Category: Features

Felix Cheong’s The Showgirl and The Minister is coming to bookstores near you on 28th November 2023. Pre-order your copy today via Kinokuniya Singapore, Amazon Singapore and ACRE Philippines today.

This mental health awareness month we asked our team members about the things they do to take care of their mental health. Read below to know their mental health mantra!

Nora Nazerene shares with us, ‘I never miss my daily runs. Running is my alone time—it clears my head and always helps me find a way through muddled thoughts.’

Ishani says, ‘I have frequently found myself drawn to meditation and the at-home prayers routine to find balance and peace. Working in content means ideas and thoughts keep demanding attention, but a growth state of mind is hard to achieve if one is constantly churning in the here and now. My morning or evening prayers, or a meditation session, help me reset everyday. As someone who has recovered from #burnout, I am mindful of anything that disturbs this peace. I highly recommend meditation, especially when you feel you have lost control of the day!’

Pallavi shares with us, ‘Mental health is a fairly new addition to my understanding of an overall healthy life. All my life, I have had to struggle with body weight issues and to now realise that a lot of it starts from how we feel about ourselves rather than how we appear has been a revelation. Since the epiphany, one of the most important mental health mantras has been to give myself grace. Most of us are our own worst critics, never giving ourselves a break, never taking a moment to appreciate the good we do, and always focusing on our failures and flaws. Giving oneself grace means that we accept who we are as we are, for both the good and the bad, the virtues and weaknesses. Treat yourself as well as you’d treat others means interacting with yourself with kindness and consideration.’

Chaitanya shares with us, ‘My mantra is to read a real angsty romance. Brownie points if it has a second chance trope!’

Rupal tells us, ‘Differentiate between big and small battles. Set boundaries. Take the time off. Breathe. Reflect. Restart. These are the few things, or more like actionable points that I have slowly-and-gradually implemented, and it has significantly helped in maintaining a healthy balance at work and personal front. I resort to music, books, coffee and conversations when I am in a loop, and giving yourself a break when your mind gives a hint is the best favour you do on yourself. So take that hint, address it well, soak in that day and take one step at a time.’

Garima says, ‘I get overwhelmed quite easily and that knowledge has now allowed me to identify triggers that cause anxiety and to deal with them accordingly. Understanding yourself and what your mind and body need is the key. Also, sunlight! It is an excellent way to uplift your mood and reduce stress.’

Share with us the things you do to elevate your mood and uplift your mental health here.

The year is 2023. You have a new perspective to most things, and you have your reading goals set in place. But weren’t these the same goals that you didn’t follow in 2022?

Take a pause; don’t set a goal for the number of books to read this year. Let it flow, let your reading habits breathe, let your headspace decide what to read next, and not your #TBR pile. Feel invited to take a pause and look at reading from a new perspective. 

Read the unconventional way

Often, we read books as a task, as something we need to get off our checklist for the day and more often than not, this leads to slump. Reading when we don’t have a headspace to read that particular book, reading when we don’t like what we are reading and when it doesn’t align with our thoughts. Next time, when you attempt to read something, read about it and what it talks about first, analyze if you are in that headspace, and then pick it. Never worry about finishing a book (though finishing one gives closure) for it can wait.  

It should be for pleasure; it should be for imagination. Let the words sink in. Let, what you are reading, soak your mind for a while and that’s when the real process begins. Of reading mindfully. This January, read No Wonder, Women by Carissa Foo, a collection of stories about women. A glimpse into the lives of women who are trying to love without unloving themselves. You will fall in love with yourself, and the art of telling stories – it easily offers both.  

Give books the time they deserve

I have often come across books that need more understanding of the scenarios than usual. You won’t want to read a historical fiction without knowing about the events it is associated with. In such cases, highlight more, read more, read diversified perceptions about it, and you’ll feel a sense of fulfillment. Fulfillment of knowing what the author is talking about, without jumping in the sea cluelessly. Pick a book that interests you, read an article associated with it, listen to a podcast where the speaker is talking about a different idea about the event and you’ll be more interested in getting back to the book. You might enjoy reading Destination: SEA 2050 A.D. It’s an anthology that’s based on scientific projections. It showcases the world of the year 2050, the same year when 90 percent of the planet’s coral reefs are expected to decline, when plastic is found inside 99 percent of all the world’s seabirds, when there is severe water shortage in Asia, and so much more.  

