To proceed against caution, and dive deep into writing. That’s the spirit that the Asia Creative Writing Programme (ACWP) aimed to instil within writers during its annual Practitioners Day. 

On 12 July, writers from all walks of life gathered at The Arts House in Singapore to discuss writing along the theme of “Why Not?”.

Marylyn Tan, Cathy Park Hong, and Kamal Al-Solaylee convened for the opening panel, titled Proceed Against Caution. 

The writers opened by each reading a passage that they felt uncomfortable writing. 

Singaporean poet Marylyn Tan read from her non-fiction piece ‘Digital Disimpaction’, where she detailed being filmed against her will having sex in a school bathroom and then being expelled for it. 

American author Cathy Park Hong read an excerpt of her essay “An Education” from her collection Minor Feelings, where she includes a real-life argument she had with her friend about including her friend’s personal matters in the essay. 

Vancouver-based author Kamal Al-Solaylee read from his book Brown, which discusses what it means to be brown-skinned in today’s society. “How would I wash the brown away?” he asks.

All three speakers have written about topics seen as transgressive. With transgression, however, comes the question of censorship, self or otherwise. 

Tan feels that poetry is “naturally obscuring unless you make things plain” and thus eludes self-censorship. Her current manuscript, conversely, leans into memoir, where she, as part of the racial majority in Singapore, writes about the harm done to her by someone from a racial minority. Not able to fully “trust” herself, she consults sensitivity readers for this manuscript.  

Likewise, Hong struggles with writing about real people. “It’s not so much about provocation, but honesty. Am I being honest about their lived experiences?” 

This sense of responsibility towards others, she suggested, is emblematic of the contract between writers and the written. 

She explained the rationale behind including the conversation with her friend in ‘An Education’. “It was a clear line that my friend drew, and I couldn’t cross that line.” 

For Al-Solaylee, he is caught between the need to self-censor for survival and the desire to write what he wants to express. In Canada’s predominantly white publishing industry, he is compelled to make his messages more palatable. 

“Brown is the work of a younger person,” he admitted. “As you get older, you get more cautious.”

He pointed out how the conversation about race in North America has become more violent and toxic. Some of his considerations include: “Am I putting myself and others at risk?” and “What do I write about to still allow the white establishment to let me in?”

Hong agreed that the current industry is far from welcoming. “The Palestinian issue has become a taboo subject. You could be blacklisted, even before Trump, for making work about Gaza.”

As a tenured professor, she feels obligated to speak up because she has “less on the line”. 

“What happens, then, when artists are politically expressive but materially dependent?” asked Pooja Nansi, Singaporean poet and moderator of this panel. “How do you then tell the difference between thoughtful editing and making a decision out of fear?”

“Maybe I’m being stupid,” answered Hong, “but I don’t fear a lot. I keep touching [the sensitive topic].” 

What she does fear, however, is replicating the violence that is enacted on someone else.

“As a writer, America has a very violent history. I am attracted to writing about understanding the root of that violence. It’s always a negotiation between not sensationalising or making a spectacle of that violence.”

For Tan, there is a difference between social backlash – which she can tolerate – and institutional backlash, where her friends are cut off from opportunities and face unemployability. 

“You learn very quickly what the rules are, and what you can say.” 

Instead, she chooses to focus on “working within what we can say” and asking provocative questions to “start people on the path of questioning”.

This strategy is especially relevant for writers today, who are grappling with the impacts of AI on reading and writing.

Hong, who teaches creative writing at UC Berkeley, laments that her students are using AI. The increasing dominance of AI writing has perpetuated the assumption that writing should be transparent and frictionless, which “deeply offends” her.

Nansi argued that it is precisely because AI writing is transparent that it gives writers “a lot of power” now. “We still have the ability to be opaque in interesting and pokey ways – if you know, you know. You’re not necessarily knowing [that] I’m saying it, unless you’re reading it smart.”

She cited Édouard Glissant’s essay on the “right to opacity”, arguing that “everyone has the right not to be universally understood”. She stressed that writers should maintain and conserve opacity in their work by writing “slant”. 

Nansi suggested that unlike AI writing, “slant” writing can be difficult and dense. It can also use dialects instead of adhering to a homogenised, standard English. Most importantly, it can teach readers to think and be active participants in the reading process.

“AI wants you to not think,” she warned. “Opacity is a form of resistance and subterfuge.”