Beyond the Time Machine

Singapore Writers Festival

The Arts House at The Old Parliament, Chamber

Time travel has long captured our imagination – in film and literature. Join these writers for a conversation on time, truth and the narrative freedom of asking, “What if?” Beyond sci-fi spectacle, it is also a powerful device to explore memory, history and identity. Listen in as these panellists share how their storytelling uses time travel, alternate histories and temporal shifts to illuminate personal and collective journeys across generations.

With fellow panelists Yudhanjaya Wijeratne and Lavanya Lakshminarayan.

Elsewhere at Home: Voices of the Southeast Asian Diaspora

Singapore Writers Festival

Asian Civilisations Museum, Ngee Ann Auditorium

What does it mean to be from a place, but never truly of it? How do writers from the Southeast Asian diaspora make sense of home, heritage and belonging when those concepts are in constant flux? In this conversation, three acclaimed authors explore how diasporic experiences shape language, memory and storytelling. Writing across geographies, these authors interrogate cultural dislocation, generational identity, and the emotional weight of the “elsewhere”. Through fiction, satire and autofiction, they craft powerful responses to being both insider and outsider, local and global.

With fellow panelists Amanda Lee Koe and Siang Lu.

Diaspora Heroes to the Rescue Panel

Online

With the seeds of dystopia flourishing in the scopes of speculative fiction (and reality) there is space for new heroes, who are culturally and socially more diverse and sensitive. Are diasporas, who naturally traverse multiple cultures, the new heroes in speculative fiction? Come and listen to our panellists, Pim Wangthechawat (The Moon Represents My Heart), Ann Sei Lin (Rebel Skies series), The Mollusc Dimension (The Weird and Wonderful Surviveries of Squid Horse) and JM Engineer (Leaves – a short story in Covert literary magazine), in discussion with moderator Elaine Chiew.