On 17 December 2022 at NTU at OneNorth, ACWP presented a sharing of Akhil Sharma’s insights during his time as a Visiting Writer on Teaching Creative Writing in Singapore.
During the discussion, we explored best practices for teaching Creative Writing in Singapore. Experienced Creative Writing teachers Desmond Kon and Yeo Wei Wei, also shared their positive and wise insights too.
We see this paper and the successful sharing session on 17 December 2022 as the start of an ongoing conversation on creative writing pedagogy to be held periodically with Visiting Writers and the Singapore community of creative writing educators and writing students. This conversation will be facilitated by ACWP, the School of Humanities at Nanyang Technological University and the National Arts Council.
Akhil’s Research Paper presented at the session
can be found here
Akhil had four Singapore specific suggestions that are worth quoting in full below:
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- “Even graduate students often slip into Singlish. These are excellent students who are well read and intelligent. The English that they write, however, feels very specific to Singapore. My advice is that this should be seen as a strength and not as a weakness. The more local and specific one can make a work, the more universal it usually is. By this, I do not mean that all stories should be about people working at hawker stands. I just mean that there shouldn’t be any shyness about local subjects and language. After all, if there are specific problems, an editor can usually find a way around them.”
- “Shyness with discussing intimate items. For no doubt multiple reasons, many students shy away from writing about the unattractive aspects of their characters. If a teacher can do so, it would probably be worth while to encourage bravery in students. This might involve revealing one’s own petty jealousies or shames. The teacher can, however, teach by the bravery of her examples.”
- “There is an enormous amount of literary talent in Singapore. Because the Singapore market is small and the prizes available in Singapore ae small, it would be worthwhile for students to try to immerse themselves in the international literary marketplace. By this, I mean not just reading magazines like Granta or The Paris Review, but submitting stories to them. The unfortunate truth is that for Singaporean writers to support themselves as writers, their easiest path might be earning international acclaim just because the international market is so much larger than the Singaporean one.
- “Read Singaporean literature. In the west there is a great deal of emphasis placed on reading writers from diverse communities. While this is valuable and worth doing, I find that it is emotionally helpful to feel that one is part of a very specific literary world. Knowing how other writers are grappling with the issues that you are grappling with is helpful. But even more than this, when one sees other writers, especially writers one admires, this can give courage. And in the end no writer can survive without courage.
Do let us know if you have any comments on these suggestions or would be interested in attending future sessions on teaching Creative Writing in Singapore.
We hope to hold further sessions in 2023 and will invite anyone (teachers, students, writers & organisers) interested in the teaching of English, Malay, Tamil and Mandarin Chinese language Creative Writing in Singapore.