Jason Erik Lundberg

June 16, 2026 · 4:33 pm

SBC Workshop #2: Worldbuilding 101

This coming July (next month!), I’ll be conducting two workshops for the Singapore Book Council. The first of these was covered here.

The second of these is a three-hour workshop, called “Worldbuilding 101 for the Emerging Writer.” This has been adapted from a similar workshop I have taught over the years at the Creative Arts Programme and George Town Literary Festival, and as part of the undergraduate Introduction to Creative Writing course I taught at NTU last semester (and which I’ll be teaching again this coming Fall). It’s aimed at emerging writers with some basic writing knowledge and experience, who would like to expand the depth and detail of their fantastical worlds.

Speculative fiction often takes place in otherworldly settings, such as J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, the planet Arrakis in Dune, the computer-generated dream world of The Matrix, or a slightly different version of the world we know. The details that go into the imagining of a fantastical setting allow the writer to both ground a narrative in reality and challenge the notions of that reality. This workshop will give participants the skills to be able to create their own strange new worlds as the backdrops for their fiction.

Please note that the max capacity for the workshop is only 20 people, so be sure to sign up soon! Registration is now open.

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June 10, 2026 · 4:33 pm

SBC Workshop #1: Beyond the First Draft (UPDATED)

Note: This course has been postponed until a later date. Please stay tuned here and at my social media for updates.

This coming July (next month!), I’ll be conducting two workshops for the Singapore Book Council.

The first of these is a two-part course, called “Beyond the First Draft: A Self-Editing Masterclass for Fiction Writers.” This has been adapted from a similar course I taught last year while I was a Visiting Writer for the Asia Creative Writing Programme. It’s aimed at intermediate and advanced writers, who have already created a small body of work and might have even published some of it.

Congratulations, you’ve finished writing your story! But hang on, don’t hit send just yet. Author, anthologist, editor and lecturer Jason Erik Lundberg is here to help you wrangle your words, characters and world-building into something unforgettable. This course in self-editing will enable you to be analytical and ruthless to make your fiction shine and give it the best shot at publication. Peer critiquing with a partner is involved, so be prepared for some tough love; you will need to bring a printed-out complete (but unpublished) short story of no more than 2,000 words.

Please note that the max capacity for the course is only 20 people, so be sure to sign up soon! Registration is now open.

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June 2, 2026 · 10:14 pm

The Stakes of Smallness

A little less than six weeks from now, I’ll be participating in ACWP Practitioners Day 2026 (organised by the Asia Creative Writing Programme), in a panel on “The Stakes of Smallness”. Joining me will be moderator extraordinaire (and good friend) Felicia Low-Jimenez, YA author Amber Chen, and bestselling and award-winning novelist Nnedi Okorafor. I’ve known Nnedi online for a long time now (and our daughters share the same name), but we’ve never gotten to meet in person, so I’m very excited to finally do so, along with sharing the stage with her for this discussion.

The Practitioners Day lasts all day long (10am–5pm) at The Arts House, with a number of events showcasing lots of great writers (most of whom are friends); in fact, my publisher Nora will be doing a panel concurrently with mine! So there should be something for everyone; check the schedule for details. Tickets available now!

Key visual by Kristal Melson

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May 25, 2026 · 10:59 am

BBCC2 is a national bestseller…yet again!

Bo Bo and Cha Cha’s Big Day Out (illustrated by Patrick Yee), the second book in my picture book series (and the only one still in print), was released in May 2013. I am delighted to discover that, exactly thirteen years later, readers are still discovering the book, and picking it up in high enough numbers that it has made the national bestseller list for children’s books for the third time (and in its highest ranking yet at #2)! (The first time was on 29 March 2025 and the second was on 21 June 2025.)

