#swfstage

[sgwritersfest]

“We are exposed to media regimes that we don't normally expose our worst enemies to.” • “The world has been the way it has always been - large, complicated and messed up. We are just puny individuals. When has that ever been different? There are always excuses for us to despair. It’s important to remember that we are not being asked by the universe to redeem it, to be messiahs... Just to leave the world slightly better than how we came in.” • “Community work is excellent for resilience. ... Resilience is a long muscle. It takes a lot of work to build resilience.” • “I’m not good at teaching people to whom the knowledge is instrumental. ... I’m good at teaching people to whom the knowledge is a burden. ... For every student - I’m trying to make you more critical than you were before when you walk out of my class. That’s all.” • “You cannot apply logic to someone’s closely held fantasy. No matter what you argue, facts can’t awaken fantasy.” • “Do people of colour not have white supremacist tendencies? The conversation needs to start at home... y’know even when we say things like this person looks mixed, or what race this person is... you need to stop sounding like Hitler.” • “Art is by its nature not instrumental... The relationship between the artist and the art is often very quantum. Art will do what art will do. But being an artist doesn’t excuse you from doing your civic labour. Your art is not your civic labour.” • “Writers don’t need further encouragement. Don’t get me wrong - Nobody will argue that the existence of writers are threatened... I will tell you what is threatened - and that is readers. Readers are what is crucial to the industry now. One must read.” • Junot Diaz, [Hope and Resistance in an Age of Despair] • #sgwritersfest #swf2017 #swfaram #swfinsider #swfstage #swflecture #junotdiaz (at Victoria Theatre Singapore)

[sgwritersfest]

“The writer might seem like an outlaw or an anarchist. But they’re in fact seeking the deepest truths.” - Li-Young Lee • “I feel most at home in my fiction. Because as a child I was always marginalised.” - Xu Xi • “This is how I describe myself - I’m a quiet feminist introvert, seething with rage. This shows through in my writing.” - Lydia Kwa • “The part that drives me crazy is my own editorial voice. It kills the spirit of invention and privacy.” - Xu Xi • “Everyone is responsible, and has to be responsible for their writing... My choice is to be more anarchic.” - Lydia Kwa • Li-Young Lee - “I have a question though. I heard that Sigmund Freud once said: Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there already.” . Lydia Kwa: “There are lots about Freud that I don’t agree with... but yes someone once told me: If you want to learn how to do therapy... read literature.” • [The Responsibility of Origins and Identities] • #sgwritersfest #swf2017 #swfaram #swfstage (at The Arts House at The Old Parliament)