Singapore Writers Festival Headliners

You know that book, film, TV show or song you adore but don’t want to admit to? This year, we are leaning in and boldly celebrating the things we love as we challenge the very notion of what belongs in a literary sphere. Lowbrow, highbrow, who cares!

SWF 2021 also explores the complicated relationships between guilt and pleasure in the actions we take and choices we make as individuals and a global community within our societies and environments.

ABOUT SINGAPORE WRITERS FESTIVAL The Singapore Writers Festival, one of Asia’s premier literary events, started in 1986 as a biennial festival.

Now organised yearly by Arts House Limited, SWF is a much anticipated event on the cultural calendar, presenting the world’s major literary talents to Singaporeans while shining a spotlight on home grown and Southeast Asian creative talents. Over the years, the Festival has become an exciting meeting point of writers, academics and thinkers in a choice spread of panel discussions, workshops, lectures and performances over 10 days. It has hosted literati the likes of two-time Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood, Whitbread First Novel Award winner Zadie Smith, British poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, Nebula winner Neil Gaiman and Lambda Literary Award winner Roxane Gay. The Singapore Writers Festival is one of the few multi-lingual literary festivals in the world, celebrating the written and spoken word in Singapore’s official languages – English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil.

ABOUT ARTS HOUSE LIMITED Arts House Limited (AHL) is a not-for-profit organisation committed to enriching lives through the arts.

AHL manages two key national monuments located in the heart of Singapore’s Civic District - The Arts House, a multidisciplinary arts centre with a focus on literary programming, and the Victoria Theatre & Victoria Concert Hall, a heritage building that is home to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. It also runs performing arts space Drama Centre as well as the Goodman Arts Centre and Aliwal Arts Centre, two creative enclaves for artists, arts groups and creative businesses.

AHL presents the Singapore International Festival of Arts – an annual national festival of performing and interdisciplinary arts; as well as the Singapore Writers Festival – a multi-lingual festival presenting the world’s top literary talents. In addition, AHL manages the Cultural Medallion showcase at The Arts House, celebrating the achievements of all Cultural Medallion recipients. The Cultural Medallion is Singapore’s top national award for artists.

FIRST WAVE OF PRESENTERS BJORN SHERN Starting out as a dishwasher and kitchen hand, Bjorn’s 17-year culinary career has taken him through professional kitchens in Singapore, Australia, Denmark, Indonesia, and Dubai. While today’s culinary world prides itself on creativity and innovation, Bjorn believes that these can only work when one first understands tradition. After all, food is about people, places and history. He was an Adjunct Lecturer at the Culinary Institute of America in Singapore from 2012 to 2017.

Bjorn opened award-winning restaurant Artichoke in 2010.

GEETHA SUKUMARAN Geetha Sukumaran is a poet and a bilingual translator. Her English translation of Ahilan’s poetry Then There Were No Witnesses was published in 2018. A recipient of the SPARROW R Thyagarajan Literary Award for poetry, her latest collection Tea: A Concoction of Dissonance published by Dhauli Books (2021) was published in collaboration with the poet Ahilan and artist Vaidheki. She is the founder of Conflict and Food Studies and a doctoral student in the Humanities programme at York University, Toronto.

G. WILLOW WILSON G. Willow Wilson is an award-winning comics writer, prose author, essayist, and journalist. She is the author of the acclaimed novel The Bird King (2019), co-creator of the Hugo and American Book Awardwinning series Ms Marvel (2013 – 2018). She has written for superhero comic book series including The X-Men, Superman, and Wonder Woman. Her first novel, Alif the Unseen, won the 2013 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and was long-listed for the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

HAMED ISMAIL Hamed Ismail is a former Senior Supervisor with Eaglevision TV Scripts at Mediacorp who continues to serve as a TV Drama Script Advisor.

He has written scripts for radio plays, theatre, countless television drama series, as well as poetry, short stories, and essays. An awardwinning writer, his accolades include multiple Malay Literary Awards and Golden Point Awards. Most recently, his novel Bunga Tanjong (A Dancing Club: Bunga Tanjong) won the 2018 Singapore Literature Prize, Merit Prize, for Malay Fiction.

OCEAN VUONG Ocean Vuong is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of a 2019 MacArthur “Genius” Grant, he is also the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a New York Times Top 10 Book of 2016 that won multiple awards including the T.S. Eliot Prize. A Ruth Lilly fellow from the Poetry Foundation, his honours include fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and more.

PAMELIA CHIA Pamelia Chia is the author of Wet Market to Table and founder of Singapore Noodles, an online Singaporean food repository. She documents recipes, demystifies traditional cooking through video tutorials, and shares podcast conversations to keep Singapore’s food heritage alive for generations to come.

RAI A singer-songwriter for over 20 years, Rai is an established artist who has performed on many stages globally. A lifelong student, he constantly seeks new opportunities in various artistic fields to learn and excel in. Currently, he is one of the hosts of CNA’s Talking Point, and also an educator in the field of creative writing and songwriting.

R.L. STINE R.L. Stine has been writing horror stories and scaring young readers for over 30 years. His bestselling Goosebumps series has sold more than 400 million copies in the United States. In 2015, The Goosebumps Movie quickly topped the box office in America, and Netflix released a film based on Stine’s Fear Street series in 2021. A winner of multiple Kids’ Choice Awards from both Nickelodeon and Disney Adventures, Stine received the Horror Writers Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.

TAN FRANCE Tan France has been a successful fashion designer for over 15 years and is one of the stars of the Emmy-winning makeover hit and Netflix re-boot, Queer Eye. Tan recently released his New York Times bestselling memoir, Naturally Tan, the first season of his viral YouTube series, Dressing Funny, and hosts the Queer Icons podcast. Before his media career, Tan was the creative mind behind successful brands including the popular ladies clothing lines, Kingdom & State and Rachel Parcell, Inc.

YAN GELING Yan Geling is one of the most acclaimed novelists and screenwriters writing in the Chinese language today. Her best-known novels in English are The Secret Talker, Little Aunt Crane, The Uninvited, White Snake and Other Stories, and The Lost Daughter of Happiness. Many of her works have been adapted for film and television by acclaimed directors such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Joan Chen. She has published over 40 books, has won over 30 literary and film awards and her work has been translated into nineteen languages.

SWF TICKETS

EARLY BIRD

USUAL PRICE

FESTIVAL PASS PLUS (FP+)

$28*

$35*

Access ALL* programmes for SWF 2021 with the purchase of our Festival Pass Plus.

FESTIVAL PASS (FP)

Just want to dive right in? Grab our festival pass for access to 85% of SWF programmes including video-on-demand content

3–30 Sep 2021

From 1 Oct 2021

*ALL programmes for SWF 2021

*ALL programmes for SWF 2021

$16*

$20*

*85% of SWF programmes and VOD content

*85% of SWF programmes and VOD content

Notice: All information is correct at the time of print. Every reasonable care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of information within, hence, Singapore Writers Festival (SWF) cannot accept responsibility for errors and/or omissions however caused. Every effort has been made to identify copyright holders. We deeply regret that if, despite our concerted efforts, any copyright holders have been overlooked or omitted.

Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor or the so­cial policy and position of SWF, AHL, and their related corporations. Any reproduction, retransmission, republication, or other use of all or part of this publication is expressly prohibited, unless prior written permission has been granted by SWF or the appropriate copyright owner.

SWF reserves the right to make changes and modifications to the programme without prior notice.

For updates, please visit our website at singaporewritersfestival.com