The Jalan Besar Fellowship invites writers, artists, collectives and cultural workers within the literary arts to propose new or ongoing projects for Sing Lit Station to support in the first quarter of 2024.
Our 2024 Fellows are: muralist Anne Neo Hui Ting; poets and arts organisers Laili Abdeen, Nursarah Safari and Zubaidah Dadlani; and poet and editor Tse Hao Guang. Applications for the 2025 Fellowship will re-open in Sep 2024.
Jalan Besar Fellows will have access to a stipend of $3,000 (Singapore dollars) that will be granted in support of a project or programme that either features Singapore literature or engages with the Singapore literary community and its publics. Fellows will also be granted free access to our office and its resources from Jan to Mar of their Fellowship year.
We’re particularly interested in projects and programmes that not only fulfil the vision and mission of Sing Lit Station, but allows us to more creatively expand the ways in which we can support the development of Singapore literature. In return of our support, we ask our fellows to take part in an on-site presentation of their projects / programmes in the final month of their Fellowship.
The objective of the Jalan Besar Fellowship is to envision new ways of supporting a larger pool of candidates with projects that aren’t limited to the creation of a manuscript. While the provision of our office is in keeping with the spirit of our residency programme in the past (see below for more info), this Fellowship prioritises the company’s ability to support new/ongoing projects and programmes that we feel are exciting and vital to both Singapore literature and the Singapore public. Particularly strong projects/programmes might also be invited to receive long-term support from Sing Lit Station and be a part of our next FY’s slate of programmes.
→ OUR 2024 FELLOWS
A full-time pharmacist and part-time mural artist, Anne Neo Hui Ting paints community murals for nursing homes, libraries and active ageing centres pro bono with the intention of engaging the community and bringing colour to blank walls.
About her community art project LIT! Our Community Canvas: This project aims to promote Sing Lit and engage the community by painting a community mural. Participants may paint their favourite quotes from Sing Lit (highly recommended!), submit their favourite quote to be painted and even add colour to the mural!
When she's not marking essays, Laili Abdeen enjoys untangling worlds through poetry. She was featured in Singapore Writers Festival 2022 and has a poem published in Mahogany Journal's third edition: Soundscapes.
About the open-mic and spoken word series Layl Ash-Shayr: Layl Ash-Shayr, which loosely translates from Arabic to "Poetry Night", began as an open-mic and spoken word event for Muslim writers in Singapore to share their work and engage with fellow creatives. In line with its unassuming beginnings, they hope to be a constant space for Muslim literary creatives to turn to for community, understanding, inspiration, and expression.
Nursarah Safari loves words and worlds. In all the time she spends in her head, she has no idea how she ended up here. Don't let this stop you from asking her about it: if she's not mentally dancing with words, she's often down for a good conversation.
About the open-mic and spoken word series Layl Ash-Shayr: Layl Ash-Shayr, which loosely translates from Arabic to "Poetry Night", began as an open-mic and spoken word event for Muslim writers in Singapore to share their work and engage with fellow creatives. In line with its unassuming beginnings, they hope to be a constant space for Muslim literary creatives to turn to for community, understanding, inspiration, and expression.
Zubaidah Dadlani’s writing career started with acrostic poems for birthday cards and fanfiction scrawled on old exercise books. She was shortlisted for SPF’s Catharsis in 2020, and is currently enjoying funemployment.
About the open-mic and spoken word series Layl Ash-Shayr: Layl Ash-Shayr, which loosely translates from Arabic to "Poetry Night", began as an open-mic and spoken word event for Muslim writers in Singapore to share their work and engage with fellow creatives. In line with its unassuming beginnings, they hope to be a constant space for Muslim literary creatives to turn to for community, understanding, inspiration, and expression.
Tse Hao Guang (謝皓光) is the author of The International Left-Hand Calligraphy Association (Tinfish Press, 2023). Poems and essays appear in Poetry, Poem-a-Day, The Yale Review, Brick, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere.
About his print and poetry pamphlet initiative Paper Jam: What is this technology called print, and what relationship does writing have with printing in the age of the smartphone? What do we discover if we approach printing as heritage, as research, or as art? What if we started a beautiful and affordable literary pamphlet series? What if we got artists working across literary arts, tech, book arts, and design to talk to each other and you?
→ IMPORTANT DATES
→ SELECTION CRITERIA
We are happy to award Fellowships to individuals, groups, collectives and sole-proprietorships; conversely, we are unlikely to award them to institutions, for-profit companies and non-profit organisations of a certain size/budget. International applicants are welcome to apply, although the company will endeavour to award no more than 1 out of the 3 Fellowships to people who aren’t based in Singapore.
Projects/programmes can take on any format or scope (i.e. literary creation, inculcation of criticism/editorial services, multimedia/multi-disciplinary/multi-genre), so long as it engages with Singapore literature and/or the Singapore literary community. We’ll also be interested in proposals that can creatively expand our organisation’s ability to fulfil its vision and mission.
