Browsed by Month March 2013

Speculative Fiction TeaParty

A bunch of months ago The Arts House put out an open call for literary events they wanted to host as part of their 9th anniversary celebrations A bunch of us specficwritingtypes here Joyce Chng Dave Chua Alvin Pang and I decided to do something So we came up with the idea of doing a speculative fiction writein With randomly assigned items used as prompts We called ourselves The Collective and booked ourselves a slot

So thats how we found ourselves at the Earshot Cafe at 2pm last Saturday hauling a bagful of Random Shit Id collected from friends over a couple of weeks When I say Random Shit I mean Random Shit because there were dinosaurs and a squeaky plastic chicken and a discarded cellphone from the 90s and pages torn from French novels and a menu from a family restaurant and a pair of blue latex gloves And a harmonica And a jumbo pack of playing cards

We handed them out by lottery and let the writers get to it About 20 people showed up which pleased me we hadnt publicised the event very well and I had actually expected only us chickens to be there It was good fun more photos after the jump

Kickstart something great A signalboosty post

A couple of brief signalboosty updates before I have to run to work No this isnt the specfic tea party post Not yet

ETIQUETTE 2013 FUNDRAISER

Etiquette are registering as a nonprofit arts group dedicated to showcasing creative and critical work by women artists To do so they need to raise money Run by two amazing women theyve done a number of wonderful art projects in the past Photography written word theatre Im involved with one of their projects I have a story in their anthology Body Boundaries which is coming out in July There was a reading last weekend a preview of sorts which is where the above photo of me comes from Anyway they need to raise S10000 and I encourage everyone to contribute if they can Its a good cause theres a great community built up around it and the art scene in Singapore could do with more womancentric spaces particularly those that explore womens issues critically Indiegogo page here 46 days to go

Fun fact I submitted two stories to Body Boundaries and the editors like both so I asked them to take the one that was more personal as I thought I could place the other story in other markets The other piece ended up being the bulk of my submission to Clarion West But I havent actually submitted it elsewhere because it needs a fair bit of editing and I havent gotten around to doing it Argh

Crossed Genres Long Hidden Speculative Fiction From the Margins of History

4 days to go An anthology to collect stories of people whose voices are not often heard Its already met its base goal hit two stretch goals for a bigger anthology with more stories and is now pushing towards a US30000 goal so that each of the stories featured can get a B W illustration The anthology sounds like an amazing idea and the folks at Crossed Genres have been doing some fantastic work in representing diversity in genre fiction so Im always all out for their projects

Clarion West 2013 And one day I got in

It was around this time last week that I got a call

I was at work manning the desk on a solo Sunday shift playing my role as a oneperson news service that my colleagues and I often get to on weekends My phone rang A 20 number I had no idea what that was so I Googled it My phone was still ringing I found out that 20 was international dialing code for Egypt Right except that I dont know anybody in Egypt and theres no way anyone in Egypt would have reason to call me my life is parochial and does not extend much further beyond the cramped borders of the island nation I call home

So I rejected the call thinking Prank or international scam Its happened before

A minute later the same number calls again I reject the call a second time thinking what the hell right Wrong number get your shit together

Two minutes later I get a call with a 1 code that said it was from California By this time my mind is in full WHAT THE FUCK mode because I hardly get any international calls ever If the 1 number had called first I might have picked up because I had a colleague in New York covering the Samsung Galaxy S4 launch As it was I immediately rejected the call by now convinced that an international network of scammers with fake numbers was trying to hack into my phone

Seriously what the hell Im at work Ive got stuff to do

My shift ended I stayed in the newsroom for two more hours because the first race of the Formula 1 season was on and the sports desk gets ESPN and I dont It was a good race I had a good time While celebrating the Icemans welldeserved win I forgot about the strange calls entirely

Then I got home and I checked my personal email account

The calls hadnt been from Egyptians hadnt been from spammers

It had been from the folks at Clarion West trying to get a hold of me

See I applied for Clarion West this year Completely under the radar I told noone Not friends not family not fellow writers or colleagues I just put together a couple of stories Id written wrote up a short essay and sent it in It was a pipe dream and in the grip of particular superstition I didnt want to jinx it by talking about it

It was apparently a strategy that worked Because the calls finally did get through And the news Id been accepted I was one of the eighteen In the words of Kevin Flynn set to a Daft Punk backdrop I got in

I am a firsttime applicant and if I had done my due diligence I would have known that acceptances come in the form of a call not an email as I had been expecting Instead I had tried my best to forget about my application burying myself in work thinking if the acceptance email comes itll come and so be it Thus Blindsided by the call like a complete and total butt

Its been a week since and I still cant quite believe it I am thrilled honoured nervous excited or some unholy combination of all four Since the embargo on our acceptances was lifted earlier today Ive been stalking some of my fellow attendees on Twitter and getting myself worked up over the idea that in just three months well be together in one place being taught in turn by Elizabeth Hand Neil Gaiman Joe Hill Margo Lanagan Samuel R Delany and Ellen Datlow

I asked and I am the first Singaporean to have been accepted into the program Possibly because not many have tried Ill never know

I want to thank the Clarion West organisers the staff and the readers for taking a chance on me for giving me this rare priceless opportunity to work on the craft that I love

I am grateful I am happy I am not yet convinced this is not a dream

I suppose I have three months to get used to the idea

Photo is a selection of the items we randomly gave out at yesterdays Speculative Fiction Tea Party which Ill get to blogging about Soon I promise

Join us for an afternoon of RANDOM SHIT

I live

I return ignominiously to the world of blogging to announce quite belatedly that as a part of The Arts Houses 9th anniversary celebration a group of writer friends and I are hosting an event this Saturday and we would like you all to come

The short of it

A SPECULATIVE FICTION TEAPARTY WITH LESS TEA AND MORE WRITING

Date 23 Mar 2013 Saturday

Time 2pm3pm

Venue Earshot Cafe The Arts House

And a longer version

Whats going to happen Its a one hour writein where you get to invent stories about Random Shit See that picture up there Thats a selection of some of the Random Shit you might get

You turn up you draw a number you get an item of Random Shit You then sit down and write about said piece of Random Shit for the next hour It can be anything a poem a Wikipedia entry about its history entirely made up of course a story in which it plays a crucial role Make it fun make it fantastic make it a serious sobworthy tragedy Its all up to you Write about spacemen Write about vampires Write about dinosaurs Hell some of the Random Shit IS dinosaurs

When the hour is up we collect all the stories Then we put them together into a chapbook and share it with the world

So come along meet other writers indulge in a hours worth of delightful weirdness Looking forward to seeing you guys there