New Zealand author Chloe Gong, Vietnamese-American author Dustin Thao and American author Kass Morgan all saw packed rooms for their respective sessions.
The collective enthusiasm for Gong and Thao was notable, as many of the same faces appeared for their solo and joint sessions. Each managed to balance topics of race and growth with light-hearted moments in well-rounded discussions.
Morgan offered thoughtful industry insight amid easy conversations with the audience. She happily took photos with a group of students after a session and thanked them for asking good questions.
3. Comic relief
Parents found easy entertainment for young children during the festival with a comic scavenger hunt.
In collaboration with Singapore-based independent comic publisher Difference Engine, 18 small comic panels were hidden and scattered throughout The Arts House. The adults followed excited children as they scoured the building for these.
The event spanned the entire festival and offered attendees the chance to win a comic bundle if they posted a creative photo on social media and tagged Difference Engine.
4. Other highlights
Having the popular debate kick off the festival rather than round it off was a sound idea. This House Believes That The Remake Is Better Than The Original set an energetic tone for the three weekends of programmes.
Festival headliners aside, there were memorable highlights: a talk by artist-writer Shubigi Rao, packed with insights on the destruction of books and the gatekeeping of knowledge; Celebrating Kuo Pao Kun, a moving look at the late theatre doyen’s legacy; and You’re Up Next: Voices Of The Future From Sing Lit, which suggested that poetry might now be the most accessible form of literature in Singapore.
The closing event – a poetry event at The Arts House – was a delight from start to finish, with robust performances by Claudia Rankine, Lawrence Lacambra Ypil, Zeha, Bani Haykal and Nate Marshall. Joelle Taylor, a T. S. Eliot Prize winner and poetry slam champion from Britain, blew the audience away with C+nto, an intense, searing poem inspired by butch counterculture. It ended defiantly thus: “My whole life is a protest.”
At the Festival Village after sunset, poet Cyril Wong, bathed in light, performed a drawn-out version of his poem If… Else, which inspired the festival theme. After 15 minutes of this, one might start feeling a bit restless, although the verse had a catchy rhythm that lingered in the mind: “If now, if ever, if you, if I, if not, if never…”
A fitting end to a festival that pondered questions of literature, life and their endless possibilities.
