WriteCamp Singapore 2011

Wed, 12 Oct 2011
2 min read
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Singapore Writers Festival

Just a heads up: I’ll be speaking at the upcoming WriteCamp Singapore 2011 on “Singapore Literature: Where we should be going”.

In the talk – which I’m giving in my own personal capacity – I’ll discuss:

  • Why Singapore Literature needs to be taught in Singapore schools,
  • Why this hasn’t been happening, and
  • What Singaporean writers should do to reverse this trend.

—

When is WriteCamp and what’s it about? From the SWF website:

    Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2011
    Time: 2pm – 6pm
    Venue: Seminar Rooms 1 and 2, National Museum of Singapore
    Price of Admission: FREE!

WriteCamp is SWF’s take on the “unconference” – a dynamic, user-generated series of workshops and talks where presenters share their knowledge to small, passionate audiences.

Each session is typically 30 minutes, with two or three sessions running concurrently so that audiences have the luxury of choice while speakers have to keep their talks snappy and insightful.

Topics can cover the craft of writing, tips on publishing, or other writing-related subjects.

Apart from fun networking and the buzz of spontaneous creativity, Writecamp promises to shed new light on writers and writing too!

Have an idea for a talk? Send it to writecamp.swf@gmail.com with your topic and contact details and we’ll get in touch with you if it’s selected.

Please join me, either as a listener or as a speaker, if you can. You can sign up for the event here or browse the SWF website for more details.

See you there!

Sacred shibboleths.

Sat, 1 Oct 2011
1 min read
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Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo

Elyot: (seriously) You mustn’t be serious, my dear one; it’s just what they want.

Amanda: Who’s they?

Elyot: All the futile moralists who try to make life unbearable. Laugh at them. Be flippant. Laugh at everything, all their sacred shibboleths. Flippancy brings out the acid in their damned sweetness and light.

Amanda: If I laugh at everything, I must laugh at us too.

Elyot: Certainly you must. We’re figures of fun all right.

— Noel Coward, Private Lives.

Also relevant:

…we have to…be able to laugh at ourselves – because if we can’t laugh at ourselves when you (sic) are standing on a pedestal (sic), somebody is going to knock you (sic) down.

POSKOD.SG: Ten Steps to Effective Online Commentary.

Tue, 20 Sep 2011
2 min read
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POSKOD.SG Graphic

"People talking without speaking/People hearing without listening"

My latest article on POSKOD.SG.

Ten Steps to Effective Online Commentary.
A guide to online criticism and debate. (Mostly criticism.)

So, you’ve got an Internet connection, an opinion and some spare time on your hands.

Congratulations! Like everyone else and their blogs, you are now a media hub.

Before you commence e-hurling your iNtellectualism @ the rest of the world, here are ten steps to effective online commentary, the cyber-Singaporean way.

  1. Increase your Internet presence.Set up a website on socio-political issues in Singapore and give it a cerebral, subtle and unique moniker, something like Socially Political SG: Thinking About Socially Political in Singapore.What you have to say is, after all, very ‘niche’, and no one thinks about critical issues affecting our nation in as classy or as astute a manner as you do.
  2. Read widely.Turn to Google and Wikipedia for all your edificatory needs.Besides being the only scholarly sources that can be found on the face of the earth, they are also the most reliable, according to teenage students who take a great deal of pride in referencing “en.wikipedia.org” and “ehow.com” in their homework submissions.
  3. Participate in community discussions on a consistent basis.Trawl other websites and forums every hour and leave comments on other posts, regardless of whether or not your advice is sound and/or logical.Bear in mind that we are a democracy, and democracy, as translated from the Greek, means ‘many people shouting loudly at each other in a self-important fashion’.

    Moreover, your counsel serves to affirm and validate the existence of ‘netizens’.

    Never underestimate the value of this, even if netizens do not seem to mention their appreciation of your beneficence, or worse, if they seem to respond negatively to what you say.

(continued…)