Ng Yi Sheng


Ng Yi Sheng is a Singaporean gay writer. He has published a collection of his poems entitled last boy, which won the Singapore Literature Prize, and a documentary book on gay, lesbian and bisexual Singaporeans called SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century in 2006.

Early life and education

Ng lived in Hong Kong with his parents for three years during his childhood. On his return to Singapore, he attended the Anglo-Chinese School. He graduated from Columbia University, USA, where he majored in Comparative Literature and Writing. His writing teachers at Columbia University included Louise Rose, Steve Austin, Paul Violi and Timothy Donnelly. He completed an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in 2014.
Through the initiative of the Creative Arts Programme, he underwent mentorship schemes with the poets Lee Tzu Pheng and Angeline Yap, as well as worked on playwriting under Theatreworks' Greenhouse Project and The Necessary Stage's Playwright's Cove.

Publications

His poems have been published in the poetry anthologies First Words, onewinged, No Other City and Love Gathers All, as well as the journals the2ndRule, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Softblow, Quarto, Asian Journal and Queer. In 1998, he won first prize in the NUS Poetry Competition, and in 2003, fared similarly at the Writers' Week Poetry slam.
His performed plays include Serve, Snake, Redhill Blues, Hungry. One of his plays formed the core of Poetic Licence, a performance poetry production by STAGES presented in 2002 and 2005.
In August 2006, he published a collection of gay, lesbian and bisexual Singaporeans' coming out stories, SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century. In October 2006, he published his first collection of poetry, Last Boy, which won the Singapore Literature Prize.
In 2007, Ng completed his work on 251, a play about the life of Singaporean porn star Annabel Chong and Georgette, a musical about the artist Georgette Chen.

Performances

Ng performed slam poetry pieces for ContraDiction, Singapore's first gay poetry reading event held in 2005, and was a co-organiser and performer in its sequel, ContraDiction 2, in 2006.
He delivered a lecture on Western gay history during IndigNation 2006, Singapore's second gay pride season.