Applicants will also be asked by way of both the proposal and budget to suggest how the $3,000 will be spent / allocated over the Fellowship period; this can go to any combination of personal and project-related needs. We will favour proposals that are well-written, feasible and can either provide evidence or demonstrate promise, expertise and/or excellence.
→ APPLICATION DETAILS
All applicants are expected to submit their proposals via our organisation’s Submittable page. We will be expecting the following materials to accompany each application:
A proposal that includes the following aspects of the proposed project/programme: name/title; aims/objectives; timeline (with especial focus on Jan-Mar 2024, i.e. the period of the Jalan Besar Fellowship); envisioned outcomes; list of collaborators (if any).
A budget that details how the $3,000 stipend will be utilised. The stipend ought not to comprise the entirety of the project/programme’s expenses; rather, it ought to be function as a source of funding for the project/programme’s overall expenses.
CVs of all people involved; if the applicant encompasses more than 5 individuals, a compilation of the core team/main leadership’s CVs will be sufficient.
Any supporting media/material, especially for projects/programmes that are not new and are already ongoing.
Applications for the 2025 Fellowship will re-open in Sep 2024.
→ OUR PAST FELLOWS
JALAN BESAR WRITING RESIDENCY (2016-2020)
For five years, the Sing Lit Station office was located on the streets of Jalan Pisang, Jalan Kubor and finally Jalan Besar. Across those five years, we also managed to run a writing residency programme, offering our writers-in-residence unrestricted access to our resources and free use of a working desk over a half-year period.
The residency also eventually grew to offer a $1,000 stipend that would support any ongoing projects that our writers-in-residence might be undertaking during their time with us, which could also broaden beyond literary creation to include aspects that were either interdisciplinary or community-oriented. All we asked in return was a presentation of works at the end of their residency.
“The Sing Lit Station residency has been an absolute boon for me, providing me with a quiet and dependable space in which to do my work. The space at Dickson Road is gorgeous and contemplative, and also comes with a cat, who you will have no choice but to fall in love with. The environment afforded by the residency allowed me to begin, and finish, the first draft of my first novel. Did I mention there’s a cat?”
“This Residency was a wonderful experience: this is such a nice (and quiet) place, with a very friendly, helpful and smart staff… Over the ten months I spent here, I have managed to complete the four projects (two translations, two original works) I was dealing with, which is all definitely due to the wonderful Sing Lit Station.”
Having worked in technical writing, communications, tertiary education, and the social services, Chan Li Shan (2017/2018) has most recently pursued an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in 2016/17, specialising in Biography and Creative Nonfiction. An advocate for mental health, her memoir A Philosopher's Madness was published by Ethos Books in 2012. Over the course of her residency, she will look into the lives of artists for a biographical narrative that she is working on.
READING: "Lepak Readings: Chan Li Shan", Independent Archive & Resource Centre, 13 Jan 2018, 7pm–8pm
Born in 1988, Farhanah Diyanah (FD) (2019/2020) is a writer and creative producer. Her writings revolve around interpersonal issues, which are magnified through magic realism or absurdism. She taps into her knowledge of Malay language and literature and pursues collaboration with artists of various platforms to explore different methods of storytelling. She believes that the only purpose of art making is to contribute to unthinkable positive change in the world. FD is the creative producer and writer at -wright Assembly and a founding member of Main Tulis Group.
PERFORMANCE: “NEW LIGHTS / NEW WORKS” via live-stream, 25 Jul 2020, 8pm–9.30pm
Joel Tan (2016/2017) is a playwright, director, performer and essayist. A versatile artist, his work crosses genres, styles and theatre-making cultures, including poetry, contemporary drama, dance theatre, pantomime and musical theatre. He made his debut at the 2011 Man Singapore Theatre Festival, with W!ld Rice’s production of Family Outing, directed by Glen Goei.
WORKSHOP SERIES: "Reading the Stage" with The Necessary Stage's Those Who Can't, Teach!, Sing Lit Station & Drama Centre, 16, 17 and 21 Mar 2017, 7.30pm–9.30pm, $81.80
Lawrence Lacambra Ypil (2019/2020) is a poet and essayist and is the recipient of the prestigious Aning Dangal award in 2019. His latest book, The Experiment of the Tropics, was the co-winner of the inaugural Gaudy Boy Poetry Book prize. His forthcoming book is Ang Pagkadiskubre sa Balak (The Discovery of Poetry), a translation of his first book of poems, The Highest Hiding Place.
Ypil received an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa and an MFA in poetry from Washington University in St. Louis on a Fulbright Scholarship. He currently teaches creative writing at Yale-NUS College.
READING GROUP: “How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife and other beautiful stories with potentially problematic titles from Philippine Lit” via Zoom, 8, 11, 15, 18 Jun 2020, 8pm
READING: “NEW ENCOUNTERS / NEW WORKS” via Facebook Live, 26 Aug 2020, 8pm–9.15pm
Nabilah Said (2018/2019) is a playwright, freelance writer, reviewer and poet. Nabilah was a former journalist with the Straits Times before leaving to do an MA in Writing for Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her plays have been presented by theatre companies Teater Ekamatra, The Necessary Stage and Bhumi Collective and read in London’s Bunker Theatre and Arcola Theatre. During her residency, she will be writing a new play for Projek Bahasa Pengarah 2, an initiative by akulah BIMBO SAKTI and Malay Heritage Centre, as well as working on other theatre projects.
