A Writer's Guide to Singapore

The Central Public Library is the lending library in Basement 1 of the National Library Building. Its Singapore Alcove puts the Singapore Collection beside exhibits drawn from the National Library and the National Archives. It closes on public holidays.

The reference library's collections begin on Level 7 of the same building. Arts and humanities are on Level 8. Level 11 holds Singapore and Southeast Asia in English, and that is where you read local newspapers on microfilm and rare books. Most items are for reference only. Librarians answer research questions by email at ref@nlb.gov.sg.

Visitors from outside NUS can apply for an access-only membership, for a fee and for up to three months. Holders read on site at the Central Library and six special libraries, closed stacks included, with no borrowing or e-resources. The quiet reading area is on Level 6. Chinese materials are kept in the separate Wan Boo Sow Chinese Library.

The National Archives keeps reference copies of the Straits Settlements Records here, on microfilm and in digital form. Private records and building plans sit alongside them. Memoirists tracing a family can search its marriage and school records. Request items through Archives Online at least five days before you come. The room is open daily except public holidays, with staff on hand on weekdays.

Wardah Books specializes in books for Muslim readers, and the Bussorah Street shop is strong in Sufism and in Islamic history and philosophy. It runs book clubs and book discussions. Poets can read at Layl as-Shayr, its open mic.

Grassroots Book Room has sold Chinese-language books since 1995, and it publishes them too. The shelves are strong in Singapore and Malaysian Chinese literature and in Southeast Asian studies. It hosts talks. The shop is closed Tuesdays.

City Book Room, founded in 2014, sells mostly locally published humanities and literary books in Chinese and English. As a publisher it runs a Translation Series and a First Book Series for emerging writers, and the shop holds author readings and a reading club.

Woods in the Books has sold picture books and illustrated books, for children and adults, since 2009. Picture-book writers can see what is on the shelf now. A second shop is at New Bahru on Kim Yam Road.

Basheer stocks books and magazines on design and art, from architecture and photography to fashion and sketching.

Union Book Co has sold Chinese-language books since 1952, and its flagship here carries more than 30,000 titles, local Singapore Chinese publications among them. The shop holds talks in Chinese.

The Hungry Traveller deals in rare cookbooks, food ephemera, antique travel writing, and historic maps. Its food books date from the early 1700s to the 1960s.

TrendLit Publishing runs Sea Breeze Books, which stocks literature and humanities titles from Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. It also produces a podcast and a literary zine, Oddilogues.

Littered with Books opened in 2010 in a two-story shophouse. It carries literature and nonfiction from Singapore and abroad, with modern first editions and a large children's section.

Sing Lit Station's space on Dickson Road takes visitors Monday to Thursday afternoons. You can rent it for office or event use.

The Book Council holds Writers Lab talks in its Training Room at Goodman Arts Centre, and it rents out its space.

Atlas Coffeehouse is a café in the Bukit Timah neighborhood. It is closed Mondays.

Postboy Coffee is a café inside the I'mable Collective space at Enabling Village. Time Out lists it among work-friendly cafés and notes plenty of power sockets. The café also runs workshops, and you can send a postcard from it.

The Writers Bar, in the Grand Lobby of Raffles Hotel, honors the writers who stayed there, Kipling and Conrad among them. Somerset Maugham put the hotel's Million Dollar Cocktail into his story "The Letter." Raffles also runs a Writer's Residency, and Pico Iyer was its first resident. Guests must be 18 or older.

Violet Oon's National Kitchen serves Peranakan and Eurasian food on Level 2 of the City Hall Wing at National Gallery Singapore. Downstairs, the Gallery Store sells art books.

EMPRESS is the restaurant on Level 1 of the Asian Civilisations Museum, on the Singapore River. For something quicker, Privé ACM is a casual all-day café on the same floor.

Book Bar is an independent bookshop with a café and bar, and it focuses on local writers. Order a coffee or a pot of loose-leaf tea and stay a while.

Arts House Group organizes this multilingual festival in November. Crime and fantasy share the program with poetry and translation, and there are workshops and literary walks. Sessions take place at venues such as Victoria Theatre and The Arts House.

