It doesn’t get any easier, even for veteran writers. And poet Felix Cheong knows all about it.

His second play, The Inconvenience of Minor Parts, was recently denied a creation grant by the National Arts Council to adapt it into an opera in collaboration with a composer and an opera singer. The Singapore Writers Festival had also declined to have the play staged as one of its events.

Rejections do hurt, especially for projects a writer believes in. Just as the three characters in this satirical dramatic monologue are hurt by societal rejections: A top student who moonlights as a webcam girl; a secretary who hits the glass ceiling, and an ageing TV actress who no longer gets any plum roles.

Come and listen to the first public reading of The Inconvenience of Minor Parts by actress Jolene Wong.

Bio
Felix Cheong is the author of 15 books across different genres, from poetry to fiction, from non-fiction to children’s picture books. In 2000, he was conferred the Young Artist of the Year Award. He holds a masters in creative writing and is currently an adjunct lecturer at Murdoch University, University of Newcastle and the National University of Singapore.

Jolene Wong is a graduate from LASALLE College of the Arts  who won Best Actor in the Crash Test Theatre Competition for the Lit Up Asia-Pacific Festival in 2018. Her credits include Here and Beyond, The Skriker and more recently, The Jugular Vein. She teaches acting at the Haque Centre of Acting & Creativity.