Singapore Writers Organization

Hello writers

It's been a long time .. I hope you've all been keeping well, and writing well too 🤓 tell me, did you write much more during the pandemic than usual? Or was it the reverse?

I was way too distracted—being a new homeowner in what was, what I call, 'no man's land', amid the pandemic—simply with meeting basic needs like getting groceries and the menu for each day's dinner. Instead of writing, I was always looking at new recipes to cook and bake with! (Yes, I was a total novice in the kitchen—and not a fan of delivered food!)

As I'm writing, the part-time job that sustained me for the past few years is ending this month-end: a consequence of the dual blow of Covid and the Russian-Ukraine war to the global economy.

I wrote a story about what transpired while I commuted daily to my office in the pre-Covid days while I was still living with my parents—improbable, mysterious, and bittersweet, perhaps? 🤔.

Here it is, I hope you like it. And if you do, please share 😊

Postcards to the Cutie Captain of #198 — Annectar's Room Three years ago, this day .. I waved my last goodbye to my favourite bus captain, whom I called Cutie, also the most beautiful boy I've ever met. Postcards to the Cutie Captain

Dear Writers

Happy New Year!! Here's to a stronger, richer, more resilient us after riding the rough tides of 2020 🙂

Let's start 2021 with gratitude, confronting our new realities fearlessly and with a responsibility to awe.

Have a beautiful weekend and enjoy the read!

Antidotes to Fear of Death: Astrophysicist Janna Levin Reads Astronomer and Poet Rebecca Elson’s Stunning Cosmic Salve for Our Creaturely Tremblings of Heart “We are all navigating an external world — but only through the prism of our own minds, our own subjective experience… The majesty of the universe is only ever conjured up in the mind.”…

Dear writers, it's three more weeks to the end of the 'circuit breaker' (hopefully)! How have you been coping with this enforced isolation? Has it made you double-down on your writing work? Is this the time to write stories to heal ourselves and all the world around us? I suppose there couldn't be a better time ...

I hope this starts you on a good week ahead, share with us in the comments how you have been coping and if you have words to inspire and encourage the rest of us 🤓

Is Storytelling Therapy? The fine line between narrative and therapy

Dear writers, I hope you're all safe and well (and writing?) during these difficult times.

Here's something for your lovely minds to ponder over and enjoy, to take a break from the endless cycle of bad news all around.
Keep reading, writing and being healthy ...

25 Writers On The Books That Inspired Them To Write - NYLON - Pocket “I remember… thinking, man, writing a story like this has to be the best job in the world.”

Dear writers, it's a new beginning and the start of another decade, 2020! What dreams have you got this year? Would it be to write full-time? Publish your first book or second and third one? Whatever it may be, remember the power of your words.

" Thank you for shaping the future. For growing into it one day at a time. We need your contribution. We need yours as much as mine. It’s something we build as much as we find, to do either takes a present mind. "

So I'm wishing you a glorious new year of bold ambitions, quiet days and furious writing 🤓🤓

Thank You For Being You You know what I miss? Unconditional gratitude.

Dear writers, it's been some time since the last post (I know!), and I hope you enjoyed the recent Writers' Festival!

If you love the dark, just like I do, you would enjoy this scientific-romantic read ... have a great mid-week! 🤓

"The connection with the stars is inside all of us, but it has been sequestered away ... The stars are still out there, they’re just waiting for us to pay attention again.”

Falling in Love With the Dark - Earth on Nautilus If you see a car along that road,” Tyler Nordgren warned me, “don’t look at the headlights. It’ll ruin your night vision for 2 hours.” Nordgren and I had pitched...

Hello writers, some writerly humour for Friday!

“I spent all morning putting in a comma and all afternoon taking it out.” Did Oscar Wilde really say that? Wah ah ah ...

Opinion | For Want of a Comma The serial comma, unloved by many guides for writers, gets a starring role in a legal case.

Hi writers, did you all enjoy your long weekend?

How many of you love to read or write children's books? If you do, I'm sure the article here would speak to you 🤓😃

" Adults who read children’s fiction can glimpse the beauty of thoughts pared down to their most naked and vulnerable ... some of the most enduring children’s works reveal the world as we seek to view it, in a distilled and clear, focused way. They provide us with the narrative tidiness we yearn for and the clarity of focus that so often eludes us in adult life.”

Here's to the start of a great week ahead!

Why Harry Potter and Paddington Bear are essential reading … for grown-ups Oxford don champions children’s books as figures show that sales to adults are soaring

Hi writers, on Singapore's 54th National Day and on the recent passing of literary giant, Toni Morrison, I'm sharing her words on 'How to be Your Own Story' -- that so befits a unique nation like our own Little Red Dot ...

Have a great National Day and fabulous long weekend!
Long live Singapore!

Toni Morrison on How to Be Your Own Story and Reap the Rewards of Adulthood in a Culture That Fetishizes Youth “True adulthood… is a difficult beauty, an intensely hard won glory, which commercial forces and cultural vapidity should not be permitted to deprive you of.”

Dear writers, how have you been?
Here's something revolutionary, or maybe not so, for some of you:

" the meaning of revolution is the actualization of one of the greatest and most elementary human potentialities, the unequaled experience of being free to make a new beginning.” - Hannah Arendt

Enjoy the read 🤓

Opinion | A Revolution in Happiness The founding fathers weren’t talking about personal wellness.

Hi writers, how have you been?

Do you usually read aloud the words you've put down so you get a sense of their rhythm and musicality? Author of Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert, does that.

I just had a listen to a great interview with her on 'Creativity' and I think you'd enjoy it too.

Our Big Magic Interview We caught up with the brilliant, bestselling author to discuss her inspiration and creativity.

Hi writers, a long weekend is just round the corner! What are you going to do with it?

I've been wanting to share this minimalist but beautiful children's piece. Enjoy ... and let it sing to your hearts.

“Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Missing Piece Meets the Big O: Shel Silverstein’s Sweet Allegory for the Simple Secret of Love and the Key to Nurturing Relationships A gentle reminder that the best relationships don’t complete us but let us grow and become more fully ourselves.