By Yeow Kai Chai

Befitting his reputation as one of the promising multi-hyphenates emerging in Singapore's arts scene, as dubbed by a Straits Times reviewer, Myle Yan Tay moves fluidly and comfortably between genres and artforms.

If there's one thing which threads across his various practices, it's that these artistic expressions help him process complex emotions and thoughts experiencing injustices that happen to him, or around him.

Written in lean, unvarnished prose, his debut novel, catskull (Ethos Books, 2023), is a neo-thriller meets coming-of-age mystery about an alienated youth turned vigilante avenger. It garnered him a slew of literary accolades: Book of the Year and Best Literary Work at the Singapore Book Publishing Awards and a shortlisted finalist for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2024.

In the theatre scene, he is already a name to watch with his play, Brown Boys Don't Tell Jokes, which was produced by Checkpoint Theatre in 2023. It received four Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards nominations, including Best Production and Best Script. His new play, Statement Piece, will be staged in April 2025 by Checkpoint Theatre, where he is an Associate Artist.

An alumnus of Yale-NUS College and a recipient of an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he is also a movie buff and a comics book writer who has published various comics publications such as Through The Longkang and Putu Piring (2021). He is the co-host of the podcast, Comic Sans, the podcast about comics, for those who are sans knowledge.

1. What are you reading right now?
I am in between books currently, having just finished Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. Honestly, I don't know what I'll read next because that book stopped me dead in my tracks. It's a tough act to follow, when I've still got Akbar's poetic prose floating through my mind.

2. If you were a famous literary character in a novel, play or poem, what would you be and why?
Goldmund from Herman Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund. Forever wandering, impatient, looking for a thing that can't be found.

3. What is the greatest misconception about you?
Perhaps the biggest one I can think of is that I am a serious, dour person. My work is pretty morose and morbid, but neither of those adjectives reflect my personality. Occasionally, people who read catskull before meeting me remark some time into the conversation, "You're not like your book at all." 

4. Name one living writer and one dead writer you most identify with, and tell us why.
I don't know if I identify with any writer, living or dead, so much as I aspire to achieve their creative heights. For a living writer, Spike Lee for his ceaseless creative drive and consistent disregard for convention. For a dead writer, H. P. Lovecraft, for the imagination and elusiveness, not the racism/xenophobia/misogyny.   

5. Do you believe in writer's block? If so, how do you overcome it?
I do believe in writer's block but I don't think of it as an impassable wall so much as hurdle. The worst thing for me is to keep running into the hurdle again and again hoping I'll make it over. I always need to back up and get some distance. So usually, I take a long walk and talk to myself about the problem I'm facing. Ninety per cent of the time, I figure it out. The other 10 per cent, I take another walk the next day. 

6. What qualities do you most admire in a writer?
Diligence.

7. What is one trait you most deplore in writing or writers?
Whining! Whingeing! A writer is lucky to be writing, luckier still if they are read. Perhaps it annoys me because I am also prone to griping and grousing. And every time I find myself in that state of mind, I remind myself how grateful I am that I get to do this at all, that I have the privilege of putting my thoughts in sequence to get them out of my head.  

8. Can you recite your favourite line from a literary work or a piece of advice from a writer?
A former professor of mine, Matthew Goulish, said this to me once: "Every writer is co-writing." That altered my understanding of what the act of writing is. It's not an act of toiling away alone, siloed away from the world. I'm co-writing my work with every writer that I've read, with the community I surround myself with, and with past and future versions of myself. Knowing that released a great deal of tension when I sat down to write, because it's not just me here. I'm empowered by many, many other people, living and dead, who let me do this thing I love.  

9. Complete this sentence: Few people know this, but I...
…had a brief appearance on Singapore's version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (Kids Edition). I missed the timing on a question about Jack and the Beanstalk by a fraction of a second, so I didn't get to actually compete. But I was there.

10. At the movies, if you have to pick a comedy, a tragedy or an action thriller to watch, which would you go for?
I can't pick. The cinema is probably the place I feel the most alive and present in the world, so to exclude any genre would make me miserable. That said, my favourite things are usually comic tragedies or tragic comedies.

11. What is your favourite word, and what is your least favourite one?
Lately, I like the word, "purchase," as in to find purchase, to maintain a grip, avoid a fall.

My least favourite word is "just." I use the word far too often in my own writing so now I hate to see it. An indispensable part of my editing process is running a Find & Replace for the word "just" to see how many hundreds of times I use it when I didn't have to.

12. Write a short-short story in three sentences that include the following three items: craniology, Cloud Gate, creator.
"We watched our reflections dart across the chrome of Cloud Gate, wondering whether its creator expected us to look at his sculpture or ourselves. I walked like a duck through its arch, leaving you behind. Above me, in the silver, my skull stretched long, craniology be damned." 

13. What object is indispensable to you when you write?
A notebook, of any size.  

14. What is the best time of the day for writing?
The hour right after I wake up.

15. If you have a last supper, which three literary figures, real or fictional, would you invite to the soiree, and why?
Naomi Klein, Amitav Ghosh, Ta-Nehisi Coates. I have been thinking about Klein's The Doppelganger, Ghosh's The Great Derangement, and Coates' The Message lately and I would give my right hand (or someone else's) to hear the three speak on the environment, Gaza, and the purpose of writing.  

16. You graduated recently with the Master of Fine Arts in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. What have you learnt about the do's and don'ts of creative writing from the course, and which you are applying to your projects such as your novel-in-progress The Motherland Philharmonic?
The most productive class I have ever taken was The Pragmatic Approach with Sara Levine. It was almost a form of therapy, where I realised how much of my existing creative practice was toxic, unproductive, and not conducive to better writing. It's hard to sum up a semester worth of self-discovery but my biggest takeaway was to treat my writing like a form of physical exercise. It's not about how much I can run or lift in a single session; it's about growth over a sustained period of time. 

I realised every time I sat down to write The Motherland Philharmonic, which has been shelved for the time-being, I sat down with the intention of finishing the novel. That was a gargantuan, impossible task that left me demoralised at the end of every session and forced me away from the book for weeks at a time. Instead, I now do a little bit every day. It has not only improved my writing, but it has also made me much happier. 

17. What would you write on your own tombstone?

He kept wandering.
Maybe he found what it was.
Maybe he didn't.

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