This volume has always been the most popular and reprinted in the series (it’s currently in its 6th printing), and I’m frankly amazed that it’s still selling so well all these years later, without any promotion on the publisher’s part. I’m speculating that this most current boost came thanks to the annual Asian Festival of Children’s Content, which was just held this past weekend at the National Library Building in Singapore’s civic district. Thank you to all the new readers out there, both young and old, who have decided to explore Singapore along with my two pandas. 😊

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April 16, 2026 · 3:10 pm

HL6214 Final Class of 2026

Two nights ago was the final class of the semester for my Editorial Theory & Practice, Functions & Strategies course in the MACWP programme at NTU. The students all presented their final projects—editorial letters for already-existing books—delivered as though pitching them for acquisition at a publisher. There was a wonderful variety to the choices of books to examine (including a few that I’d already read myself), and it was great to see everyone integrate the methods we’d discussed over the course of the semester.

This particular group of students is the same as in the Contemporary Publishing course I taught last semester (with the addition of one new student), and it was such a pleasure being able to facilitate some insightful and wide-ranging discussions with them for the last 13 weeks. Over the next few months, they’ll go on to write their Master’s theses (which NTU labels as dissertations, though I take some semantic exception to that), and I’ll be supervising six of them; however, for the rest, I won’t be seeing them again, which brought on some sadness after Tuesday night’s class.

I got very lucky during this academic year to be able to teach some wonderful courses (including Introduction to Creative Writing (HZ5101), which also wrapped up this week), and to feel like I was hitting my groove. I’m now in my ninth year of teaching (though that duration is not contiguous, and was broken up by a nearly 12-year career in publishing), and I’ve reaffirmed the conclusion that a university environment is where I’m at my happiest. I’ve already been offered two classes for the Fall 2026 semester (though I haven’t been given the official paperwork yet), and I look forward to the next batch of students in August.

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April 5, 2026 · 3:52 pm

Announcement: New Novel Coming Soon!

New novel coming soon from PRH SEA

The publication agreement has now been signed and countersigned, so I am very happy to announce that my new novel, Languishing Under Glass, is forthcoming from Penguin Random House (Southeast Asia)!

Leia Ooi’s husband died two years ago, and she’s raising their children on her own; in addition, her father is approaching eighty and her mother is literally now a two-toed sloth. She feels stuck in her life and ambitions, a victim of the sandwich generation. Then, on the cusp of Singapore’s ninetieth birthday, as a new and frightening epidemic threatens the country, a well-meaning acquaintance kidnaps Leia’s mother from her habitat, and mother and daughter must go on the run from the authorities. As Leia confronts her unresolved grief, a series of uncanny encounters makes her doubt her own sanity and whether she’ll ever be able to return to a normal life.

For fans of Bathing the Lion by Jonathan Carroll, The Butterfly Lampshade by Aimee Bender and The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien.

This is the book I worked on while spending the month of May 2023 as the International Writer-in-Residence in the Toji Cultural Foundation Residency Program, at the Toji Cultural Center in Wonju, South Korea. I ended up writing around half of the novel there, and the surrounding landscape both did wonders for unlocking my enthusiasm for the material and directly inspired some of the more surreal moments in the narrative. Without that experience, who knows when (or even if) this book would have been finished.

So keep your eyes peeled for Languishing Under Glass in either late 2026 or early 2027! More details to come!

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February 13, 2026 · 7:20 pm

The Current State of the Pride Shelf

JEL Pride Shelf

This shelf represents my writing career to date; it is mounted to one of the walls of my bedroom. During the low times, it helps to remind myself of this accomplishment. I wish I could send this photo back in time to my young self, who was desperate for publication and wanted nothing more than to publish a book in his lifetime. I’m now up to 30, and I haven’t stopped yet.

I’m not nearly the first person to declare that a writer’s most important quality is perseverance, but it’s something I’ve always believed. Things are in motion for the next chapter of my career; I can’t reveal anything yet, but do stay tuned.

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January 7, 2026 · 5:47 pm

A New Substack: Lots of Things

Last month, I quietly established a new Substack, called Lots of Things, and this week I launched it officially. The title comes from an in-joke between me and my very good friend Adan Jimenez (more info here), and has long stood in for a theoretical collection of microfiction that I planned to put together someday. I would still like collate it all into book form at some point, but in the meantime, those pieces still yearn to see the light of day.

