I'll be doing a presentation on my musical "Georgette" next Saturday, 3 October, 2:30 to 4:45pm at the National Library.

Drop by!

Oh yeah! And I'm going to be working with Proletariat Poetry Factory on Saturday (tomorrow) at Raffles City.

It'll be at:

Basement 1, Raffles City Shopping Centre (Outside MPH & Gloria Jeans)
3:00pm - 7:00pm

We'll be using typewriters and headphones to create stream-of-consciousness poetry on order, for $4 or so per piece. Come along and patronise us!

I think we're a run-up event for Singapore Writers' Festival? But I may be mistaken.

Rethinking the Nanyang

There's a public forum happening at 3:15 on Sat 25 September at the National Library on the Nanyang Artists (i.e. folks like Liu Kang, Georgette Chen and Cheong Soo Pieng who established a natively Malayan school of painting here in the '50s). Come if you like.

I'll be speaking the week after on Saturday 3 October, 3pm, same time, about the development of the musical "Georgette". Details forthcoming.

What I'll be doing in Ubud

And whom I'll be doing it with!!!

Friday

10.45 – 12.15
Breaking the Taboos
Queer Asian writing

Amir Muhammad
Ernest JK Wen
Ng Yi Sheng
Cok Sawitri

Chair: Dede Oetomo

Saturday

10.45 – 12.15
Literary communities

Angelo Lacuesta
M Aan Mansyur
Omar Musa
Ng Yi-Sheng

Chair: Degung Santikarma

Sunday

4.00 – 5.30
A New Frontier:

Blogging, Disfsent & Solidarity

Doel CP Allisah
Dian Hartati
Antony Loewenstein
Ng Yi-Sheng

Chair: Angela Meyer

I actually have no idea if "Disfsent" is a typo or a postmodernist "différance"-style neologism.

I've printed the programme for ContraDiction!

Innit pretty?



Pfah, wait till you see my costume.

CONTRADICTION V this Sunday

Just to let all you guys know again, I'll be hosting our annual queer literary reading this coming Sunday:

ContraDiction V
Sunday, 30 August,
from 7-10pm
72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road, 2nd floor
(Here's how to get there.)
Part of the IndigNation Pride Festival

I've curated and emceed this edition, and I'm very happy with the standard of writing that's being represented, as well as the established and emerging faces who'll be present. It'll be very casual, so even if you're just curious and feel like sticking your head in a while for sh*ts and giggles, feel free. Be warned, though: seats fill up fast. Fortunately, there will be beanbags.

This year, our guests include Robin Loon, Jasmine Seah, Leona Lo, Michael Corbidge, Lee Yew Leong, Irfan Kasban and Iris Judotter, to name just a few!

Hope to see you there!

I have two poems in Asian Cha No. 8.

It's a HK-based online journal.  Check it out.

THE PATRIARCH ALWAYS PAYS

... is the title of the commedia dell'arte inspired play that I've devised with four other writer/performers as part of the DramaBox Blanc Space collaborative playwriting programme, under the guidance of American playwright Joan Holden.



It's a makeshift presentation using texts we wrote over the weekend, so it won't be stellar, but it'll be fun. It's a comedy set in old Suzhou about organ transplants! I play the faithful servant Ah Lek, based on Arlecchino.

Details are:

Sat 8 August, 4pm
The Hall @ The Arts House (i.e. the small building with the Vietnamese restaurant, next to the Arts House proper)
Price: FREE

The writers/performers are:

Chris Lee
Verena Tay
Peggy Ferroa
Jacklyn Kuah
Ng Yi-Sheng

Come to IndigNation!!!

What's IndigNation, I hear you say? Here's from the website:

Indignation is the LGBT Pride season in Singapore, reaffirming our participation in the intellectual and cultural life of this country, reminding all that we are as much a part of Singapore as anyone else. The organisers are motivated by a belief that however difficult, progress is possible. We are not passive victims of ignorance and prejudice in an unchanging landscape. We are active citizens playing our part in making Singapore a better place.

