Another queer #singlit thread for Pride Month 🏳️🌈🇸🇬🏳️⚧️, this time focused on queer women! 👩❤️👩
Btw, I’m not simply labelling this as “lesbian”, because many notable works here are written about or authored by bisexual folks. ❤️💜💙 There's also some overlap w trans & NB folks too
One cool, v recent landmark in SG queer women’s lit:
Marylyn Tan won the Singapore Literature Prize 2020 for English Poetry w her uncompromisingly lesbian feminist collection Gaze Back (2018)—the first time a female poet had ever won in the three decades of the prize! https://t.co/nZ1KIXLdak
But let’s go back to the beginning. What was the 1st work of SG queer women’s lit?
Arguably, bisexual fashion model Bonny Hicks’ scandalous & best-selling memoir, Excuse Me, Are You a Model? (1990) She devotes a chapter in the book to her romance w entrepreneur Pat Chan https://t.co/D2sm3UUv41
Unfortunately, Hicks passed away in 1997 on the SilkAir MI-185 plane crash. Her books, deemed non-literary (though written w moving clarity), are out of print.
Few people since have acknowledged her role as the first queer Singaporean to come out in a memoir.
The first queer women’s plays were written by Ovidia Yu in 1991: a lesbian monologue titled Marrying & a short piece about a bisexual writer’s relationships titled Imagine. Both scripts are lost, & the playwright recalls nothing of their contents 😢 https://t.co/rEEIlJNjWb
Ovidia Yu explored queer womanhood further w minor characters in her comic feminist play Three Fat Virgins (Unassembled) (staged reading 1992, full production 1995) & her novel The Mouse Marathon (1993)… https://t.co/ADb3Dshaql
But probably the most iconic lesbian plays came from law prof Eleanor Wong.
Mergers and Accusations (1993) featured a lesbian lawyer, Ellen, who tries to have a marriage of convenience; its sequel Wills and Secession (1995) pits her against her Christian sister. https://t.co/A975PPWaC7
In 2003, a third play was staged: Jointly and Severably, w a middle-aged Ellen part of a whole queer community (w its own dyke drama!)—she’s got lesbian friends, a gay law partner, & her lover’s having an affair w a student.
The trilogy's official title "Invitation to Treat". https://t.co/gBnkvvrGMs
In 2007, Ovidia Yu also began to explore the rockier side of queer life. Her play hitting (on) women (2007) is one of the first examples in the *world* to confront lesbian domestic violence.
It’s heartstopping. You can find it in her collection Eight Plays. https://t.co/oDocFpKQub
& though Aidli Mosbit is a straight woman, she broke taboos by casually including queer female characters in her Malay language plays, Ikan Cantik (1998) & Betrayed Babies (2009). https://t.co/d7VGGKKgxL
But what about poetry? The first SGan poet of *any* gender to write openly about their own queer sexuality was Lydia Kwa w The Colours of Heroines (1994)… but this was published in Toronto, so it didn’t make waves here. https://t.co/jJifjBPADt
In 2000, Teng Qian Xi got a little more attention when she won the Simon Elvin Young Poet of the Year Awards at the age of 17.
Her winning poem, Waterlights, is a queer reading of the legend of Lady White Snake, & is published in they hear salt crystallising (2010). https://t.co/ZUUbAJNa4n
But most queer women poets of the era didn’t write explicitly about their queerness. E.g. Eleanor Wong & Madeleine Lee’s collection y grec (2005) didn’t appear queer… till director Natalie Hennedige did a stage adaptation in 2007! https://t.co/wmiDB6AYM3
The blogosphere of the 2000s was far more fertile ground for queer women to write about their lives. E.g. Adrianna Tan of http://Popagandhi.com, & singer Maia Lee, who came out as pansexual (a super new concept at the time) on the Straits Times blogging platform STOMP in 2007. https://t.co/M0LtVovtPS
Then in the 2010s, queer women’s poetry exploded!
Tania De Rozario was overtly lesbian & feminist w her poetry collection Tender Delirium (2013).
AmOK Collective (7 queer female + trans & NB poets) did the spoken word show Mass Hysteria (2014) about convent school childhoods. https://t.co/LQi21mi2Or
& while still in her teens, NB poet Topaz Winters spoke out about her queerness & disability w collections like poems for the sound of the sky before thunder (2017) & Portrait of My Body as a Crime I'm Still Committing (2019), plus her literary journal Half Mystic. https://t.co/kRodBgDuSI
(Btw, apologies for clumsily conflating NB writers w the label "queer women". Doesn't feel right to exclude them when they're working out of queer female/feminist communities. Stephanie Chan/Stephanie Dogfoot is another example of such an NB poet)
https://twitter.com/yishkabob/status/1539186618137198594
Yet queer women haven’t returned in a big way as playwrights. Male playwrights seem to explore lesbian characters more often, e.g. Joel Tan’s The Way We Go (2014), Jonny Jon Jon’s Hawa (2015—a Malay language, Islam-focussed piece), Alfian Sa’at’s The Insiders (2018). https://t.co/mUO186xmcf
Tan Liting (usually a director) is an exception. Pretty Butch (2017) draws parallels btw the dysmorphia of straight men & pregnant butch women.
Ross Nasir & Melissa Sim's Big Brown Girl (2021) also casually centres a bi Malay woman. (Not sure if either playwright is queer tho!) https://t.co/IYY7xSRIkX
There also aren't many novels centering queer SG women.
Lydia Kwa made early forays w This Place Called Absence (2000), about 19th C Chinese sex workers, & Pulse (2010), a BDSM crime mystery.
Again, these were first published in Toronto, so their cultural impact was limited. https://t.co/XyVhnTfu7L
Amanda Lee Koe famously became the youngest winner of the Singapore Literature Prize in 2014 for The Ministry of Moral Panic (2013)... but this short story collection only included one queer female tale, "The Ballad of Arlene and Nelly". https://t.co/mHgI6E7ba1
Her historical novel Delayed Rays of a Star (2019) is queer but not SG-related: it retells the lives of Leni Riefenstahl, Marlene Dietrich & Anna May Wong, including a romance btw the last two women.
It's fantastic, though! It was named one of NPR's Best Books of 2019. https://t.co/2lJG8YNAjj
And Vina Jie-Min Prasad's novelette A Series of Steaks (2017) is set in a futuristic Hong Kong-inspired world! It features a romance btw two women, was a finalist for the Nebula, Hugo, and Sturgeon Awards.
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prasad_01_17/
I should mention, however, that queer women's memoirs are on the shelves, e.g. Loretta Chen’s Woman on Top (2014), Tania De Rozario’s And the Walls Come Crumbling Down (2016), & Olivia Chiong’s Baby Zoey (2016)—chronicles her steps towards becoming a mother. https://t.co/fmwYDypjbg
But basically, if you're a queer woman in SG & you have a story you want to write, there's a good chance it hasn't been done yet.
Go write it!
(Also lemme know what texts I've missed out!)
Additions from a Facebook friend:
Sabariah's Butch & Girl Talk (2002), a v amateurish collection of stories about queer SG girls (& a trans man);
Lee Jing-Jing's If I Could Tell You (2013), a novel about an HDB block w a lesbian couple as part of its ensemble... https://t.co/DHvSgp2QcB
Jolene Tan's A Certain Exposure (2014), a novel about a gay scandal w queer women as supporting characters...
& Carissa Foo's new novel What We Learned from Driving in Winter (2022), which–OMG!–actually does feature a Singaporean lesbian protagonist! https://t.co/UGONym0b9O