The first series is called Twenty-five Flavours; the introduction explains the stories’ genesis and the overall food-based thematic delimitation. I’ve also posted the first piece in the series, “Nantaimori,” based on the theme of Sushi, with a new piece going live each week.

Right now, the Substack is all completely free to read; subscribing notifies you every time new stuff goes up, so be sure to do so to get timely updates. I appreciate the dozen folks who’ve already subscribed, so why not add yourself to that list? At some point I’ll institute a paid subscription for additional goodies, but that’s still a ways off.

In addition to the new Substack, I’ve also set up a Ko-Fi tip jar. If you’d like to do the equivalent of buying me a coffee, you can now do so, and I’d be very grateful for it.

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December 8, 2025 · 5:06 pm

NTU Classes in Spring 2026 Semester

As you may know, I’ve been lecturing since January 2024 at Nanyang Technological University in the recently-established Master of Arts in Creative Writing and Publishing programme. I have taught courses in Contemporary Publishing (HL6202) and Editorial Theory & Practice, Functions & Strategies (HL6214). In addition, at the start of this year, since the MACWP programme had to go on hiatus for a semester in order to properly align with NTU’s academic calendar, I taught a Graduate Seminar in Creative Writing – Voice (HL7204).

This coming semester starting next month, I’ll once again be teaching Editorial Theory & Practice, and look forward to tweaking my previous lesson plans for this new cohort of students. However, I’ve also been given Introduction to Creative Writing (HZ5101), which is an undergraduate course that is open to any student in the university!

As much as I love teaching postgraduate students, I’m very excited about this course, as it’ll likely be the first proper exposure these students will get to really digging into the process of creating prose, poetry and multimedia projects. And because they will be coming from lots of different disciplines, they’re likely to bring perspectives and ways of thinking that can open up discussion and take it in some interesting directions.

The last time I taught undergraduates was back in 2007 at Singapore Management University, with two sections of Academic Writing. I appreciate the energy and drive of these young people, and am really looking forward to engaging them and challenging their notions of what creative writing can entail.

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November 20, 2025 · 4:13 pm

SWF Weekend #2 Recap with Pictures

After the hectic pace of the previous weekend at the Singapore Writers Festival, Anya and I took it a bit more easy for the second weekend. I noted down a number of panels I wanted to attend, but then didn’t feel bad if we skipped some to get more downtime. It made things a lot more pleasant, and didn’t leave me feeling so harried by the end of each day.

That said, this is another long recap, folks.

THURSDAY

Before the weekend’s events, however, I was able to join a casual dinner organised by Ng Yi-Sheng for the Singapore SFF Writers group on Telegram, in order to meet RF Kuang, who was one of the superstars at SWF this year. She’d mentioned to him upon meeting that she’d like to meet some local speculative fiction writers, so he put together a reservation at Greendot Vegetarian at One Raffles Place. It took me some time to find the restaurant, because the shopping mall is sort of integrated into the two adjacent office towers, and by the time I arrived, the other 15 folks were already settled and chatting.

We did go around the table introducing ourselves, but the only folks I knew were my existing friends there: Victor Fernando R. Ocampo, Natalie Wang, Cheng Him and Yish himself. (And Yish was kind enough to mention my impact on SF writing in Singapore, when I was more shy with my CV.) I mentioned to Rebecca that I’d brought a copy of Fish Eats Lion Redux for her (since I figured she might like to read some local speculative fiction), but that I’d give it to her when the table wasn’t covered by food dishes.

I didn’t get to talk to her a whole lot, as I was all the way on the other end of the long table from her, but I did still feel like I was involved in the conversation. She asked lots of questions about Singaporean culture and the writing scene, as well as how I personally felt in a society where whiteness is a minority and if it rested within any kind of racial hierarchy here. We chatted a bit when she was ready to leave, and she appeared excited to continue exploring Singapore with her mother in the couple of remaining days she had before flying home.

It’s remarkable to me (and only slightly annoying) just how much she has accomplished both academically and professionally before the age of 30; she was also very pleasant company, and seemed genuinely curious about the people seated at the table.

