Thought SPWM 2026 was over? 

Surprise! SPWM Mag is back!

/Issue ⑪

It’s your editors, Chrystal and nor! 

In each of these three issues, we hope to reflect on the behemoth that is SingPoWriMo--a huge shoutout to the wonderful folks at SLS and team of junior mods for making this hectic month of writing possible, as well as every participant, whether you shared thirty poems on Discord, or attempted the prompts in the privacy of your notebooks! In particular, we want to highlight the rich variety of work that participants have come up with, as well as the larger writing processes that SPWM plays a part in. 

As two first-time senior mods, we were fascinated not only by how expansive the prompts were, but also the wide range of responses that writers came up with. We were also interested in the themes that recurred across prompts--all independently designed--as well as the common threads that arose in poems responding to seemingly unrelated prompts. 

For this first issue, we wanted to take a closer look at how the daily writing prompts came to be. We invited our fellow senior mods to join us in providing a behind the scenes peek into this process; in a serendipitous fashion, we selected prompts from each of the three prompt categories this year: sponsored prompts (Shivram on Day 17: The Big Debut Prompt), prompts inspired by our writing interests and practices (Kimberley on Day 29: The I Have Loved Everyone I've Met Prompt, and Sher Ting on Day 20: The Artsy Prompt), and prompts derived from our debut collections (nor on Day 4: The Lost in Translation Prompt, and Chrystal on Day 12: The Strawberry Prompt). 

In these mini Q&As, we asked senior mods to share how they conceptualised each prompt, the types of responses they were expecting, and any poems that surprised them. We also highlight some memorable poems, as well as lines that each senior mod wished they wrote! We hope you’ll enjoy this brief peek behind the curtain, and a view of the month from the senior mods’ eyes. 

(need to add a note about prompt generator) 

Prompt generator on the website: https://www.singlitstation.com/singpowrimo

Day 1 - 6

nor (they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist whose works situates identity and community within speculative timelines through frameworks of gender performance, ethnographic portraits and transnational histories. nor is the author of homesick (Ethos Books, 2025) and Ginsberg, sing me jiwang song! (AFTERIMAGE Press, 2025).

Day 13 - 18

Born in Chennai, India, Shivram Gopinath is a two-time Singapore National Poetry Slam champion who enjoys facilitating workshops on poetic voice and expression. His debut collection, Dey (Ethos Books, 2025), draws on Tamil cinema tropes to reflect on the absurdities

Day 19 - 24

Sher Ting is Bread Loaf Conference, Kenyon Review Winter Workshop and Tin House Winter Workshop alumni. She has work published/forthcoming in Plougshares, Prairie Schooner, Pleaides, Ninth Letter, Gulf Coast, AGNI and elsewhere. Her full-length poetry collection, Burn After Dawn, is published with Landmark Books. She tweets at @sherttt and writes at sherting.com

Day 25 - 30

Kimberley Chia Qin (she/her) is a writer and performance artist who seeks to nourish and archive. Her poetry has been published in ANMLY and Sine Theta Magazine, among others, and has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and Best of Net. She debuted her multidisciplinary spoken word and dance set at triple bill Out and Up 2025, and her debut poetry collection Hot Girls Have Stomach Issues was launched in April with AFTERIMAGE Press!