ABOUT
Thammika Songkaeo is one of approximately 15,000 National Geographic Explorers selected since 1888, and the only Explorer in Singapore combining expertise in Human Histories and Cultural Storytelling with high-level literary craft.
She is the author of Stamford Hospital, which led to her selection as a masterclass instructor at the Auckland Writers Festival and a workshop instructor at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival. She has spoken at the Singapore Writers Festival, Bangalore Literature Festival and Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, with coverage from major regional outlets including the Bangkok Post. She is also a nominee for the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference.
A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education and a scholarship recipient, Thammika's research focused on education as a force for social good. The World Economic Forum recognised her contributions by naming her a Global Shaper.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2025 – Stamford Hospital (Penguin Random House)
TALKS
WHERE IS THE ENVIRONMENT?
For: secondary; junior college
Availability: 1 hour per session; single session
Description: National Geographic Explorer Thammika Songkaeo interrogates the mental barriers we face when shaping stories about ‘the environment’ from the heart of urban Singapore. Challenging the notion that environmental writing must follow a set template, this talk asks: How have we been conditioned to view nature through a pre-packaged lens? What inherited assumptions are we unknowingly recycling? By deconstructing these perspectives, we can learn to write genuinely about our environment as it undergoes a radical transformation—reflecting our true relationship with our ecosystem.
Learning Outcomes: 1) Critically examine common environmental tropes and how they shape students’ creative choices. 2) Develop observation techniques to uncover authentic, local environmental stories within Singapore's urban landscape. 3) Connect global environmental issues to personal experience, crafting narratives that reflect a genuine relationship with students’ changing ecosystem.
WORKSHOPS
WRITING FEAR, ANGER AND SADNESS
For: secondary, junior college; 10–25 pax
Availability: 1.5 hour per session; single session
Description: Move beyond melodrama and learn to anchor your reader in the physical reality of your characters—in a class drawn from Thammika Songkaeo’s sold-out masterclass at the Auckland Writers Festival. This session will break down how difficult emotions reach readers – not through naming feelings, but through precision, restraint and scene design, using techniques from somatic awareness. Students will explore how fear operates through pacing and uncertainty, how anger reshapes voice and action, and how sadness emerges through omission, rhythm and detail—information sourced from the body.
Learning Outcomes: 1) Write fear, anger and sadness through embodied prose. 2) Translate internal states into action, sensation and subtext. 3) Recognise writing as a somatic practice, not purely a cerebral one.
ABOUT OUR PROGRAMME / OUR WRITERS / OUR WORKSHOPS / OUR CAMP / F.A.Q.
Book A Writer is Sing Lit Station's workshop-for-schools programme, featuring a roster of Singapore's most important writers at work today. *Do you want to Book A Writer? For enquiries on Jollin Tan's availability and workshop rates in Sing Lit Station's Book A Writer programme, do fill in the form below.