Two American SF writers in Singapore: RF Kuang and yours truly

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November 12, 2025 · 12:12 pm

HL6202 Final Class of 2025

Last night was the final class of the semester for my Contemporary Publishing course in the MACWP programme at NTU. The students all did their project presentations on a variety of subjects related to publishing in Singapore, China, Korea, Japan and the US. Afterwards, they asked if we could get a class photo, et voila.

I have to say, I genuinely enjoyed teaching this particular group of students, and looked forward each Tuesday night to making the trek from one end of Singapore to the other to be there. They seemed to really enjoy each other’s company, and that translated into some really interesting discussions. I’ll be teaching a course on Editorial Theory and Practice in the Spring, and I hope some of them will sign up for it.

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November 10, 2025 · 10:00 pm

SWF Weekend #1 Recap with Pictures

Every year, I look forward to the 10 days in November that will mark the next Singapore Writers Festival. It sometimes feels like the literature scene here is in its own bubble, and that the general public is either unaware or ambivalent towards it, but SWF always reminds me that books, reading and literature do have a wide reach, and there are plenty of people who will queue up to see their favourite authors.

Fair warning, this is a very long recap, around 2,500 words.

FRIDAY

Opening Night ceremony at Victoria Theatre

Things kicked off on Friday night with the Opening Night ceremony at Victoria Theatre. This was an invitation-only event, and I was thankfully given a plus-one for Anya to come with me (which hasn’t always happened in the past). In the theatre atrium before things started, I found Dean Francis Alfar, one of my closest and dearest friends, my spiritual brother-from-another-mother, whom I hadn’t seen in far too long. Big hugs ensued, and Dean insisted on a selfie before we headed into the theatre itself.

Brothers-in-arms (literally!), reunited at last: Dean Francis Alfar and yours truly (photo by Dean)

Festival Director Yong Shu Hoong gave the introductory speech, followed by an address by David Neo (Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, and Senior Minister of State for Education) that at one point called out Felicia Low-Jimenez and Claire Low’s graphic novel Tiger Girls (which began its life as a prose short story I published in Fish Eats Lion Redux). This was followed by a great performance by neo-ethnic fusion band Mantravine and dancer Shantha Ratii.

There was a reception afterwards in the atrium, and I ran into some good writer friends, including Ken Liu, who is one of the big names at this year’s festival and will be sticking around for a while in Singapore as the current Visiting Writer at the Asia Creative Writing Programme. Unfortunately, even though I saw a number of servers carrying trays with empty wine glasses and rubbish, it was unclear where to get any food (or whether there was even any left).

So Anya and I departed for Funan Mall; on the way out the door, I said a quick high to Daryl Qilin Yam (who was fanboying hard over Meihan Boey’s The Mystical Mister Kay, which I edited) and Melizarani T. Selva (who looked phenomenal in a gorgeous sari). At the mall, we got some Sushi Express; when we were done, we met up with Felicia and Adan and some other folks from Difference Engine at the nearby food court, then grabbed a taxi home not long after.

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November 10, 2025 · 9:30 am

BNSSSv7 Debuts as a Bestseller!

The Straits Times Weekly Bestsellers Nov 8

To my surprise and delight, Best New Singaporean Short Stories: Volume Seven has debuted at #4 on The Straits Times bestseller list for 8 November 2025! And I’m pretty sure that this is the first volume to even make the list at all!

I presume that the Singapore Writers Festival launch a week ago was a big factor in this, since there were only a handful of preorders, so I want to thank everyone who showed up to support us, including Festival Director Yong Shu Hoong, BNSSSv6 Guest Editor Gwee Li Sui, and a big chunk of students from my Contemporary Publishing course in the MACWP programme at NTU. It does my heart good to realise that Singaporean readers are still appreciating short fiction.

Plus, it’s exciting to consider that this series is now both bestselling and award-winning, which is a big accomplishment for the editors and contributors, and a testament to the high quality of fiction being produced in Singapore. Yays all around!