Read to reconnect

There is a book for everyone, and there is a book on everything. Pick an author whose writing you adore, see what they like to read and maybe that way you stumble upon your next read too. Quite often, we get influenced by what’s out there, and quite often we get influenced by who we trust. Reading is just that, putting faith into something that could ignite that spark in you. Reconnecting with our older selves sometimes help, re-reading books help, and often reading new books from the authors we liked earlier, helps. So, give it a try and maybe you’ll enjoy the journey you have earlier experienced, only this time you’ll find more things in that book that you missed last time. Try reading We Are Not Alone Here by O Thiam Chin who has also written before, The Dogs. 

Consume a book the way you want

 Be it an audiobook, be it on your e-reader, or you like carrying the paperback around – it’s your wish and there is no correct way of consuming art. You could be the one who likes to knit and listen to the audiobook alongside, you could be the one who relies on their e-reader and read multiple books at the same time, or you could be the one who carries one book for a week and believes in the process of annotating with pencils , highlighters and colorful tabs. There is no correct way of reading. Surprisingly, you could also switch the mediums and often that increases your capacity to read more on a particular day. Whether you are on your way to the office in a public transport or are on your evening run, a good book’s company can never disappoint. Read this exciting book titled Kopi Dulu by Mark Eveleigh that talks about a journey of 15,000 kilometres – by rail, road, on foot and under sail – through about 50 Indonesian islands, shining a light on what has been described as the world’s most invisible country. 

As the clock strikes midnight, and we hit the refresh button. A new day is upon us.

But shouldn’t it be more in the flow, rather than a goal setting process?

It’s a thing with New Year’s Day – most of us wish to start everything afresh – including the books we want to read. This year, however, make it count not by the number of books you read, but by the lessons you learn, and fulfillment you get. This is a safe space for your to rediscover your love for reading.

Happy Reading, and happy rediscovering-your-love-for-reading!

– by Rupal Vyas

 Today we are in conversation with Eva Wong Nava, Jeffrey Say and Quek Hong Shin about their latest series of four picture books. The series encourages young children to read about artists who had made an impact on the art scene in Southeast Asia. 

Q1) How would you describe the ‘Exploring Southeast Asia with’ series in a sentence? 

Eva: It’s a series of creative non-fiction picture books targeted at middle grade and primary school children taking them through four Southeast Asian countries — Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia – by exploring the lives of four prominent artists and their artworks. 

Jeffrey: The series of books aims to educate young readers about the art and culture of Southeast Asia as seen through the lens of famous visual artists. 

Hong Shin: A celebration of Southeast Asian landscape, arts, and aesthetics.   

Q2) How did this series come into being?
 

Eva: Each story is unique to the lives of the artist and the country they come from. Southeast Asia is made up of eleven countries. It would have been ideal if we had the time and resources to cover each one. However, scholarship of Southeast Asia and their artists is still scant for some countries. So, as art historians, Jeffrey and I chose four countries and artists that are relatively well-known amongst scholars of Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art histories.  

Jeffrey: Eva and I were sitting down and having coffee about four years ago and I lamented about how there are very few books on Southeast Asian art for young readers. We decided to change that. The idea was to create four books one after another, but our Publisher insisted us to write all the books at the same time so that they can be bought together as a set. I came up with the idea for the four artists and bounced the idea off Eva to see if these artists would make for an interesting children’s story. The rest is history.  

Q3) What did the research process for the picture books look like? 

Eva: Both Jeffrey and I read the same articles and journals with information about the artists – Liu Kang, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, Chuah Thean Teng, and Affandi – as well as the histories of these countries. From these, I came up with the story line and Jeffrey did the more academic work – their biographies and the questions in the back matter of the book. The work was split up this way because I have experience in writing creative non-fiction for children. As a team, we worked together collaboratively: Jeffrey read my parts and the two of us had to come to agreement on how the story was written and I read the bios and questions, and added some of my own, and we edited the manuscripts together. 

This project took us four years to complete. The challenge was managing a big project like this with me in the U.K. and Jeffrey and Hong Shin in Singapore and each one of us living with Covid restrictions and its aftermath.  

Jeffrey: As an art historian with access to databases, I sourced scholarly articles related to each artist. To reimagine the lives of the artists and their works in a picture book, I had to gather as many materials as possible for each artist so that some of the most interesting details can be captured in the texts and illustrations. The research entailed approaching the sons of Chuah Thean Teng for archival materials on their late father. As such, the research process ensures that the story told in each book is as accurate as possible. 

