Writers festivals are a great way to promote literature and writing by bringing together writers and the public through a series of literary events. The Singapore Writers Festival is such an event that has been taking place since 1986 when it was known as Singapore Writers Week. It is now an annual event held under the aegis of the National Arts Council promoting new Singaporean and Asian writers in the country’s three official languages of English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, a rare multi-lingual literary event with a diversity of themes and topics. The event also puts Singaporean book-lovers in touch with new and established international writers for a truly global perspective.
The 2013 event is scheduled to take place over 10 days in November and event activities will include book and poetry readings, book reviews and one-on-one discussions with authors, workshops, publishing symposia, literary cocktails, and meals and book launches. Budding writers will have the opportunity to hone their skills and for booklovers to rub shoulders with their idols. Festival events will take place at various city locations such as The Arts House, the National Museum of Singapore and the National Library, while some main events will be held at the Singapore Management University’s campus green. Between events, both attendees and authors can enjoy the many attractions of the city.
Since the festival’s introduction as a part of the Singapore Festival of Arts, the event has undergone changes making it the prominent literary exhibition of today that attracted an audience of 50,000 people at the last count. In keeping with its constant upgrading and improvement, the festival’s first fringe events were introduced in 2012 based on the provocative topic “Origins of Desire”. A “Ream to Reel” film series was showcased to further illustrate the topic. Another new feature was the “country focus” which was the Middle East. Five writers were invited to discuss how ongoing events there influenced their writing.
Adding interest to the festival is the hotly contested Golden Point Award given to unpublished authors of poetry and short stories who are selected on the merits of their offerings. This is an opportunity for almost anyone to be recognised as a writer.
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Angela Fernando is an impassioned travel writer who composes pieces under the pen name Sumaira Narayan. She loves writing about new and exciting places around the world and hopes to visit them all someday.