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November 2, 2025 · 4:36 pm

BNSSSv7 Launch in Pictures

We had a fantastic crowd yesterday afternoon at the Central Public Library for the launch of Best New Singaporean Short Stories: Volume Seven. It’s always tricky predicting the attendance for such events, even when they’re free, but we filled the room!

L to R: Carissa Foo, Dylan Kwok, Nuraliah Norasid, Jason Erik Lundberg, Sarah Ang, Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray (photo by Juliette)

(photo by Anya)

(photo by Gwee Li Sui)

The editors and all contributors of BNSSSv7 in attendance. L to R: Ada Lim, Fathiah Jamal, Dylan Kwok, Akash Mattupalli, Carissa Foo, Nuraliah Norasid, Jason Erik Lundberg, Sarah Ang, Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray, Amanda Ruiqing Flynn, Adan Jimenez (photo by Anya)

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October 23, 2025 · 10:56 pm

BNSSSv7 Book Launch at SWF

On the first of November in the pre-Singapore Writers Festival weekend, we will be launching Best New Singaporean Short Stories: Volume Seven at the Central Public Library!

This is the latest in Singapore’s flagship short fiction anthology series, and gathers the most exciting works published in 2023 and 2024, offering a snapshot of the country’s literary landscape. This particular volume features familiar and new voices, including Agnes Chew, Clara Chow, Carissa Foo, Ng Yi-Sheng, Prasanthi Ram and Daryl Qilin Yam.

The event will be moderated by guest editor Nuraliah Norasid, winner of the Epigram Books Fiction Prize and Singapore Book Award for Best Fiction Title, and is completely free to attend with registration at the link above.

Celebrate the launch, meet the editors and four of the book’s contributors, and discover why the short story remains a vital literary form. This book launch is part of SWF 2025 and is co-presented with the National Library Board.

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September 24, 2025 · 4:42 pm

My Events for SWF 2025

For the 15th year in a row, I have been invited to be part of the Singapore Writers Festival. They had their Media Briefing last night at The Arts House to kick things off and announce some of their big draws for this year’s festival. (I was actually planning to attend at least the beginning of it, then duck out to head to NTU to teach my Contemporary Publishing class, but an eye infection kept me home, and also meant I had to conduct the class over Zoom.) Their website is more complete at this point, but we’re still six weeks out, so some things are likely to change.

I’ll be moderating two events and participating in the launch of Best New Singaporean Short Stories: Volume Seven. Details are below, and I hope to see some of y’all there.

Book Launch: Best New Singaporean Short Stories: Volume Seven
1 Nov, 2:00–3:00pm
with Nuraliah Norasid (mod), Carissa Foo, Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray, Sarah Ang & Dylan Kwok
Central Public Library, Programme Room 2

Join us on the pre-SWF weekend for the launch of the latest in Singapore’s flagship short fiction anthology series. This volume gathers the most exciting works published in 2023 and 2024, offering a snapshot of the country’s literary landscape. Guest-edited by Nuraliah Norasid, winner of the Epigram Books Fiction Prize and Best Fiction Title at the Singapore Book Awards, alongside series editor Jason Erik Lundberg, the collection features familiar and new voices, including Agnes Chew, Clara Chow, Carissa Foo, Ng Yi-Sheng, Prasanthi Ram and Daryl Qilin Yam.

Celebrate the launch, meet the editors, and discover why the short story remains a vital literary form. This book launch is part of SWF 2025 and is co-presented with the National Library Board.

Panel: Between Real and Imagined: The World-Builder’s Dilemma (moderator)
8 Nov, 3:00–4:00pm
with Ben Oliver, Ellie Marney & Dean Francis Alfar
Victoria Theatre

Balancing realism and invention is no easy feat in any literary genre. Writers straddle a very thin line—keeping readers immersed in their fictional worlds while still injecting verity into their writing. Creating detailed and intricate worlds are key in making fiction truly come alive for the reader. Listen to these authors discuss the critical importance of world-building in their writing.

