Lion City lit: European Union Writers Festival

Asian Books Blog is based in Singapore. Our regular column Lion City Lit explores in-depth what’s going on in the City-State, lit-wise. 
Here Lucía Damacela talks with the organisers of the City's first European Union Writers Festival, which took place on May 25 and 26, at Lasalle College. An initiative of Dr. Darryl Whetter, programme leader of Lasalle's MA programme in creative writing, and Deepika Shetty, press and information officer for the European Union delegation to Singapore, the event was sponsored by the European Union, in partnership with Lasalle College.

Lion City Lit notes: update to William Farquhar and Singapore book launch

Asian Books Blog is based in Singapore – the Lion City. Lucía Damacela keeps an eye on local listings. 

The book William Farquhar and Singapore, by Nadia H. Wright, which will be launched in Penang, as we announced in a previous note, is also being launched in Singapore. Here are the details:

Date: May 30, 2017
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Place: The Salon, National Museum of Singapore, 93 Stamford Road, Singapore 178897
Transport: Bras Basah and Dhobi Ghaut MRT.
Price: Free admission - RSVP at admin@entrepotpublishing.com.

Opening address by Professor Tommy Koh, National University of Singapore. Talk by the author, Nadia H. Wright. Official launch by Scott Wightman, British High Commissioner to Singapore.

Just quickly...

Click here for Lucia’s interview, featured in the Wordsmith section of digital literary magazine Crack the Spine.

Lion City lit notes: upcoming events in early June 2017

Asian Books Blog is based in Singapore – the Lion City. Lucía Damacela keeps an eye on local listings. Here she offers a  sample of literary events taking place in Singapore in the days ahead.

Book launch: William Farquhar & Singapore: Stepping out from Raffles' Shadow by Dr Nadia H. Wright 
Date: June 3 2017 
Time: 2:30 p.m. 
Place: Penang Conference Hall 1, Penang Institute, 10 Jalan Brown George Town, Pulau Pinang 10350, Malaysia 

Indie spotlight: Tim Gurung

Some of Tim's books

Hong-Kong-based Tim Gurung has just taken over as the editor of indie spotlight, Asia Books Blog’s monthly column on self-publishing. Tim is the self-published author of both fiction and non-fiction titles. His non-fiction covers topics as various the Gurkhas, the afterlife, fatherhood, and women's rights.

Tim says: “I have been self-publishing since early 2015. I am now working on my 15th book. I became a self-published author by choice, started from almost zero experience of publishing, and learned the trade almost on my own. And after selling a little over ten thousand books by now, I should know a few things about self-publishing, right?”

In this his first column, he outlines how to categorise indie authors, and advises how authors can move between the categories.  

Just quickly...

Click here for Rosie’s review of Imprint 16, edited by Carol Dyer, in Asian Review of Books.

This weekend: literary events in Singapore

Asian Books Blog is based in Singapore – the Lion City. Lucía Damacela keeps an eye on local listings. A sample of literary events taking place in Singapore this weekend

Migrant Poetic Tales

Saturday, 20 May 2017
5pm to 6pm
Booktique
CityLink Mall, #B1-17A, 1 Raffles Link, Singapore 039393
Free Admission (tickets through Peatix)

A dialogue between Singapore poets, migrant workers and the community at large, this event features migrant writers from Bangladesh, The Philippines, India-Tamil, Indonesia and Singapore. The event is co-organized by Amrakajona Zakir, a two-time winner of the Migrant Poetry Competition.