The plot thickens for the 26th edition of the Singapore Writers Festival (SWF), organised by Arts House Limited (AHL) and commissioned by the National Arts Council (NAC), with the introduction of more literary powerhouses from all over the world to this year’s line-up. Be prepared for big reveals, unexpected outcomes and surprise endings as SWF opens from 17 to 26 November 2023. Ahead of the Festival opening, Festivalgoers can visit the Literary Pioneer Exhibition, titled ‘Tell Bowie He’s Only A Rock Star. I, However, Am A Poet’ spotlighting the late Goh Poh Seng, a poet, dramatist, novelist and a visionary ahead of his time. The exhibition runs at Punggol Regional Library from now till 31 October 2023 before roving to Funan throughout the Festival period from 1 November to 10 December, and ending off at Heartbeat@Bedok on 27 December 2023. 

Anticipation for SWF 2023 continues to build with the introduction of more international writers and speakers to the Festival line-up. These include British-Pakistani screenwriter Bisha K. Ali who was head writer for streaming television series Ms Marvel for Disney+ and co-writer of one of the episodes of Netflix smash hit Black Mirror, titled ‘Demon 79’, which was the much talked about season finale of the anthology’s sixth series; multidisciplinary Taiwanese writer, artist and environmental activist Wu Ming-yi, who is a six-time winner of the China Times Open Book Award; award-winning food writer M. Margarida Pereira-Müller who will whet literary appetites with conversations on Portuguese gastronomy and food as heritage; and South Korean film director, screenwriter and novelist Won Pyung Sohn, whose debut novel and representative work Almond won South Korea’s Changbi Prize for Young Adult Fiction in 2016. 

Get ready for twist endings with Festival Closing Reading: An Unlikely Beginning, where a powerhouse line-up of poets disrupts our understanding of an ending, and see it unravel as the fabric of a new beginning. Hear from award-winning Nigerian-British writer Yomi Sode, and filmmaker, photographer, and former Young People’s Laureate of London, Caleb Femi, in this programme which is in partnership with Mandala Club. Femi, who worked with Virgil Abloh for the presentation of Louis Vuitton’s Autumn Winter 2022 menswear, the last collection designed by the late visionary and creative director, will also be presenting A Multidisciplinary Masterclass Talk with Caleb Femi, where he unpacks the hyphen in ‘multi-hyphenate’ and shares his approach to combining text, performance, and visual art into narratives that bring a sense of humanity to brands, culture, and people. 

From around the region, a diverse pool of writers and speakers including VTubers, chefs, cartoonists and comic artists will gather as this year’s Southeast Asian Focus (SEA Focus) serves up even more twists and turns, with programmes such as Going Live: Language and Fantasy in the Southeast Asian Vtuber Universe, Small Plates, Big Flavour: Our Side of Sauce-East Asia, and Stories from Storyboards: Lives of SEA Cartoonists & Comic Artists, to subvert expectations in narratives and challenge audiences.

What do you get when a spoken word poet and a hip hop artist walk into a room? Encounter surprise combinations as poets and hip hop artists talk about the intersections between poetry and hip hop in A Tale of Two Beats: Hip Hop and Spoken Word. The programme, which is part of the Festival’s Youth Fringe, features Filipino-Australian writer Andrew Cox alongside local artists such as rappers Masia One and Fariz Jabba, and spoken word artist ArunDitha. Co-presented with Sing Lit Station, the programme joins the line-up of offerings that explore currently trending topics that appeal to youths – and even unexpected ones, with this year’s focus on unlikely combinations and putting a new lens on old topics.

Delve into how mother-daughter relationships are portrayed in popular culture with the recent Barbie movie as a starting point, with What Was I Made For? Mothers, Daughters, and the Shared Journey, and a session on understanding Gen Zs in Who Says We Don’t Care: Role of Content Creators. Prepare for a thrilling night of mystery, intrigue and suspense with Secrets on Campus: A Murder Mystery Experience, where the game will be accompanied by a panel that discusses some of the most effective plot twists ever seen in detective novels.

In the spirit of big reveals, AHL also announces the next Festival Director who will be helming SWF from 2024. Singaporean poet and educator, Yong Shu Hoong, will be taking over the reins from Pooja Nansi from January 2024, as her tenure draws to a close this year with the 26th edition of SWF.  

Shu Hoong brings a wealth of experience, passion and a unique perspective to this role. One aspect that sets him apart is his dedication to mentoring young writers and fostering the growth and development of emerging talents in Singapore’s literary scene. For many years, he has been teaching part-time at National Technological University (a course titled ‘Introduction to Creative Writing’) and Republic Polytechnic (a module titled ‘Art of Story’), as well as a long-time mentor for secondary and JC students under the Ministry of Education’s Creative Arts Programme.  