Panel: The Writer Abroad (moderator)
9 Nov, 1:00–2:00pm
with Christopher Boyd, Daryl Li & Azhagunila
Asian Civilisations Museum, Discovery Room

Overseas writing residencies promise escape and inspiration in idyllic foreign settings. But what is the reality beyond the romantic ideal? This panel brings together writers to share the highs and lows—from navigating cultural shifts, to maximising creative productivity in a limited timeframe. Discover how stepping out of one’s comfort zone can profoundly reshape a writer’s perspective and practice.

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September 15, 2025 · 1:37 pm

Undertale at 10: But Nobody Came (A Tribute)

Today marks the tenth anniversary of Undertale, the retro 16-bit indie RPG by Toby Fox that became a massive cult hit. My daughter Anya discovered the game via playthroughs on YouTube in 2023, then went down the deep chasm of the game’s lore and enthused about it to me for months before I decided to buy the digital version for Nintendo Switch. She knew all the secrets and Easter eggs by that point, but was purposeful about not revealing anything while watching me play, letting me experience the incredible highs and lows of the story for the first time.

Undertale Memory

She had been interested in video games at that point for sure, but mostly ones that I found out about and bought first. Undertale was the first game that was hers, and her enthusiasm for it not only brought me to it as well, but turned gaming into something that was a special bond between the two of us. A big part of this is in the architecture of the game itself: there are many “monster” battles throughout, but your choice of whether to spare or kill them forces the narrative to diverge into wildly different paths. There’s a similar mechanic in Mass Effect, but there are certain characters in Undertale who know they are in a video game, which drastically changes the dynamic.

One of these characters is Flowey the Flower.

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September 13, 2025 · 11:51 pm

BNSSSv7 Now Available for Preorder

The editorial, design and typesetting processes are now finished for Best New Singaporean Short Stories: Volume Seven, and the book has been sent to the printers, to be stocked in bookshops a little over a month from now.

As such, the book is now available for preorder directly from the publisher, and at a 10% discount. The discount only applies before the book is released in late October, so be sure to take advantage of it while you can.

A launch is planned around a week before the start of the Singapore Writers Festival, but I think things are still getting locked down at the moment; more details when I get them. In the meantime, check out the Table of Contents to whet your appetite. Also, The Straits Times recommends BNSSSv7 as one of five upcoming SingLit books on which to use your SG Culture Pass.

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August 6, 2025 · 6:15 pm

Some Good News, Some Bad

Things have been very eventful lately in both my personal and professional life, and though I won’t get into all of that, I do have a couple of pieces of news. One good, one not.

1. After 20 years and change, I have finally paid off my student loans for my Master’s degree at NCSU! In 2003, I was ineligible for a teaching assistantship—which would have paid the entirety of my tuition, as well as a stipend in exchange for teaching some lower-level English classes—because my undergraduate GPA was a 2.97 (and the threshold for qualification was a 3.0).

Those three-hundredths of a point, the result of failing a differential equations class that I should have dropped instead of trying to power through it, meant that I had to take out loans for the two years of my postgraduate degree. I graduated with my MA in May 2005, and just today made my final payment on those loans; it’s a pretty fucked-up system, but I knew what I was getting into when I signed up, and now it’s over. It’s a massive relief to get that off my shoulders.

2. Unfortunately, as a counterpoint, on Monday I was informed that a writing workshop I had been offered three months ago by NTU has now been cancelled. Apparently, a handful of students who had been accepted to the self-funding MA programme in which I teach part-time dropped out at the last minute, and that means the enrolment is now not high enough to offer this particular workshop. I don’t blame the department or the university for this, because it was unlikely the students would be willing to forfeit their tuition deposits, but it still sucks that there are no safeguards in place for this type of eventuality.

I will still be lecturing on Contemporary Publishing this semester, but the second class, the income from which I was counting on, will not happen. This comes at a particularly bad time, and at very late notice (the semester starts less than a week from now!): even though I no longer have to pay student loans, I still have debts to pay down, as well as orthodontic work for my daughter.

So this is a good time to remind you that I have a profile on Reedsy and LinkedIn, and will be unexpectedly available for structural editing freelance work on all kinds of manuscripts. Please also buy my books!

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June 22, 2025 · 11:25 pm

BBCC2 is a national bestseller…again!