I've been involved in every single IndigNation since 2005. This year, I'm curating and emceeing ContraDiction, a literary reading at 7pm on Sunday 30 August at 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road. There'll be foretaste of that at this event tomorrow:
Come to IndigNation!!!

Opening Reception, 7.30pm @ 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road

People Like Us’ annual reception is becoming a tradition. Along with finger food and wine, this year the programme for the evening includes: (1) the presentation of the 2009 Dignity Award, (2) the announcement of the winners of the Rascals Prize, (3) the launch of a Coming Out guide by Sayoni, (4) poetry by Koh Jee Leong, as a preview to the much anticipated ContraDiction, Indignation’s premiere writing-and-music event. All are welcome. Come and be emancipated!

Seriously, straight people are welcome too. Just be prepared to get checked out if you're cute.

I've got two poems in "Writing Singapore", the first truly comprehensive anthology of English lit in Singapore, launched just tonight.

Unfortunately I neglected to bring a camera, and my mum's absconded with the volume in question, so I can't really advertise it photographically.

Still, it's really interesting! About a quarter devoted to pre-1965 writing, and another quarter to the 1965-1990 period (both of which contain many writers I've never heard of).

Unfortunately, it's expensive: $75 a copy. But maybe you can get a discount somehow. The two poems, by the way, are "Crystal Pear" and "Equidistance", both of which are extremely gay.

I'm gonna be in the National Library Board's 144-hour reading marathon this weekend

Reading local English fiction on Sunday morning, 5 July, 3 to 3:30am at the Central Library foyer. Seeya there!



Insomniacs: Do you feel frustrated every time you stay awake beyond the witching hour while the rest of your friends are soundly under the covers?

Clubbers: Don’t you always feel that the night ends too early?

So, on the morning of Sunday 5 July, from 1am to 7am at the Central National Library foyer, do something different, take a break from your routine: support literary arts!

Show your support for this one-of-a-kind Singapore Writers Festival (SWF) pre-festival event. The SWF team and some of Singapore’s more well-known writers will be reading a selection of homegrown works in public. Readers include Felix Cheong (The Call from Crying House), O Thiam Chin (Free Falling Man), Aaron Lee (Five Right Angles), Ng Yi-Sheng (Last Boy), Alvin Pang (City of Rain), Heng Siok Tian (Crossing the Chopsticks) and Jeffrey Lim (The Coffin That Wouldn't Bury).

Coffee, tea and biscuits to keep us awake are welcome, but just stopping by to listen to our readings are fine too!

Organised as part of READ! Singapore 2009 by the NAC.

UPDATE: It's actually happening already! Schoolkids were reading when I went Friday afternoon.



Can't wait!

We're performing tonight!

I'm talking about ARTS Fission's A Garden Affair 013: Bird Call, of course. Tickets are sold out (well, it's free, but we've got a capacity of 40 and we've got bookings of about 65 each night. So yeah, we're sold out).



Unfortunately the dance studio is not very photogenic:


From left to right: Elysa Wendi (choreographer), Scarlett, Shirley, Mayu, Edwin, Bobbi and Lynn.


Look how they turn the simplest of tasks into an artistic act! No lah; I'm seriously impressed at how the ARTS Fission troupe willingly commits itself to practice, teaching, brainstorming, researching and sai gang. They're a really cool group of people.

I do have a few gorgeous pics, but they'd give away some of the ideas we have. So I'll post them after the show.

Bird Call was in the papers today!

Straits Times Life!. Will scan it in soon.

Garden Affair 013: Bird Call

Next Thursday and Friday, I'm involved in a contemporary dance performance called Bird Call, produced by ARTS Fission group and choreographed by Elysa Wendi. It's centred around the theme of birds, so I might have to do some dressing up in feathers. :)




Garden Affair 013 - Bird Call
Thursday 25 & Friday 26 June 2009, 8.30 pm
Garden Studio, Cairnhill Arts Center
126 Cairnhill Road #01-07/09
Within (tedious) walking distance from Newton MRT

Someone made me fanart!

Her name's Marylyn and this is what she drew, based on my poem "kami/kaze: a correspondence".

