other happenings in the Lit scene here. Ooh and yes, there IS a Lit scene in Singapore. :)
:) eothen
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Just a post so that the the changes in the template can be seen.
Ok people, have fun tommorow at the chalet!
Monday, July 25, 2005
Yoz girls...(and guys, of course)...
Just saying hi and testing this out.... I'm a technological ignoramus and I use diaryland. Hmm.... hope you guys had a nice outing today... *grumblegrumblegrumble* ... and just to tell you guys that there will be a Poetry Slam afternoon on the 13th of August, if anyone's interested. DTBC. Good night! *yawn*
Cheers
Pris.
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