Back at the end of March, I was shocked to find out that Bo Bo and Cha Cha’s Big Day Out had made the national bestseller list for children’s books, twelve years after the book was first published.

Now, it’s apparently happened again, three months later! I just got a Google Alert, and it made the same bestseller list for this week! I’m very glad that it’s still selling so well all these years later, without any promotion on my or the publisher’s part. (I’m also glad to see this time that Patrick Yee has been credited as the illustrator; he was an essential collaborator on the whole series.) Thank you to all the new readers out there who’ve wanted to explore Singapore along with my two pandas; you’ve really put a smile on my face when I needed one. 😊

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June 19, 2025 · 5:34 pm

Announcing the Contents for BNSSSv7!

The contracts have all been signed, so I can now officially announce the contents for Best New Singaporean Short Stories: Volume Seven, guest edited by Nuraliah Norasid, and forthcoming from Epigram Books in October.

Oceans Away from My Homeland | Agnes Chew
The Restoration | Diana Rahim
Kiaoah | Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray
J—, or a Story After a Story by Haruki Murakami | Daryl Qilin Yam
The Fragrant Sky | Ng Yi-Sheng
We Don’t Sleep At Night | Choo Yi Feng
Pearl Diving | Sarah Ang
The Wood Cutter | Nicholas Yong
Mandarins for the Year | Tong Nuan, trans. Aaric Tan Xiang Yeow
Wordlessly | Amanda Ruiqing Flynn
The Perfect Shot | Prasanthi Ram
Dumpster | Clara Chow
C751B | Dylan Kwok
The Hidden Bar of Tanjong Pagar | Akash Mattupalli
The Last Singaporean Girls | Wen-Yi Lee
Blind Date | Adan Jimenez
A Serious Case of Egg Shortage | Elaine Chiew
The Woman Upstairs | Audrey Tan
Muezzin Rahman | Jamal Ismail, trans. Fathiah Jamal
Paper House | Ada Lim
A HDB of One’s Own | Natalie Wang
Things We Lost in the Fire | Carissa Foo

Nuraliah has done a wonderful job selecting the stories for the anthology (originally published in 2023 and 2024), and I’m excited for you all to read them later this year!

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June 15, 2025 · 5:37 pm

NLB Events – Photo Dump

Many thanks to the folks who came out to the Central Public Library in May and June to attend the events related to A Fickle and Restless Weapon. They were a lot of fun, and I have to give much appreciation to Koh Cui Shan at NLB for organising both sessions, and taking in my input to narrow down the topics and approaches (and also for moderating the second event).

(Photo by Koh Cui Shan)

“Reimagining Home: A Night of Music & Fantasy” was a wonderful discussion with Meihan Boey (left), who did a great job digging into the visual and aural (specifically Nine Inch Nails) influences on the book, and for making the novel sound interesting to an audience that hadn’t read it. The crowd was pretty sparse for this one (since the topic was more specific, and it was on a weekday evening), but it was cosy, and I always have a good time talking with Meihan. Plus, I got to read an extract from the novel with the NIN song “Home” as my backing track.

(Photo by Anya Sophia Lundberg)

“Paper Worlds: Maps in Fiction and History” was far better attended, and was terrifically interesting; I learned a ton about the history of maps of Singapore, going back hundreds of years. (And yes, I’m wearing the same shirt.) The panel for this one was (left to right): me, Nuraliah Norasid, Mok Ly Yng and Cui Shan.

(Photo by Anya Sophia Lundberg)

We started off talking about how both Nuraliah and I constructed our fictional maps for The Gatekeeper and A Fickle and Restless Weapon, respectively. I even brought my original hand-drawn map contained in the Moleskine notebook I used for all the worldbuilding research I did for Tinhau (although the final map inserted in the novel is nearly an exact match to it). Mok had not read either book (purposefully), and shared how, in geographical terms, Manticura reminded him of Roanoke Island (near the Outer Banks of North Carolina) and Tinhau reminded him of Réunion (a small island in the Indian Ocean).

