Song of a Reformed Headhunter

On Thursday, went back to school one more time before winter break. Took a final look at the school literary magazine The Beaver, put together by the student co-editors. The funny thing is that many of the poems and stories were written for my classes. Perhaps this is because I kept forwarding the call for submissions to my classes, and they responded. I love Twyla's feminist take on Circe and Jasmine's very Marianne Moore-like poem about a cat making itself comfortable in a damaged stone fountain. When home, started watching the Netflix TV series Dirty Lines, about two very different brothers who started a phone sex company together. One of them is a closeted gay.  Yesterday, had a productive Zoom meeting with Kim and Isabel about the SUSPECT anthology. Then a young Singaporean theater producer stayed with us for a night. In the evening Guy and I went to Peter's for his Dressing Up the Christmas Tree party. Had a nice chat with the Chinese Will (there were two Will's a...

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . The SUSPECT editorial team has heard that a reader of our journal was horrified by the depiction of child rape and marriage in the story  "Beauty and the Jinn"  by Rahad Abir. The reaction was not unexpected, but nevertheless we're glad to have this opportunity to explain our editorial stance and share some of our internal discussions, which are still evolving.  Rahad Abir's story "The Beauty and the Jinn" is very realistic in depicting child rape and marriage for the purpose of exposing what is prevalent in his native Bangladesh, as Rahad's audio recording at the end of the story explains. The story's realism is intended to provoke moral disgust and outrage over what is often normalized or silenced in the country, and, as one editor reminded us, elsewhere in South and Southeast Asia. Another editor added, "As it stands, the story makes clear two things—the devastating i...

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here: https://singaporeunbound.org/join Gerald Leow, Sticky Rice 1 (2021). Photo credit: Arnuparp Jantakaew Image description: A large woven sculpture in the middle of an empty field. The sculpture is made of bamboo, steel, and Thai sticky rice baskets that are known as ‘Huad’.  SUSPECT is here , our new journal of writing and art! We hope you enjoy the varied offerings of writing, art, and multimedia, covering such topics as folk horror, an escape from the Burmese junta, spiritualities in Singapore, the loss of a sister, and translations of Bhojpuri poems. New articles will be added every Friday, so stick with us as we grow with you into a cherished community of writers and readers, artists and audience. We'd love to hear from you about our content and look. Huge thanks to our brilliant contributors. And to our generous donors, who have made such essential writing and art available to all for ...

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . After much deliberation, our team has landed on a name for our new journal of writing, and you're the first to know. SUSPECT, as in "we suspect this work has qualities of greatness." As in looking from the ground up, and not top down. As in "incredulity towards metanarratives" (Lyotard) in favor of microhistories, subversive perspectives, and marginalized identities. We SUSPECT that a SUSPECT like you has something SUSPECT to say. Say it. SUSPECT will be launched in February 2022. We're so excited to share the new writings with you. And art too, as the writings will be beautifully accompanied by images of work by Asian artists. We invite all SUSPECT writers out there to submit work. We seek poetry, literary fiction, essays, and any kind of writings that do not fall into these categories, written or translated into English by authors who identify as Asian. We also publish reviews of b...