In the seven poetry collections that Shu Hoong has authored, he often seeks to glean the extraordinary from seemingly mundane observations, with a preoccupation with crossing disciplines and cultures. Frottage (2005) explores the connections between Singapore and Australia, while The Viewing Party (2013) touches on the themes of death and cinema; they both won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2006 and 2014 respectively. His latest collection, Anatomy of a Wave (2022), envisions waveforms as the waves of Covid-19 infections, as well as 1980s new wave music and the famous Japanese woodblock print, Hokusai’s Great Wave.

Besides writing, Shu Hoong is also the founder of subTEXT, a literary reading series that took place regularly from 2001 to 2008 at different venues. Now happening on an ad-hoc basis, this current iteration of subTEXT is co-organised by Shu Hoong and Singapore Art Museum. Through the years, subTEXT continues to serve as a platform for both Singaporean and international authors.

For this year’s Festival, Shu Hoong is also participating as a featured author in several programmes, including an interactive session about music and memory, featuring readings from Anatomy of a Wave alongside original songs and cover versions performed by Singapore musician, Patrick Chng (The Oddfellows). 

“Having witnessed SWF grow from strength to strength under different Festival Directors, I’m accepting the appointment with a recognition of the honour and responsibilities that accompany it – especially in terms of the hard work needed to continue growing the Festival’s audience reach and upholding the quality of programming,” said Shu Hoong.

“As a Computer Science graduate, who later completed my MBA, I hope to further diversify the programming from the current crossing of literary genres with different art forms, like music and film, to deepening exploration of crossovers with different disciplines, from technology to finance, in order to reach out to new converts who might still be intimidated by their notion of what ‘literature’ or a literary festival should be. While maintaining the appeal of SWF to youths that Pooja has taken great effort to cultivate, I would like to explore how our events can also consciously reach out to audience segments like seniors who might not have had the chance to sample what SWF has to offer, as well as people in industries not typically associated with the literary arts.”  

Under the leadership of Pooja Nansi and through the efforts of the Festival team, SWF has celebrated numerous milestones since 2019. Pooja’s first edition as Festival Director in 2019 saw the introduction of the Youth Fringe festival track, featuring programmes curated by Youth Curators from schools. This initiative that developed with each SWF edition has become one of its signature programme tracks, and has since expanded to include the training of Youth Moderators for programmes outside the Youth Fringe. 

From 2020 to 2022, Pooja saw SWF through its pivot to virtual and hybrid formats during the pandemic, continuing to deliver the Festival’s hallmark mix of Singaporean and international speakers amidst unprecedented and challenging circumstances. The possibilities afforded by the digital realm allowed festivalgoers and new audiences to continue hearing from a diverse range of international headliners such as Margaret Atwood, R.L. Stine, Zadie Smith and Ocean Vuong, among others, while also experiencing special digital Festival commissions. 

To expand SWF’s reach to new audiences and garner greater support from the community, the Festival under Pooja’s guidance has worked more closely with advisors and partners to enrich its offerings. Notably, it has worked with language advisors for grounds-up Chinese, Malay, and Tamil programming, venue partners such as the National Library Board to bring satellite programmes to neighbourhoods across the island, along with a wide range of literary organisers, creatives, bookshops, lifestyle and programming partners.

Last year, she led the festival to its triumphant return as an in-person event in its 25^th edition, which nearly doubled pre-Covid attendance figures, and featured the first-ever outdoor Festival Village. The Festival also took the opportunity to include programming around the Our Cultural Medallion Story showcase at The Arts House, featuring a series of weekly conversations with Cultural Medallion recipients that celebrated their works and literary legacies.

Pooja Nansi, current Festival Director said, “It has been an absolute honour to serve the Festival through a five-year tenure that saw the whole world shifting its course. None of it would have been possible without the unwavering support of audiences and the work of a passionate and innovative festival team. I look forward to seeing how Shu Hoong will build on the work that has been done and introduce a viewpoint that is forward thinking so that the Festival continues to grow its audiences and evolve with the times.”

Sim Wan Hui, Covering Director, Programming & Producing at AHL said, “Pooja has led the Festival to new heights during her tenure, growing the impact of the Festival on younger audiences with the introduction of the Youth Fringe, and her goal of making literary arts accessible to everyone has diversified the areas of interests and conversations that the Festival engages with. We welcome Shu Hoong, a familiar face in the literary scene, as he guides the Festival forward and continues to make a mark on the local arts community and beyond in his new role.”

Aruna Johnson, Director of Literary Arts at the NAC said, “The Singapore Writers Festival has consistently anchored the arts and culture calendar as a pinnacle platform where international and local talents converge. Under Pooja’s passionate, dedicated and innovative stewardship, the Festival has celebrated many successes even through Covid-19, where audiences were engaged through a mix of online and hybrid programmes. We welcome incoming Festival Director Shu Hoong and his wealth of experience in the literary scene, and look forward to his leadership in building on past efforts and exploring new opportunities for the next chapter of the Festival.”

Image Credits: Arts House Limited

Singapore Writers Festival 2023 runs from 17th to 26th November 2023. Tickets and more information available here