Judith Huang's Blog: Jud: The Blog, page 2
December 8, 2024
Perks of Being Dumped (Marshall Cavendish) is in bookstores!
Max Pasakorn, Ng Ziqin and I have been working on putting together Perks of Being Dumped: A local anthology of heartbreak writing since the Singlit Station cocktail party in 2023, and now it is out and in stores!
Exactly a year later we had a bespoke cocktail, “Before Heartbreak” made to celebrate the launch of the book during Singapore Writer’s Festival 2024 at Singlit Station. Here we are with the signature cocktail.
The book also made it to the Straits Times bestseller list! We are very proud of it, as it showcases new and established writers and flows very well – we’ve been told it’s a pageturner!
You can purchase the book from Kinokuniya Singapore here, or at Amazon here, or in good bookstores in Singapore. There will also be an Australia launch of the book in Feb 2025.
Happy reading!
August 12, 2024
Scarce City coming to National Gallery Singapore!
Scarce City, the interactive artwork that I’m writing for, has been granted a run at National Gallery Singapore starting Jan 1, 2025! This is really exciting and thanks to the tremendous efforts of Elizabeth Mak, Rainshadow Studios and the entire team that has been behind this extremely innovative light-based game. I am currently working on a new iteration of the script now, and watch this space as we have more updates! Learn more about Scarce City here
[image error]I’ll be featuring at Perth Poetry Festival 2024!
This is the first year I’ll be featuring at Perth Poetry Festival, and I’m so excited to share my events!
13 August 2024: Poetry Mosaic
6:30 PM – 8:30 PM, Centre for Stories
I’ve been privileged to be part of the Ink and Echo group that has met at the Centre for Stories over the past few months, and we are showcasing new work written at the sessions at an exciting group reading called Poetry Mosaic! I am reading “A woman created the world”, “Labyrinthine” and “I saw a forest on her chest”, and I plan to memorise “A woman created the world” with actions from the tradition of Chinese storytelling which would be a first for me!
Tickets here.
18 August 2024: Translating Blind Poetry Workshop
11:30 AM – 1:00 PM, State Library of Western Australia, North West Room
I’m really excited to be holding my first ever poetry workshop here in Perth! I have taught in many places but not this city and I’m really hoping it will be a success!
In this workshop participants pretend to translate a poem from a language they don’t know to trick the mind into producing an original poem. In a fascinating exercise using cognates shapes of words and your imagination produce a brand new work with a foreign poet’s work as a jumping off point. The facilitator will provide prompts along the exercise to guide you and as an experienced translator show you that languages are not as different as you might think even if you don’t know them.
Tickets: https://events.humanitix.com/ppf2024-workshops
20 August 2024: Perth Poetry Festival Micro-Residency
I’ve been selected for a micro-residency that will take place in Northbridge, so I will be at the WA Poets’ Northbridge office for half a day writing love poetry set in the area and responding to the music of the city.
25 August 2024: Perth Poetry Festival Finale
7:30 PM, Jonesway Theatre Northbridge
Finally, I will be reading the new work produced at the Micro-Residency at the Festival Finale that wraps up the festival! There is a stellar line up of other poets at this event and it will definitely close with a bang! Do come along for this and come hear my new work!
[image error]January 14, 2023
Protected: Scarce City: Coming Soon!
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Scarce City: Coming Soon!
I’m really excited to announce that I’ve been working with Rainshadow Studios as the writer for Scarce City, an immersive strategy game coming to Singapore in March 2023! Part-art and part-climate-change-education, Scarce City leverages the power of games and immersive theatre to build new perspectives on sustainability and climate change, encouraging people to reflect on how our narratives around short-term needs can sometimes limit us from seeing changes required for long-term sustainability.
This has been a fun experience for me, working on the script and worldbuilding for the game alongside composers, engineers and theatre folk including Elizabeth Mak the director to create a truly immersive and thought-provoking production! I look forward to seeing the in-person, escape-room-esque set up when it fully comes to life!
