I received a few emails when I was told that I was shortlisted for the award. One of them said to make a one-minute speech, in the event I won. I knew I would be an anxious mess, so I thought that I would prepare for it. It seemed a little presumptuous at the time, but I knew that I would be nervous.
Anyway, I wrote the speech. I’ve been told that it resonated with a lot of people, so I’m posting it here. You can read it below.
Honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen.
I cannot tell you how grateful I am to win this award.
I believe I speak for most writers here when I say that I do not write for awards and accolades. I have found great satisfaction in doing the work, tedious though it may be. Making good art is an achievement in and of itself and I’m proud that I have published a book.
All throughout my life, I’ve encountered naysayers who have scoffed at what I wanted to do, and I learned to hide the fact that I write because writing was deemed a dirty habit.
I have lost count of the number of times that people have laughed at, scoffed and made fun of my work in some way.
They have said, “Xie zhe me duo na ni you qian zhuan?”, which can loosely be translated as, “You’ve written so much, but where’s the money?” Hearing this and other cutting remarks made my journey more difficult, but I wrote and I knew I had to protect this seed of creativity, even if it was not going to make me as much money.
This is why we write: we write because we have stories to tell, and protecting the integrity of these stories is the most important thing.
But this award is not for the naysayers. It’s for the people who helped along the way.
It’s for Miss Kwok, who read out my essay in class, Mr Sng, who supported me by signing me up and bringing me to a writer’s camp. It’s for Dr Jenn Crawford, who saw the rawest version of Dragonhearted, and eventually, Mr Spencer, who came to my book launch.
This award is for my friends Jean and Rachel, who took the time out of their busy schedules to read through the first pages of my book and give criticism. It is for my editor, Daphne, and publisher, Scholastic, who provided support in so many ways, and for my illustrator, Hwei Lim, for illustrating the book. This award is for those who came to my book launches and the bookstores who provided me with the infrastructure for my book launch. It is for the booksellers—shoutout to my friend Anthony, who stocked my book in their stores, even when he was losing money. It’s for Dr Sam Cahill who put my book on the literature syllabus at NTU. This award is also for Vanessa, who makes an effort to look for my book at Kinokuniya even though she already has it.
More importantly, this award is for the crying ten-year-old girl who has just been told that her story deserved a failing grade because writing was supposedly a foolish endeavour.
It ain’t foolish, now. The journey is far from over. Onward to more books and fighting the good fight for our stories to be heard.
Thank you once again.
The featured image is based on the book cover. Thanks to Anthony Koh Waugh for superimposing the text on the image.