PERFORMANCE / PANEL: “NEW PATHS / NEW WORKS” (with Corrie Tan), Sing Lit Station, 20 Mar 2019, 8pm–10pm
Neon Yang (2018/2019) is the author of the Tensorate series of novellas from Tor.Com Publishing. Their work has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Locus and Kitschy awards, as well as being on the Honor List for the Tiptree award. JY attended the 2013 class of Clarion West, and read their MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, Britain. They will be working on their debut full-length work over the course of their residency, as well as conceptualising other projects.
LECTURE / MEET-THE-AUTHOR: “NEW TERRAIN / NEW WORKS”, Sing Lit Station, 13 Apr 2019, 4.45pm–6pm
Writer and freelance copyeditor Noelle Q. de Jesus (2019/2020) has lived in Singapore as a permanent resident since 2000. She is the author of BLOOD Collected Stories (Ethos Books Singapore 2015), an award-winning collection of short fiction with a forthcoming translation in French, and the chick lit novel Mrs MisMarriage (Marshall Cavendish International 2008). She edited edited the flash fiction anthology series, Fast Food Fiction Short Short Stories to Go and Fast Food Fiction Delivery( Anvil Publishing Philippines 2003, 2015).
Penguin Random House Southeast Asia is publishing her second book of short fiction, Cursed and Other Stories. She will be working on her novel, Another Immense Sky, and prepare it for publication, as well as begin a creative non-fiction book project about life lessons from tennis.
PANEL: “NEW SKIES / NEW WORKS” via Instagram Live on @singlitstation, 6 May 2020, 7.30pm-8.30pm
nor (2020/2021) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is rooted in self-portraiture. Their works span the disciplines of photography, film, video, performance, text and spoken word poetry to engage with ideas of belonging and identity through the frameworks of gender performance, ethnographic portraits and transnational histories. They are currently working on a speculative fiction piece titled The Neosantara Chronicles.
PRESENTATION: “NEW NAMES / NEW WORKS” via live-stream, 18 Jul 2021, 7.30pm onwards
Pierre Vinclair (2017/2018) is a freelance editor and multilingual translator from France, currently based in Singapore. A prolific novelist, poet, philosopher and non-fiction writer, Pierre will be working on two literary projects (Botanic Songs and Mohamed) and two translation projects simultaneously over the course of his residency. He was also a special guest on our LAF-SLS Translation Retreat in Nov 2017. (Photo: Patrick Wack)
LECTURE: "Hold the Line: a lecture on contemporary French poetry (1870-2018) by Pierre Vinclair", Sing Lit Station, 19 May 2018, 4pm–5.30pm
Samantha (Sam) Toh’s (2020/2021) fiction, poetry, translations and criticism have been published in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Cha, Spittoon Literary Magazine, and various Math Paper Press and Epigram anthologies. The recipient of a Singapore National Arts Council Golden Point Award and Stanford University Alumni Arts Grant, Sam writes and makes paintings in Singapore (always) and Tokyo (pre-COVID). She is dedicated to intensive budgeting and thinking of beautiful football players in chambres de bonnes. Her work can be found at www.samanthatoh.com.
Victor Fernando R. Ocampo (2020 / 2021) is a Singapore-based Filipino writer. He is the author of the International Rubery Book Award-shortlisted The Infinite Library and Other Stories (Math Paper Press, 2017) and Here be Dragons (Canvas Press, 2015), which won the Romeo Forbes Children’s Story Award in 2012. His play-by-email interactive fiction piece “The Book of Red Shadows” debuted at the Singapore Writers Festival in 2020. Visit his blog at vrocampo.com or follow him on Twitter @VictorOcampo.
LECTURE: “NEW SURVEYS / NEW WORKS” via live-stream, 30 Apr 2021, 5.30pm
Yu Yan Chen (2016/2017) is an award-winning poet, writer, and literary translator. Versed in both English and Mandarin, her latest collection of poems is Small Hours (NYQ Books, 2011), published in New York. During her residency at Sing Lit Station, Chen will translate ten short stories by Chinese author Mai Jia while supported by a Creation Grant from the National Arts Council.
WORKSHOP: "At Home with Multiple Languages", Sing Lit Station, 11 Feb 2017, 2pm–5pm, $40 / $30
Zhang Ruihe (2016/2017) works in education and moonlights as a writer and editor. She received the Golden Point Award for English Poetry in 2013, served as essays editor for QLRS from 2005 to 2009, and is also co-editor of In Transit: An Anthology from Singapore on Airports and Air Travel (Math Paper Press, 2016). Zhang will work on her first essay collection during her residency at Sing Lit Station.
WORKSHOP SERIES: "Other Voices, Other Lives", Sing Lit Station, 18 Feb and 4 Mar 2017, 10am–12pm and 10am–1pm, $60