Judith’s 2022 in Books
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2022 was full of good books for me. It was the year I got really into John Le Carre, as befits our increasingly geopolitically complicated world. I read The Looking-Glass War, Our Game, The Night Manager, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Constant Gardener and Silverview all in the same year, after getting hooked on The Spy who came in from the cold in a beautiful vintage edition I borrowed from my friend Anne which belonged to her father. Of all the books, that one is still my favourite, with The Night Manager being a close second. I love his insights into a certain class of Brit and their codes of honour, as well as all the twisty plots, of course. In my more grandiose moments I think myself capable of writing a spy thriller, then I crack open another Le Carre and think to myself, nah, I don’t think I’m quite qualified enough to do it!
The one novel which gave me the heady sensation of reading deep into the night and not being able to put it down was a new release by Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. I was attracted to its beautiful cover and Shakespearean title, but also picked it up because it is about game developers, and I kind of feel like I willed myself into their world this year with my VR artwork showcase in PICA and upcoming other projects in the games world and virtual reality. The book itself had stunningly well-rounded characters, and is a moving portrayal of friendship and work mates in the millennial all-consuming ideal career of literary games. It isn’t a romance, but it is about love, says the back cover, and I have to agree. It was unputdownable for me. Another book that took me by surprise and had me turning pages was The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, so much so that I picked up his Reasons to Stay Alive, which was also an excellent book and pretty much does what it says on the tin.
The non-fiction title that stood out for me this year was Indelible City by Louisa Lim, a loving portrait of Hong Kong in an age of protest written by one of its native journalists (even though she has a disclaimer that she was always a bit of an outsider, she did grow up there). The most memorable thing about this biography of a city has got to be the King of Kowloon, an enigmatic artist who graffitied the city in his lifetime with land claims that resonate more and more given the contested nature of the former British colony.
I always allow myself a few re-reads in a year, and this year it was the irresistible Normal People by Sally Rooney, which I consider a perfect book. I also read Beautiful World, Where are you? By the same author, but it paled in comparison, especially with the clunky insertion of the pandemic in its final pages which felt like an unnecessary add-on. I was watching the new BBC adaptation of Normal People while doing my re-read and it is very true to the book, and also very sexy.
I also re-read Emerging Viruses by Leonard Horowitz, a very topical book which I prophetically found myself reading on the eve of the pandemic in 2019 and wanted to review, The Freedom Artist by Ben Okri (an amazing book), The Idiot by Elif Batuman (utterly hilarious, though her follow up Either/Or flailed around in the same territory quite unnecessarily), and Contact by Carl Sagan. The Pratchetts I re-read this year (can there be a pandemic year with no Pratchett re-reading?) were Reaperman and Hogfather, both of the Death subseries of the Discworld novels. I also re-read Feet of Clay, maybe my favourite of the mysteries the Watch ever solve.
In poetry, I had the pleasure of reading the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, trans-created by Ursula Le Guin. What an amazing translation! Given that everyone translating this ancient text has to consult several reference books and other translations and dictionaries, I didn’t find the fact that Le Guin didn’t know Chinese to be that objectionable. More to the point, she understands Daoism. (Her science fiction certainly shows it!) I had a good year with Ursula Le Guin too – I started the year off with The Lathe of Heaven, a twisty psychological specfic about a man who can change reality when he dreams it, and ended it with the Word for World is Forest, in a lovely yellowing paperback borrowed from my friend Liana.
Speaking of Liana, as in Liana Joy Christensen, I read her poetry collection Wild Familiars for a second time this year and found myself resonating very much with it again. And another standout book of poetry for me was Blue Horses by Mary Oliver, who is always a poet who can put true things so simply and yet clearly that you couldn’t imagine any other words would do better.
I’m not a huge fan of short stories and my reading list shows it, but I have to mention Dead-End Memories by Banana Yoshimoto. I had heard of this Japanese writer before, but I am so glad I tried her short stories because they were piquant, quietly observant and delicately moving. The book was a page turner and so wise about a very stable world that nevertheless contains heartbreak.
