Singapore Writers Festival 2024: Bouquets and brickbats for poet Yong Shu Hoong’s first outing

SINGAPORE – The 27th edition of the Singapore Writers Festival (SWF) concluded on Nov 17 and was

a quieter affair with greater depth

under the watch of first-time festival director Yong Shu Hoong.

The Straits Times’ arts team rounds up the best and worst of the annual literary affair.

Bouquets

1. Serious conversations, robust panels

What the festival lacked in flash, it made up for in substance. Meaty conversations packed into an hour include panels on artificial intelligence’s impact on the literary arts, girl rage in a supernatural world and writing about visual arts.

Kudos to Yong for programming a slate of strong industry-focused and craft-centred talks, which gave writers a chance to sink their teeth into the practice of writing.

These included masterclasses by

South Korean translator Anton Hur

and

American poet Gregory Pardlo

, as well as a panel on demystifying literary agents.

Tellingly, these were smaller panels, though festival headliner Cat Bohannon’s humorous hard science lecture was a hoot. It goes to show that seriousness can also sell. – Shawn Hoo

2. Strong Chinese-language headliners

Some of the most-hyped novelists in the Sinophone literary world – bar the big names from mainland China – were gathered as part of the star-studded Chinese-language curation at the 2024 SWF.

Taiwanese novelists Kevin Chen

and Chiang-sheng Kuo, as well as

Malaysian novelists Li Zi Shu

and Ho Sok Fong, attracted packed rooms of Chinese-language readers from Singapore and beyond.

It helped that all of them have at least one book translated into English, potentially also attracting a few English readers. – Shawn Hoo

3. Better spaces and logistics

The River Room in the Asian Civilisations Museum added another spacious venue for medium-sized panels, seating nearly 200 people.

Accessible via the stairs or a lift, the room’s solid acoustics made it easier to hear panellists and audience questions, allowing for easy conversation.

The streamlining of operations at The Arts House Gallery II, where the festival bookstore run by BookBar and the book signing tables were co-located, was much appreciated.

Festivalgoers could buy books, then join the line at the back entrance of Gallery II. SWF staff and volunteers performed crowd control, easing traffic and increasing efficiency by redirecting people to the correct queues when multiple signings were happening. – Charmaine Lim

Brickbats

1. Make better use of interstitial spaces

Missing from the front lawn of The Arts House were its well-loved tents and beanbags, which offered refuge from the rain and comfortable places to rest or read.

The single pointed tent and umbrellas over chairs offered little respite from the rain or sun, minimising festivalgoers’ use of the space.

While the return of the food trucks was greatly appreciated – providing burgers, coffee, pastries and alcoholic drinks – the limited variety and seating gave festivalgoers less reason to linger and chat.

Another awkward space was outside the Cultural Medallion room in The Arts House, where several festivalgoers got lost on their way to the Screening Room. Previously a space for signings, it was empty save for some tables and chairs, and could have been maximised as a more comfortable seating area. – Charmaine Lim

2. Hi, do you have this book?

Not all festival panellists had their books stocked at the festival bookshop.

It was not for lack of trying, says Mr Alex Chua, co-owner of BookBar. “We had a tight timeline to turn around the books from international authors, which take a month to arrive, so that made it difficult to get some of them.

“Some publishers and distributors also did not reply to our multiple attempts to contact them, so we weren’t able to get those books. We tried our best, even resorting to buying from other local bookstores at full retail price so we could have some copies available.”

It likely did not help that SWF was still releasing panellist and author names less than two weeks before the festival began, leaving minimal time to bring in their books. – Charmaine Lim

3. Do the literary pioneer justice, please

Ask any festivalgoer who the 2024 literary pioneer was and what she stands for, and they are likely to draw a blank.

It was a squandered opportunity to introduce

Dan Ying, the first Chinese-language female poet to be recognised as a solo literary pioneer

, to the wider reading public beyond the Chinese literary world.

Even if one could look past the poorly designed exhibition text and images of A World Of Words, the squinting was not worth it.

The text could not even muster a cogent argument as to why Dan Ying is regarded as a pioneering figure, preferring limp descriptions of how she penned verses on love, tragedy and life encounters.

This is not the first time the SWF has failed to do justice to mother-tongue writers. The 2022 exhibition on pioneering Malay women writers was equally haphazard and poorly curated.

The literary pioneer series should not be seen as mere decoration, but as a serious arm of the festival’s public education that can disseminate the legacies of Singapore’s trailblazing writers.

More care should be taken to ensure that festivalgoers can appreciate and contextualise the pioneer’s work. – Shawn Hoo

What festivalgoers thought

“Shehan Karunatilaka was very bright and he knew how to engage the audience. It was very lively and there were many jokes. I like books that portray our society in a so-called supernatural sense. I like the way Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons Of Maali Almeida portrays the ghosts, who are just normal people with normal lives.”

- Thoong Hao Wen, 11, a primary-school pupil who has been attending SWF since he was a baby

“I’ve always had an interest in literature, but never had the time to delve into it. The fact that this is the first year that they added Korean literature is quite timely, because I got into reading it very recently. Being able to hear from the authors themselves and the moderators was quite insightful. Having your own interpretation is one thing, but hearing it from them makes me want to find out more.”

- Ms Joya Hossain, 20, first-year arts management student and a first-time festivalgoer with a music background, who says she will return to SWF

“My favourite part was the song they played when Geronimo Stilton entered. I did some of the dancing, but I was shy. I want to tell the Stiltons that I liked the show and have been waiting a long time to meet them. My favourite book is Mouse Vs Wild (2020) because it is very adventurous.”

- Arifeen, nine, who gave only his first name while queueing for the meet and greet with Italian mouse characters Geronimo and Thea Stilton

“I thought Krystal Sutherland’s Meet The Author session was very engaging. Of all the sessions I attended today, it was the one I paid the most attention to because she’s so eloquent. I read her book House Of Hollows in 2022 and was excited when I realised after buying my youth pass that she would be coming. I think she’s on the same level as young-adult writers Chloe Gong and Dustin Thao, who came when I was last at the festival in 2022, but maybe more so internationally than with the Singaporean teens. I would love to see SWF bring in (American author) Emily Henry in the future.”

- Chng Yun Ning, a junior college student who returned to the festival after skipping a year in 2023.

“I noticed that many children were getting restless because it was a bit dull. There were no props and I heard kids complaining that it was boring.”

- Ms Yip, a housewife who brought her six-year-old son, and was disappointed in the live performance by Geronimo and Thea Stilton

“This was a refreshing, insightful take on writing provided by an authentic practitioner. The idea of sensory tasting, as well as drawing from a South-east Asian heritage, revitalised my own writing, which I want to be grounded in our regional context.”

- Mr Wayne Tan, 32, a teacher at workshop An Archipelago Of Taste: Writing Javanese Jamu Inspired Flash Fiction. Author Sofia Mariah Ma got participants to write a haiku and short story after they tasted the Indonesian heritage medicine

“I am blown away by the talent, by the love, by the amount of passion, by the turnout. I debated at the first Singapore Writers Festival and there was no Victoria Theatre. It was just a bar stool in a makeshift tarpaulin. The audience has grown, and just the quality of content and the speakers fills me with so much pride.”

- Dr Loretta Chen, an award-winning Singapore author based in the United States, who attended her first SWF after more than two decades