Epigram Books Blog

Catherine Nadira Tan is a public relations expert at Hedgehog Communications, and the author of Secrets of Singapore: National Gallery. An avid fan of architecture and art, it is no surprise as to why she chose to write about National Gallery Singapore in this newest installation of the Secrets of Singapore series.

In this interview, she paints the big picture on how her writing process behind her debut children's book was really like.

Fiona Foo is the founder of Hope Dog Rescue, a volunteer organisation that works towards fostering dogs and searching for their forever homes. Seeing how she's extremely passionate about saving as many strays and abandoned dogs that she can, it's hard to believe that Fiona used to suffer from a crippling fear of dogs.
Four years ago, she met Button, and a bond immediately forms between the two. Seeing Button's potential, Fiona decided to train her to become a therapy pet, and the elderly Schnauzer was soon visiting Hokkien patients at Assisi Hospice, bringing company and joy to their lives.  In her book Button: The Hokkien Therapy Dog, she tells their story. 

Stephanie Street is an actress and writer, born and raised in Singapore. She later moved to the UK, where she has been going from strength to strength. However,  back here in Singapore, Stephanie has been noted as the playwright who crafted one of the most sublime plays in recent years. Dragonflies captures the mood of the moment with its themes of dispossession, xenophobia and climate change.
It focuses on Leslie, who is forced to leave the UK after Brexit and make his way back to Singapore. However, the Singapore he encounters is vastly different from the Singapore he left behind all those years ago; and he is made to question the meaning of what is home, truly.
Here, Stephanie shares all about the wonderful world of Dragonflies.

Sonny Liew and Hsu Li Yang. One's an award-winning graphic novelist. The other is a doctor dealing with infectious diseases. Both are at the top of their game. 
So what do these two very different people have to do with each other? Well, Sonny and Li Yang have collaborated to come up with The Antibiotic Tales, a comic that dispels the myths and misconceptions about antibiotics, antimicrobial resistance and much, much more. Here, they share more about this new work. 

Maureen Yeo's debut children's book, The Great Singapore Poo Sale and Other Beastly Business, was inspired when, as a teacher, she realised her students had no idea that Singapore had a lot of indigenous wildlife, let alone endangered species among them.
In her new book, Make Animals Great Again and Other Creature Comforts, the animals are now looking for the next generation of leaders, but are having trouble settling on the right ones. It's the right set-up for another zany adventure with the wild animals of Singapore.

In her YA novel, Lion Boy and Drummer Girl, award-winning author Pauline Loh introduced us to the world of Leopop—where lion dance has become as popular as K-pop, with charming boys entertaining hordes of screaming fangirls. Now, Pauline returns to that universe once again for her follow-up, Lion Boys and Fan Girls. Two of the lion dancers—Prome (short for Prometheus) and Mercury (not short for anything)—are determined that their troupe, Lion Legends, be the pride of lion dance in the Lion City. So they both make a pact: no dating until they become the best that they can be. But even the best-laid plans can go awry. Pauline's imagination and creativity have been evident in her children's books,  (such as Robot in My Playground) and her non-fiction books (Keep Calm and Mother On), and here, she sheds light on the story behind the story of Lion Boys and Fan Girls.  

Ten years ago, while the world was wrapped in the hubbub that was Harry Potter, Suffian Hakim had a thought: what if Harry Potter was Malay and living in Singapore? What would his story be like? 
Now, he's gone back and revisited that story for this totally new edition. "Call it the 'author's cut'," he said. It features new material, with several of the plots updated and also includes illustrations from Muhammad Izdi. Here, Suffian shares his thoughts about magic, mayhem and Milo Dinosaur.