I recently participated in KYTV's POP Station...

... thus yielding one of the most embarrassing videos of myself, ever.



The exhibition's showing at the Esplanade Jendela Studio till 29 June.

Oh, and I made a second one, too:

I'm going to Zurich to work on a book about rent-boys.

I'll be gone until 11 May; then on 13 May I'm flying off again to the States for my brother's graduation. I'll only be back in Singapore for a respectable time from 6 June onwards. So don't call my cellphone.


I have of course set up a blog as a diary for my voyage, but it won't be open to the public to read. I'll put up little excerpts on my personal blog occasionally, or maybe I won't. This is the first sentence I've written:

I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m fucking scared.

Complete the short story with the sentence, with emphasis on correct grammar and spelling. (25%)

Poet X Poet X Photos!


That's me squirming while Prof Lee read my early adolescent juvenilia. I eventually retaliated by performing "Prospect of a Drowning" in Singlish.

Ooh, did I mention we had an audience?


They stuck around for two hours - some of them standing! - while we gabbed about each other's poetry (with brief anecdotal excursions about our personal lives, and those of others, for which I sincerely apologise). Very good response, according to Kenny: someone said it was the best Singapore lit event s/he'd been to in a long time.


This was thanks in no small part to our moderator, Gwee Li Sui. (Edwin Thumboo also interjected a fair number of times. He's being hidden by the stack of plastic cups.)

And really, it was a gorgeous place to have the event:


Photos courtesy of Alvin Pang.

While we're at it, why not some photos from the Life! Theatre Awards? Here's Wong Chee Wai/Ng Tze Wei getting his Best Set Design for "The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles".



And here's the crowd: (from left to right: Brian Gothong Tan, members of ZingO Drum Group, Fran Borgia, Elizabeth Tan, K Rajagopal):


And our (unnervingly precocious) entertainment:


Now that they've scaled it back to a nominees-only ceremony, it's unlikely that I'll be invited back next year. Ah well, I've decided to concentrate on books rather than drama this year, and there's a price for every venture. (More on that in a later post.)

Now to file my taxes.

BooksActually
presents

“Poet x Poet” series
Session No. 1: Lee Tzu Pheng x Ng Yi-Sheng
Moderated by Dr. Gwee Li Sui

P O E T R Y D I A L O G U E

Date // 3 April, Friday
Time // 7 pm
Venue // BooksActually (No. 5 Ann Siang Road. T / 6221 1170)

Poet x Poet is a dialogue session where two well-known poets are invited to read and critique each other's works. This is a first in Singapore where poets from different generations and practice engage in intellectual critical dialogue regarding their craft. The audience is welcome to pose any questions and/or participate in the dialogue. Moderated by Dr. Gwee Li Sui. Organized by BooksActually.

LEE TZU PHENG:
Lee Tzu Pheng was born (May 13, 1946) and educated in Singapore. She has a Ph.D in English from the University of Singapore from where she has recently retired as a Senior Lecturer in its English Department. She has four volumes of poems to her name; of these, the first three, Prospects of a Drowning(1980), Against the Next Wave, (1988) and The Brink of An Amen(1991) were winners of the National Book Development Council of Singapore (NBDCS) Award. Aside from literary studies, her other interests include children's literature and church work.

NG YI-SHENG:
Ng Yi-Sheng (b. 1980) is a Singaporean writer. He has published a collection of his poems entitled Last Boy (2006) and SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century (2006). He won the Singapore Literature Prize in English in 2008.

I didn't win anything at the Life! Theatre Awards...

...but I got to pick up the trophy for Ka Fai who got Best Multimedia for Reservoir.


He's in the UK filming stuff for Diaspora (TheatreWorks people never attend the thing anywayz), so I went up, talked about what a great guy he is to work with and that he should be recognised as a director as well as as a multimediator, and then exhorted everyone to watch his upcoming Revolution Per Minute (23 to 25 April).

Ng Tze Wei got Best Set Design for "The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles"! And he deserves it. Seriously, that man can spin straw into gold.