O Thiam Chin

Introduction

O Thiam Chin is a short story writer and novelist from Singapore. His work has been published in "Granta," "The Cincinnati Review," "Washington Square Review", "Mānoa," "The Brooklyn Rail," "World Literature Today," "The International Literary Quarterly," "Asia Literary Review," "Kyoto Journal," "The Jakarta Post" and "Quarterly Literary Review Singapore." Thrice longlisted for the Frank O' Connor International Short Story Award, he is the author of six story collections, including "Love, Or Something Like Love," which was shortlisted for the 2014 Singapore Literature Prize. His debut novel, "Now That It's Over," won the inaugural Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2015 and the Best Fiction title at the 2017 Singapore Book Awards. He was an honorary fellow of the Iowa International Writing Program in 2010, and a recipient of the National Arts Council's Young Artist Award in 2012.

Resident planning

I plan to write a short story for a new collection titled "The Light and Air Between Us." The story will be part of a series that features protagonists who embark on personal journeys of self-discovery and growth, encountering new experiences that change them. As they travel overseas, they question aspects of their lives and reexamine what it is to live and find new hope and purpose. In the story, an elderly mother takes a solo trip to Taiwan and plans a visit to Jiufen. While travelling, she reminisces over her estranged relationship with her son — who has a lover in Taipei and hasn't been in touch for decades — and how her stern, taciturn ways in the past had created an unbridgeable chasm between her and her only child. Long-held pain and regrets begin to surface as she finds herself lost amid the crowds in Jiufen.