In Jungian news, I re-read Listening to the Rhino by Janet O’Dallet, a Jungian psychoanalyst. Its creative treatment of trauma and storytelling was healing for me. I also re-read Dream Animals by James Hillman which is a beautifully illustrated work about the psychological significance of different animals of the imagination.
And finally let’s not forget the science fiction. The scifi novel that stood out for me this year was Pattern Recognition by William Gibson for the effortless cool of its protagonist, Cayce. I had bought this book a few years back on the recommendation of the Weird Studies podcast which I listen to religiously but hadn’t cracked it open til this year. And I was immediately plunged into the intrigue of the early 2000s internet culture and its forums and obsessions. It’s actually quite light on speculative elements, and is also a clearly post-9/11 novel that carries the melancholy that descended with the dust of the twin towers – Cayce’s father disappears the day of the attacks.
I could just as easily have said this was the year of Shaun Tan as of John Le Carre; I re-read many of his picture books, from The Red Tree to The Rabbits. I also treated myself to revisiting Roald Dahl classics for children that I had read decades ago – The Witches, Boy, The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Fantastic Mr Fox.
All in all, I read 86 books in 2022 and I’m quite pleased with myself for mixing new releases with old favourites and classics. These are by no means the most acclaimed books that came out this year, merely my personal favourites and those which resonated with me in my life. I decided to write this just to remember what I read and my impressions and also for anyone who’s looking for a good read in 2023!
November 2, 2022
Upcoming Appearances: Singapore Writer’s Festival and Perth Games Festival
I will be participating in the panel Anthology of Modern Anxiety on the 6th Nov 2022, Sunday, 7.30pm to 8.30pm (SGT) at The Arts House, Chamber Featuring: Jon Gresham, Aditi Shivaramakrishnan, Jinny Koh, Judith Huang (virtual) Moderator: Khoo Sim Eng. It should be an interesting conversation about technology and our present anxieties!
I will also be showing Marcus and the Shadow at Perth Games Festival on Nov 19th 2022 at the Perth Town Hall with my collaborator, Stacey Fazackerley. Come down and see the exhibits if you’re in town!
My story Dark Chocolate is up on QLRS
My short story, Dark Chocolate, about a grandmother having a 3D avatar made of herself, is now up on QLRS and can be read here. This was a fun one to write, inspired by an actual technology that will probably be in museums in the near future. Enjoy!
October 7, 2022
I’ll be at the ICFA this weekend!
I’ll be representing Chinese SFF translators of the seminal volume The Way Spring Arrives at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, a virtual conference this weekend, October 7-9 2022. I have a panel discussing translating Chinese Science Fiction! The whole program can be seen here.
Here’s the details of my panel:
Creative Panel – Translating the Fantastic – Creative
Discussion on The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories
Host: Regina Kanyu Wang
Emily Xueni Jin
Judith Huang
Yilin Wang
Cara Healey
Sunday, October 9, 2022, 10:30 a.m. – 11:40 a.m EST
Really looking forward to it!
September 3, 2022
VR Experience Marcus and the Shadow coming to PICA!
I’m so excited to announce that PICA, the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, has commissioned me to make a VR artwork based on my (unpublished) picture book and painting sequence Marcus and the Shadow! It will be part of the XR:WA festival that brings VR, AR and MR creators and professionals together in Perth.
Marcus and the Shadow follows the story of a young boy who meets his Shadow, a black winged lion that haunts him. He must learn to cope with difficult emotions like grief, sadness and despair in order to learn to ride astride his Shadow. Initially created as a picture book with fountain pen illustrations, the VR presentation creates an immersive environment with soundscapes and interactivity, to portray a message of hope and resilience against the odds. Made with Unity Developer and real-life VR wizard Stacey Fazackerley and New York composer Sam Torres providing a haunting track ’18’, as well as poetry sung by myself and stunning 360 degree visuals.
Here are some screenshots and some of the paintings that this experience brings to life!
It was an absolute pleasure working with PICA, the VR/AR mentors and Stacey and Sam on this artwork, and Sofia and the Utopia Machine is even an easter egg in the VR experience! If you get a chance to see this, do have a look inside one of those sneaky drawers…
