For a long time, the movers and shakers of Singapore’s literary scene have struggled with one major problem: how do we get a mercantile-leaning, brand-conscious society like ours to care about local literature?
Adam Tie found an absurdly simple, but never executed solution: you get to your readers through the brands they love.
Adam Tie is one of those subtly well-known figures – you might have known him from his hilarious yet beautifully poignant debut novel This Life Electric: The Ballad of the Haven, from his agency Encounters, which creates visual narratives for weddings and brands, or from his work as a live typewritten poet under The Novel Encounter, in which he has worked with brands including Leica, Mercedes Benz and Montblanc.
The Novel Encounter was his baptism of fire. Adam says. “So over seven years ago when I set out to start a business, friends in the industry advised me to create something that I’m passionate about. And that’s words, words, words. There’s a healing power to them when wielded correctly and sincerely. I just love storytelling, it doesn’t exhaust, it revitalises. I guess you could say it started out as a passion project and will forever remain that way.”
But it is, undeniably, an unorthodox enterprise to begin with, especially when most in the startup scene tend to lean towards food and beverages, fashion or social enterprises. When we asked if he received criticism from his family or the business community for starting The Novel Encounter, Adam replies, “I’m fortunate that I haven’t encountered (pun intended) much backlash to what I do. Of course, I get the occasional, ‘Eh so you’re like a human chat GPT ah?’ but nothing insulting thrown.”
He adds, “As modern-day souls, we should be comfortable about where our passions & comforts lie – wherever they may be.”
As writers ourselves, we have a profound respect for local poets and novelists, especially considering the sensibilities of our society. But the risk that Adam took when writing and publishing This Life Electric, which is about an introvert who returns to Singapore after years of avoiding his past, and finds himself in the heart of a party house, isn’t just monetary.
In writing it, he also makes himself vulnerable in other ways. He says, “It was my local rendition of my favourite novel The Great Gatsby, and I think almost everyone who read it told me that they saw a lot of my soul in it. Because that’s what I did. It was my debut novel, it was my soul and heart at once, it was the longest poem I’ve ever written.”
The fact that Adam is thriving in Singapore, where the literary scene has yet matured, where poetry and the arts were once considered ‘luxuries we cannot afford’ is testament to his hard work and the quality of his writing. But when we asked if poetry has value in Singapore, he argued for a reframing in perspective.
“I think poetry amd creativity have a place in every society because the unique human experience deserves to be documented and expressed in unique ways and shown to connect in the subtle similarities,” he explains.
“Maybe it’s just the poet in me talking, but don’t you think it’s the luxuries we don’t need to afford that help us feel the most free?”