Sing Lit Station is a registered charity that serves Singapore's writers and readers. Its programs include the SingPoWriMo writing challenge and an annual Manuscript Bootcamp. With the National Arts Council and SMRT it runs Poems on the MRT, and it keeps the poetry.sg archive online. AFTERIMAGE is its publishing arm.

The Singapore Book Council runs the Singapore Literature Prize and the Hedwig Anuar Children's Book Award. Writers and translators can apply to its SBC Mentorships and the Malay Writers Residency. Translators also have SALT, the Singapore Apprenticeship in Literary Translation.

The Singapore Book Council holds this festival every year for people who make children's and young adult books. Writers can bring a project to the Writer's Pitch, and illustrators can have their work seen at the Illustrator's Portfolio Review. The Hedwig Anuar Children's Book Award is part of the festival program.

The Arts House occupies Singapore's Old Parliament House, built in 1827 and now a National Monument. It hosts book launches and literary festivals, the Singapore Writers Festival among them. Arts House Group runs its Literary Fellowship from here.

The Asia Research Institute supports historical and contemporary research on Asia in the social sciences and humanities. It holds seminar and lecture series and offers visiting positions. PhD students and recent graduates can apply to the Singapore Graduate Forum on Southeast Asian Studies, and early-career scholars to the ARI-Luce Southeast Asian Studies Collaboratory.

The ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute studies Southeast Asia, with research programs that run from regional economics to strategic and political studies. Visiting scholars come through the Wang Gungwu Visiting Fellows Programme, and its library and archives hold private papers and photograph collections. ISEAS Publishing issues books and journals, Sojourn and Contemporary Southeast Asia among them.

The Social Science Research Council funds social science and humanities research. Its Thematic Grant backs research of strategic relevance to Singapore and Asia. Early-career Singaporean academics at local universities can apply for its Research Fellowship, and Singaporean PhD and postdoctoral researchers overseas can apply for the Graduate Research Fellowship.

NUS Press is the academic press of the National University of Singapore. It publishes social science and humanities books on Asia, along with general nonfiction. Life writing is one of its subjects, and its series include Singapore Studies in Society & History and Gendering Asia.

Ethos Books has published literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry since 1997. It is an independent Singapore press and an imprint of Pagesetters Services.

Epigram Books began in 2011 to publish Singaporean literature and has since widened its list to Southeast Asian writing. Its more than 350 titles range from novels and graphic novels to memoirs and cookbooks. The press runs the Epigram Books Fiction Prize.

ACS Nano is an American Chemical Society journal, launched in 2007, that publishes nanoscience and nanotechnology research, including work on nanomedicine and energy. Its editor-in-chief, Xiaodong Chen, is at Nanyang Technological University. Preparing an article for ACS Nano

The Singapore Book Council runs this biennial prize for books by Singapore citizens and permanent residents. It gives prose and poetry awards in each of Chinese, English, Malay, and Tamil. Memoir counts as prose. Books for children have their own prize, the Hedwig Anuar Children's Book Award.

The National Arts Council's Creation Grant helps Singapore citizens and permanent residents with a strong track record develop new work, in genres that include fiction, poetry, graphic novels and translation. Its Publishing Presentation & Participation Grant supports the publication and translation of literary works. Authors and publishers can apply for it.

The Writers+ Grant pays part of the cost of developing a manuscript for Singapore citizen and permanent resident writers and translators aged 18 and over. That can mean an editorial assessment, a short course, or travel to a residency or festival you have been invited to, and translators can use it for a sample translation. CLASS, the Copyright Licensing and Administration Society of Singapore, offers it with the Book Council.

This three-month residency gives emerging published writers from Singapore and Southeast Asia time and space to write, with mentorship and financial support. Arts House Group runs it with the Singapore Writers Festival.

This page gathers grants and writing resources for students at Nanyang Technological University.

Students at the National University of Singapore will find the same kind of guide here.

Singapore Management University students have a page of their own.

Objectifs, the Centre for Photography and Film, runs a three-hour hand-bookbinding workshop taught by the artist Ng Hui Hsien. You learn four bindings, pamphlet and four-hole stab among them, and take a tool kit home.

Bynd Artisan makes leather and paper goods and runs bookbinding workshops. At its Notebook Corner you choose the covers and paper for a custom-bound notebook. This shop in Raffles City is open daily, and there are others at Holland Village and ION Orchard.