Raffles Institution
2023 Creative Writing Festival
"The Past is Now"
Day 2
Students report at 0850
0900-1000 Workshopping in Mentoring Groups
1015-1030 Break
1030-1130 Writing Feedback (For Other Groups)
1130-1200 Writing
1200-1300 Lunch
1300-1530 Workshops
(Click on 'Workshop Registration' tab in the menu to sign up)
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Workshop D:
Performing the Past
By Jean Tay
This introductory playwriting workshop will allow participants to try their hand at bringing the past through life on stage. Participants will get a short introduction into the fundamentals of playwriting, and learn how to take inspiration from an idea in the past and turn it into a short play. Participants are encouraged to come with an idea of the story that they would like to develop, preferably inspired by history or memory.
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Speaker Bio
Jean Tay graduated in 1997 with a double-degree in creative writing and economics from Brown University, USA. For her fiction, she has won the Weston Prize for Fiction from Brown, as well as NAC's Golden Point Short Story competition. Her plays have been performed in Singapore, US, UK, and Italy. She was nominated four times for Best Original Script for the Life! Theatre Awards, and won for “Everything But the Brain”. Her plays “Everything but the Brain” and “Boom” are published by Epigram Books, and have both been used as 'O' and 'N' Level literature texts for secondary school students.
Workshop E:
Fight, Flight, or Write:
Fiction as a Fear Response
By Inez Tan
In the face of danger, creatures typically react by going into one of the following modes: fight, flight, or freeze. But as human beings, one more way we can respond to present or perceived threats is to tell stories. In this workshop, participants will explore why societies tell certain stories about our past and future, and what we fear will happen if we don’t. Additionally, after reading and discussing the short story “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury (no prior knowledge required), participants will craft a short prose piece based on the story’s approach and themes.
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Speaker Bio
Inez Tan is the author of national bestseller This Is Where I Won’t Be Alone: Stories. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan and an MFA in poetry from the University of California, Irvine. She teaches creative writing with SingLit Station, the National Library, and CAP.
Workshop B:
(Re-Run from Day 1)
The Hero's Journey
By Suffian Hakim
"The Hero's Journey" has informed the greatest stories that humanity has every conjured - from Homer's Odyssey to The Epic of Gilgamesh to Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Harry Potter. Introduced to us by literary scholar Joseph Campbell, it is both a precursor to the three-act structure we use in school essays, as well as a reflection of human psychology, and the trials we need to go through to become better in the things we do. In this workshop, we look at "The Hero's Journey", and how we can apply it in our writing - as well as our personal lives.
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Speaker Bio
Described by the Straits Times as "one of the most whimsical, creative and unpretentious young voices in Singapore literature", Suffian Hakim is the author of "The Minorities" and "Harris bin Potter and The Stoned Philosopher", both published by Singapore-London publishers Epigram Books. His third novel, The Keepers of Stories, was longlisted for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2019. Suffian was also the 2nd runner-up of the 2017 Esquire-Montblanc Fiction Writers Prize, and one of Apple's Red Dot Heroes for 2018. He also holds the honour of being the first Singaporean to speak at the Cairo Literature Festival in Egypt.
