Singapore Writers Festival

The Singapore Writers Festival started yesterday and is on till November 1. Workshops and conversations are happening all week at The Arts House -- one of my favourite buildings in Singapore. This is a multidisciplinary literary festival, featuring some 120 writers from 22 countries and over 170 programmes.

Today I saw O Thiam Chin, a young Singaporean author, talk about his book of short stories, 'Never Been Better' -- published by MPH.

"I don't always go for the big dramatic moments. I'm much more interested in the small and subtle moments of realisation that people have," he said.

When asked why he had not thought of looking for international publishers for his book, Thiam Chin said that he had chosen to be a small fish swimming in a small pond. "I'm not sure I was up to international standards. I wanted to look for local publishers first as my stories also had a local flavour," he said. He spoke of his dreams of getting published in The New Yorker some day.

It was a nice little session -- and I was glad to have attended it. I plan to walk around and attend free sessions over the next few days. And of course, I'll record impressions and conversations that stay with me and post them here.

Here's a picture I like -- of Thiam Chin autographing his book.