Lee-ving a Legacy

“A love of words is not enough,” poet Dr Anne Lee Tzu Pheng cautions aspiring writers.

Literary Pioneer Dr Anne Lee Tze Pheng opened up about her struggles as a writer and teased an upcoming book at the 20th Singapore Writers Festival on Nov 5.

The poet, who has won awards both locally and internationally and was inducted into the Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame in 2014, discussed her personal life and struggles in a lecture titled “Not by Bread Alone or Choice”, which took place at the Parliamentary Chamber at The Arts House and was attended approximately 80 people.

“Do not write for any reason but that you need to search for your authentic self and writing is, for you, the only way to do it,” she said as she spoke about her struggles with writing, her Catholic faith, and her divorce while raising a young daughter. “If words are the very fuel of your life, you have to accept that they could burn you, and be a constant source of pain,.”

The lecture was moderated by student turned colleague at the National University of Singapore, Dr Gwee Li Sui, who hopes Dr Lee can inspire young writers to be patient with writing and let life shape and direct their art.

Members of the audience spent 15 minutes taking turns to ask Dr Lee questions about the writing scene in Singapore, as well as her personal views.

In an exclusive interview after the lecture, Dr Lee revealed that a new book is set to launch in 2018. It will be in collaboration with a local artist and will contain around 90 poems. She chose not to disclose who the artist is as she wants it to be a surprise. This will be the eleventh publication under her name.

Ben Lai, a member of the audience at Dr Lee’s lecture as well as “Anne Lee Tzu Pheng 101”, a poetry reading session conducted by Dr Gwee at the festival, said he would “definitely be interested to check it out” when the book is released.

“Dr Lee is one of the vanguards of the whole literary scene so she set the pace for a lot of other writers,” Caroline Wan, a member of the festival’s organising team, explained why they chose Dr Lee as the literary pioneer for the this year’s festival, which ran from November 3 to 12.

On top of her Literary Pioneer lecture, Dr Lee had an exhibition titled “Artist in Words”, which featured her best works and a glimpse at her personal life. It was held at Gallery II in The Arts House works and ran until the end of the festival on November 12.