Heads up: Singapore Writers Festival

Don't say I didn't warn ya: The Singapore Writers Festival kicks off later this week and I'll be speaking at two events.

1. Writecamp

On Saturday, 29 October, Dave Chua is putting together Writecamp, a free "unconference" --- think a Barcamp-style event focused on writing and publishing. It runs from 2 pm to 6 pm at the National Museum of Singapore, and I'll be telling some stories around the topic of "A day in the life of a travel writer".

The Eventbrite page for Writecamp has more information on all the talks and RSVP details. The exact time of my talk will probably be finalised only on the day itself (that's how these "unconferences" roll).

2. "Is Facebook killing the blog?"

On Sunday, 30 October, I'll be on a panel with Pat Law and Gilbert Koh about blogging, writing and, er, Facebook (the Facebook part was not my idea). The panel is at 3:30 pm at the Salon in the National Museum of Singapore (the big white colonial building along Stamford Road).

The official event description is here, to which I'll add that I'll probably say something about the place of long-form writing both online and offline, why writers (should?) blog, and how that fits in with all the other (fun) stuff writers can do online. I also promise to do my best not to get bogged down in a "debate" about whether Facebook is "better" than blogging.

The Writecamp event is free, while the blogging/Facebook panel is ticketed, which means for the latter you need to purchase a $15 Festival pass. It gets you in to all panel discussions, Meet-the-Author and In Conversation sessions and screenwriter events, so that ain't bad.

I'm still scanning the festival guide to see what other events I'll be attending, and I'll put up a post about that later this week. Sadly the Joe Haldeman seminar on writing science fiction I wanted to attend is sold out. My bad for procrastinating on signing up.

If you want to know what I look like, here's a short profile of me on the Singapore Writers Festival website. My hair is pretty long now, though, which tends to discombobulate friends when they see me for the first time since I got back from London. Hopefully it won't discombobulate the audience at either event.

Come by and say hello!

Edited to add (18 October):
I just found an error in my bio in the hardcopy festival guide (page 70). I do not currently write for Popgadget, Singapore Metblogs or Yesterday.sg, although I have in the past. The error seems to have been introduced when the original text I sent to the festival was edited.