Tan Hwee Hwee grew up in Singapore and the Netherlands.

Education:
She read English at the University of East Anglia, where she graduated with First Class Honours. She has a Masters in English Studies (1500-1660) from the University of Oxford and a MFA in Creative Writing from New York University.

Publishing and fiction-writing background:
Her short stories have appeared in PEN International, New Writing 6 ed AS Byatt and won numerous awards with the BBC. She published her first novel, Foreign Bodies (Penguin), aged 22, while she was still a graduate student at the University of Oxford. Foreign Bodies was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for being "the first novel by a Singaporean author to receive critical acclaim in the UK and the US". In 1997, she moved to New York to study creative writing at New York University. In 2001, she published her second novel, Mammon Inc (Penguin), which received widespread critical acclaim in Asia and spent over two months on the WH Smith Top 20 bestseller list in Asia. Mammon Inc was also adapted for the stage during the 2002 Singapore Arts Festival, where it sold out all its performances. She has appeared in Harper's Bazaar Asian "New Power Generation" issue for being one of the most influential writers in the region, and was featured in Elle's "Hot List" for 2002.

After she returned to Singapore in 2001, she worked as a reporter for the Business Times and later on became the Senior Writer at Twenty4Seven, a lifestyle and entertainment magazine.

She currently freelances as a journalist and has published over 50 freelance articles. Her credits include TIME, Harper's Bazaar, ELLE, the Far Eastern Economic Review and the BBC.

Tan has received numerous awards from the National Arts Council, the National University of Singapore, the New York Times Foundation and the British Broadcasting Corporation.

> How did you get started on this business of writing?

I started off publishing short stories overseas. I had my first story published in PEN International, and then also had stories broadcast on the BBC, and one of them won an award for being one of the best short stories broadcast on the BBC that year. I also submitted a short story to the Ian St James Award, one of the largest short story prizes in the UK, and I won one of the awards.

That's a good way for a writer to break in, to start publishing short stories in respected magazines and submitting them to prestigious competitions. Agents and publishers do look at short stories which are published in these magazines, so it is a good platform to get your work noticed.

> Any die-die must-heed advice for aspiring novelists?

I think that aspiring novelists need to realize that publishing is a business, NOT a non-profit enterprise designed to support artists. If your manuscript won't sell, it won't get published. I'm surprised that a lot of aspiring novelists don't make any effort to learn about the publishing industry - most of the aspiring writers I know have no idea how to get an agent or to get a publisher. And it's really not difficult to find out. If you go to Borders, there are a lot of books on how to find an agent or a publisher, so it's just getting down to reading those books - which you can do in less than an hour.  

> What specific skills have you garnered from your overseas education in Creative Writing? 

You realize that the greatest luxury a writer has is the time to write. I think a lot of Singaporean writers find it difficult to reach their full potential because they can't quit their full time job to write. Writing is an art like any other art form - you can be talented, but unless you are practising it 4-8 hours every day, you will not be able to compete on an international level.

I always say - don't do the crime if you can't do the time. It's no point trying to start a career as a published writer unless you're willing to put in 4 hours of writing a day, on top of having a full time job or juggling wife and kids.

So being a successful writer isn't just about talent - but also hard work, discipline and great time management skills!

> In an interview with Toh Hsien Min in QLRS.com, you expressed that you have no interest in Chinese culture.

I didn't really say that I had no interest in Chinese culture. I just said that I found Chinese music really boring. There's quite a lot of Chinese culture that is fascinating - I've recently taken up Zen fairly seriously and mediate for about an hour every day now. I find Zen philosophy very intriguing. Like the story of how a Master taught his disciple enlightenment by chopping off his disciple's finger.

> What would your ideal Singapore be like? And, what’s your idea of a splendid weekend in Singapore?

I'd like creative talent to be paid decent wages here. I get offered a lot of work in Singapore, but everybody wants me to write for free, which is why I end up working mainly for overseas publications.

The wages for talent in all the creative industries - from media to TV to film - are very low, so the drop-out rate for talent is very high. Also, the budgets are very low and the time limits ridiculously tight, so the burn-out rate is very high. I think Singapore would flourish a lot more creatively if employers didn't feel a right to work their staff to death. 

A splendid weekend:

I would get up, meditate, then go for a jog in the Botanical Gardens. After that I would write a bit, then maybe go and watch a movie with some friends. I live next to Borders, so I would probably go there and buy a book or read some magazines. I lead quite a simple Zen life and I enjoy that very much.

> Thank you