ABOUT THE 2023 RESIDENCY
Horizons brings together accomplished writers across nationalities, backgrounds and genres to step outside of their everyday contexts and build connections via a residency programme built around free-flowing conversations and mutual sharing of craft.
The programme consists of a 4-day residency, featuring three Singaporean and three Asia-Pacific writers, facilitated by poet and academic Ann Ang and novelist and arts organiser Daryl Qilin Yam. Our conversations will centre on current practices, present aesthetic priorities and works-in-progress, with an eye towards fostering literary interconnections and broadening our ideas of community. We also have planned a special tour of the National Gallery Singapore with curator and academic Roger Nelson for our writers-in-residence.
The original WrICE concept and program was founded and devised by writers and RMIT Professors Francesca Rendle-Short and David Carlin. The residency draws on the lessons learnt from a partnership between SLS and Australia’s RMIT University’s non/fictionLab to coorganise WrICE residencies between 2020 and 2022. As part of our partnership with the Singapore Writers Festival, Horizons will also take place between the two festival weekends (16-19 Nov and 23-26 Nov respectively), and will end with an in-festival presentation / reading on the evening of 23 Nov, featuring our six participants and hosted by our two Horizons facilitators.
ABOUT OUR 2023 FACILITATORS
As a writer, Ann Ang is best known for Bang My Car (2012), a Singlish-English collection of short stories and her first collection of poetry, Burning Walls for Paper Spirits (2021). Ann is also an editor of literary anthologies, including Food Republic (2020) and Here was Once the Sea: An Anthology of Southeast Asian Eco-Writing (2023), and is one of the founding editors of the Journal of Practice, Research & Tangential Activities (PR&TA), a journal of creative praxis in Southeast Asia.
Daryl Qilin Yam (b. 1991) is a writer, editor and arts organiser from Singapore. He is the author of the novella Shantih Shantih Shantih (2021), shortlisted for the 2022 Singapore Literature Prize, and the novel Lovelier, Lonelier (2021), the Singapore nominee for the 2023 International Dublin Literary Award. He co-founded the literary charity Sing Lit Station.
ABOUT OUR 2023 WRITERS-IN-RESIDENCE
Andrew Cox is a proud Filipino/Australian who lives and works on Ngunnawal & Ngambri country, and current creative producer of the Canberra Poetry Slam. His work crosses boundaries, performing in high schools as well as major Australian-wide competitions, to spoken word theatre productions. Andrew's work has been shortlisted for national writing prizes, notably for Innovation in Spoken Word and his writing published in multiple anthologies, recognised as an emerging voice in Australian poetry.
Akshita Nanda is a journalist, analyst and author of the novels Beauty Queens of Bishan (Penguin Random House SEA) and Nimita’s Place (Epigram Books). Nimita’s Place was adapted for the stage in 2019 by arts group T:>Works and in 2020 co-won the Singapore Literature Prize for English fiction. In 2022, Akshita was a virtual resident at the National Centre for Writing, UK, supported by the National Arts Council, Singapore. She is interested in the oceans, migration and future thinking.
Jesse Q. Sutanto is the author of Dial A For Aunties, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, The Obsession, and many other books across various genres. Dial A For Aunties has been picked up by Netflix and Vera Wong’s TV rights were bought by Warner Bros, with Oprah and Mindy Kaling set to produce.
Meihan Boey is the author of The Formidable Miss Cassidy (Epigram Books Fiction Prize co-winner 2021, Singapore Book Awards Best Literary Work 2022), its upcoming sequel The Enigmatic Madam Ingram (shortlisted for EBFP 2023), and The Messiah Virus (2019). Her short stories have appeared in anthologies Fish Eats Lion Redux and Fright. She recently completed a writing residency in the National Centre for Writing in Norwich. She is Vice President of the Association of Comic Artists of Singapore.
Toni Masdiono was born in 1961, and started working as an artist since 1978 as a cartoonist and illustrator for some publications. After college, he also worked in some artsy fields eg. advertising, garment and apparel, publishing, printing, also lecturer and art trainer. Since 2019, he fully works as an artist. He published his own how-to books since 1998. His first graphic novel published in 2019 was a silent comic titled Karimata 1890, followed by Gurniti (2020).
Yong Shu Hoong has authored seven poetry collections, including Frottage (2005) and The Viewing Party (2013), which both won the Singapore Literature Prize, and the latest, Anatomy of a Wave (2022). He currently teaches at Nanyang Technological University and other institutions in Singapore. He is a co-author of collaborative works, The Adopted: Stories from Angkor (2015), Lost Bodies: Poems Between Portugal and Home (2016) and Lilla Torg: A Scandinavian Journey (2023).