Hong Shin: Quite some time was spent scouring the internet for visual references of the artists and their works. One of the biggest challenges was to reimagine many of the (creative fictional) scenarios as there is certainly no photographic evidence of them. I did have some fun and lots of artistic liberty to depict the artists’ appearances when they were younger.

Q4) What was the process of illustrating the book? 

Hong Shin: After gathering images from the internet, I spent time trying to imitate and emulate the artistic style of the artists by observing their paintings. Each of them has a very distinctive style and I wanted to showcase that in my illustrations. This meant making many preliminary sketches and letting their respective artworks inspire me. Eva’s words are vivid and descriptive, so I chose the best visual compositions in an attempt to capture the mood or atmosphere. The illustrations were all done digitally, so it was quite interesting for me to use the digital medium to recreate the look and feel of fine art paintings.
 

Q5) What was the best part about working on this series of picture books?
 

Eva: For me it was being able to tell the stories of four Southeast Asian artists in collaboration with a respected colleague and cherished friend, and a fellow art historian. This is a series of picture book biographies, which is a genre of picture books. Picture book writing is a craft and differs from writing novels and academic writing. It is a structured and tight form because we have up to 1,000 words to tell the story, still keeping the story arc — beginning, middle, end — intact. Then, there is also the character arc, where the story needs to show the main character learning and growing as their story progresses. And I had to do all this creatively, which doesn’t mean I make up information because these are biographies, the story of a moment in someone’s life, but that I had to write creatively, using accessible, child-friendly words, and choosing the point of entry to start each artist’s story. I had to work with the facts to extract a story, and that requires separating the husk from the rice grain. While doing this, I had to be mindful of the illustrator because Hong Shin will need to animate my words with his art, so I had to leave him space in my text to do this. All said, picture book writing is a collaboration, always. It takes two authors — the writer and the illustrator — to create a picture book. (In our case, it took two authors and an illustrator.) Hence, publishers have come to call picture book creation a craft. As a picture book author, I have honed this craft over the years in my career as a children’s book author. 

And, so we have it: 4 artists, 2 authors, 1 illustrator, and 3 cheers!  

Jeffrey: This series of books was my very first foray into the world of kid lit. The best part about working on it was about learning what it takes to write a children’s book. In this regard, I have learned much from both Eva and Hong Shin, who have won awards for kid lit, respectively. I also found it interesting to find an academic like myself collaborating with Eva, and we enjoyed exchanging ideas with one another. It was a fun project all in all. 

Hong Shin: Being given the ‘power’ to embody the spirit or emotion the artists were feeling at the turning points of their artistic careers. For e.g. The anguish in Affandi’s brushstrokes and the tenacity, and feminine sensitivity of Anita Magsaysay-Ho. And also, it is quite a dream come true to work on the subject matter of art. This is because when I was young, I was truly inspired by great artists like Monet and Van Gogh, so I appreciate this great opportunity for us to introduce prominent artists in the region to the younger generation via picture book stories.

Q6) What do you hope the young readers will take away from this book? 

Eva: As an author, giving children a reason to read for pleasure is why I write. Though these are picture books, filled with Hong Shin’s gorgeous artwork, they’re also good for adults to read. These are short stories, if you will, and they inform readers, younger and older, about the artist, their country and their life’s work. It’s a fun way to learn some art history (the study of humanity through its art) without having the pressure to pass exams or learn facts by heart. And as many of these artworks are found at the National Gallery of Singapore or in galleries and museums in the artist’s home countries, readers can see the works of art for themselves IRL. 

Southeast Asia is lacking in books for children about our own artists. More needs to be done and written about lest our children think that Southeast Asia as a region lacks art and history.  

Jeffrey: As an arts educator, I have been a firm believer that to nurture a cultured population, children need to be taught how to appreciate the arts from a young age. An added motivation for conceptualizing these books is the desire for our local children to get to know famous artists from our very own backyard as most children’s books on art are on Western artists. 

 Hong Shin: Being able to introduce these Southeast Asian artists, and their works and hopefully help the readers recognize them in galleries around the world would be very gratifying. I also hope that children reading these books will realize that there is beauty in daily life, as shown in the stories of the artists. 

Q7) 3 emojis that best describe your feelings about the books.  

Eva: ? #representationmatters ? collaboration ? love art and history  

Jeffrey: ???

Hong Shin: ??? 

Exploring Southeast Asia with series is now available at bookstores near you and on Amazon. Grab your copy of these amazing picture books today!

– by Garima Bhatt