Amber Issue 1 - Feb 21

Foreword
The three of us all met at separate times, but two out of three of those initial encounters
were at MOE’s Creative Arts Programme, one of the few venues specifically catering
to and bringing together teenage writers in Singapore. It’s been a few years since then,
but not quite so long that we don’t remember what writing as a teenager was like. Messy,
sure, but also unapologetic, unfiltered, and real. Writing was something we clung onto
then (and now) to navigate complicated feelings, but there weren’t many opportunities to
connect with other people who did the same.
So during last year’s circuit breaker we set out to create a platform specifically dedicated
to spotlighting the young local voices, and the result was Amber: traffic-light ambiguity,
a preserving snapshot of life, the colour of EZ Links and MRT gantry lights. We didn’t
quite know where to start—we’d all been on the submitting end of journals, but never
at the helm of one—and we spent the first couple weeks of our submission window
worrying we weren’t going to get enough submissions to fill an issue. But they were
unfounded fears, in the end; we were spoilt for choice, and overwhelmingly grateful that
so many young writers had decided to trust us with their work.
And so, we present the inaugural issue of Amber. This Teenage Chapbook features
eighteen Singaporean writers aged fifteen to nineteen. Wander through the city with
churning thoughts in rochelle lee’s “SUNRISE.” and Tang Sumi’s “walking, unmoored.”.
Explore facets of loss in Isabelle Lim’s “Today Is A Good Day To Die”, Emmy Kwan’s
“funerals” and Khoo Yi Xuan’s “The Times We Shared”. From streetsides to dusty plains,
dining tables to laundrettes, classrooms to confessionals, these twenty-five pieces are a
journey of fierce, turbulent emotion. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we did.
Yours,
Wen-yi, Kimberley, and Christian
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