(Photo by me)

(Photo by Koh Cui Shan)

Look at that crowd! We pretty much packed the room, and several people came up afterward to ask questions that we weren’t able to get to during the Q&A. I was happy to see so many people interested in what we all had to say for 90 minutes, and to choose that over the many other things that they might have done instead.

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May 30, 2025 · 6:53 pm

NLB Event in mid-June: Paper Worlds

As mentioned in the previous entry, Koh Cui Shan at the National Library has worked with me to put together a couple of events around my first novel, A Fickle and Restless Weapon. The first of these events, “Reimagining Home: A Night of Music & Fantasy,” was two nights ago, and went very well. Meihan Boey was a fantastic moderator, and I had a lot of fun talking about the various visual and sonic influences on the novel.

The second event, “Paper Worlds: Maps in Fiction and History,” will be held two weeks from now, and I’ll be joined by award-winning novelist Nuraliah Norasid, as well as map consultant and expert Mok Ly Yng. He’ll attempt to decode the fictional maps of alternate Singapores from both A Fickle and Restless Weapon and Nuraliah’s novel The Gatekeeper (which I edited), without any context or prior knowledge of the books themselves, which should be a fun exercise. Along the way, we’ll also find out how Singapore’s landmass has changed throughout history, shaped by similarly identifiable forces of political power and social hierarchies, while delving into the intricate art of world-building through geography.

And just like the first event, you can register for free!

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May 18, 2025 · 5:07 pm

NLB Event in late May: Reimagining Home

Earlier this year, I was contacted by Koh Cui Shan at the National Library about putting together a couple of events around my first novel, A Fickle and Restless Weapon. I was very flattered, especially since the book is five years old at this point and didn’t make much of a commercial impact when it was released (despite quite a bit of critical acclaim).

The first of these events, “Reimagining Home: A Night of Music & Fantasy,” is happening in just ten days at the Central Public Library, and will be moderated by the always-awesome Meihan Boey! [The event has been highlighted in NLB’s Library Literary Highlights newsletter for May 2025, and A Fickle and Restless Weapon itself was listed among the Librarian’s Picks for this month, along with The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr and Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro!]

Meihan and I will talk about influences that fed into the book’s worldbuilding and my headcasting of the main characters, and I’ll also be doing a dramatic reading backed by the Nine Inch Nails deep cut “Home.” It promises to be a really fun conversation.

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April 4, 2025 · 10:37 am

ACWP Panel on the State of Editing (Updated with Photos)

As mentioned previously, I’ve been a Visiting Writer at the Asia Creative Writing Workshop for March–April 2025. Last Saturday, we finished up the Self-Editing Intensive for Fiction Writers with a great group of people; this week, I’ve begun the Writer-to-Writer mentoring sessions over Zoom, and have already talked to some folks doing very interesting work.

To cap off this sort-of residency later in the month, I’ve worked with the awesome people at ACWP to put together an in-person panel discussion on the current state of book editing, called “You Think You Know: Edit and Send.” For around 15 years, I have made it my mission to hype up the importance of literary editing within local publishing; this kicked into high gear when I became the fiction editor at Epigram Books in 2012 (and still continues in my current life as a freelancer). And I’m fairly confident that many of the writers I’ve worked with in all those years came to understand the benefits of my editorial collaborations.

And so, on the 24th of April at lyf Funan, I will be joined by Mok Zining (Ethos Books) and Aditi Shivaramakrishnan (Difference Engine) to talk about the challenges and opportunities faced by editors, and how the craft is adapting to the needs of modern readers. This interlocution will be led by the always awesome Daryl Qilin Yam (Afterimage Press) as moderator (though hopefully he’ll also contribute to the discussion).

The event is completely for free with registration. Hope to see some of y’all there!

Update: the event went really well, and was far better-attended than I expected; around 70 people registered for it, and somewhere between 40 and 50 actually showed up, which was pleasantly surprising for a discussion about literary editing. In both photos below (pinched from Difference Engine’s Instagram stories.), l to r: Mok Zining, yours truly, Aditi Shivaramakrishnan, and Daryl Qilin Yam (moderator).