Zaw Lin Htoo, Xu Pei Min, Michelle Chan, and Margaret Devadason once walked into a Creative Writing Workshop at Nanyang Technological University. They walked out with this piece.
Valen Lim is a member of Singaporean writing collective /stop@BadEndRhymes (“/s@BER”). His work has been published in Eunoia Review, Mistake House, QLRS, and elsewhere. More of his writing can be found at uglystage.com.
Margaret Devadason is a Singaporean poet, currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Linguistics and English at Nanyang Technological University. The winner of the 2019 Hawker Prize and the poetry category of the 2018 NTU Creative Writing Competition, Margaret’s work has appeared in anthologies including SG Poems 2017-2018 and Anima Methodi.
Anurak Saelaow is a Singaporean poet and writer. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Hayden's Ferry Review, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Cultural Weekly, The Kindling, Ceriph, and elsewhere. He is the author of one chapbook, Schema (The Operating System, 2015), and holds a BA in creative writing and English from Columbia University.
Joses Ho is a research fellow at the Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology, Singapore. He obtained a DPhil at Oxford University in neuroscience and genetics. His current work involves analyses of multi-modal datasets obtained from behavioural experiments, as well as developing visualization and analysis tools for estimation statistics. His poetry has appeared in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, LONTAR, and various anthologies (such as the SingPoWriMo annuals). His fiction has been published in Nature Futures 2 and in LabLit. His poetry manuscript Moving Downwards In A Straight Line was a finalist for the 2019 edition of Manuscript Bootcamp. www.josesho.com
Boedi Widjaja (b. 1975, Solo City, Indonesia) lives and works in Singapore. The experiences of displacement, isolation, travel, and bridging multiple cultures have defined much of his practice. Due to ethnic tensions, the artist was sent to Singapore as a young boy, where he lived apart from his family. His works often refer obliquely to this autobiographical history or to the feelings of anxiety and estrangement. Widjaja trained as an architect and also has a background in graphic design; the techniques, materials and tools of drawing have subsequently become a defining element of his artistic practice. This is expressed through a broad range of media, from photography and text to architectural installations and ‘live art’, with an emphasis on process and bodily engagement. The artist has shown in numerous exhibitions internationally, including: Singapore Biennale (2019) (upcoming); 9th Asia Pacific Triennial (2018-19); MAP1: Waterways (2017), Diaspora Pavilion, 57th Venice Biennale; Jerusalem Biennale (2017); Yinchuan Biennale (2016), China; From East to the Barbican (2015), Barbican, London; Infinity in flux (2015), ArtJog, Indonesia; and Bains Numériques #7 (2012), Enghien-les-Bains, France. His solo exhibitions include: Declaration of (2019), Helwaser Gallery, New York (upcoming); Rivers and lakes, Tanah dan air (2018), ShanghART Singapore; Black—Hut (2016), Singapore Biennale Affiliate Project, ICA Singapore; Path. 6, Unpacking my Library 。书城(2014), Esplanade, Singapore; and Sungai, Sejarah 河流, 历史, 源 (2012), YRAC S-Base, Singapore.
John J. Trause, the director of Oradell Public Library, is the author of Why Sing? (Sensitive Skin Press, 2017), a book of traditional and experimental poems; Picture This: For Your Eyes and Ears (Dos Madres Press, 2016), a book of poems on art, film, and photography; Exercises in High Treason (great weather for MEDIA, 2016), a book of fictive translations, found poems, and manipulated texts; Eye Candy for Andy (13 Most Beautiful… Poems for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests, Finishing Line Press, 2013); Inside Out, Upside Down, and Round and Round (Nirala Publications, 2012); Seriously Serial (Poets Wear Prada, 2007; rev. ed. 2014); and Latter-Day Litany (Éditions élastiques, 1996), the latter staged Off Broadway. His translations, poetry, and visual work appear internationally in many journals and anthologies, including The Antioch Review, the artists' periodical Crossings, the Dada journal Maintenant, the journal Offerta Speciale, the Great Weather for Media anthologies It’s Animal but Merciful (2012) and I Let Go of the Stars in My Hand (2014), and Rabbit Ears : TV Poems (NYQ Books, 2015). Marymark Press has published his visual poetry and art as broadsides and sheets. He is the subject of a 30-on-30-in-30 essay on The Operating System, written by Don Zirilli, and an author of an essay on Baroness Elsa at the same site, both in April 2016. He has shared the stage with Steven Van Zandt, Anne Waldman, Karen Finley, Andrei Codrescu, and Jerome Rothenberg; the page with Billy Collins, Lita Hornick, William Carlos Williams, Woody Allen, Ted Kooser, Victor Buono, and Pope John Paul II; and the cage with the Cumaean Sibyl, Ezra Pound, Hannibal Lector, Andrei Chikatilo, and George “The Animal” Steele. He is a founder of the William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative in Rutherford, N. J., and the former host and curator of its monthly reading series. He is fond of cunning acrostics and color-coded chiasmus.
Toh Hsien Min has four books of poetry, most recently the bilingual French-English Dans quel sens tombent les feuilles (Paris, 2016).
Shawn Hoo is a fourth-year Literature major who has published in several local poetry anthologies including A Luxury We Cannot Afford, A Luxury We Must Afford, and This Is Not A Safety Barrier.
Nicholas Wong is the author of Crevasse (Kaya Press, 2015), the winner of Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry. He is also the recipient of Australian Book Review’s Peter Porter Poetry Prize in 2018. Wong has contributed writing to the radio composition project “One of the Two Stories, Or Both” at Manchester International Festival 2017, and the catalogue of the exhibition “One Hand Clapping” at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. He teaches at the Education University of Hong Kong. IG: @citiesofsameness
