CQT welcomes Tania De Rozario as writer-in-residence

Tania De Rozario, author of Tender Delirium (Math Paper Press, 2013), will spend five months at CQT working on a novella

Tania De Rozario is a Singaporean poet, novelist and artist. For five months to January 2016, she will also be CQT's writer-in-residence.

CQT issued an open call for proposals for its Quantum Immersion writer's residency, supported by Singapore's National Art Council. The call was for local writers interested in developing work that draws inspiration from the Centre's research.

Tania applied with a proposal to write a novella, provisionally titled Interventions, that borrows from quantum physics to inform both its narrative and its structure.

Her original concept is for the book's structure to reflect the 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum physics, which holds that observations of quantum systems are constantly creating new universes to account for all the possible ways those systems could behave.

"Interventions is a literary game-book written for adults, that takes the format of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. A popular children's genre from the 80s/90s, Choose Your Own Adventure novels were written from a second-person point of view, essentially turning the reader into the protagonist of the story," she said in her application.

Tania expects her research during the residency – through reading, attending talks, and meeting with scientists – to inform the development of the story. When she shared news of her appointment with friends online, she wrote "I am both thrilled and terrified at being given this opportunity to engage with a subject I find so complex and challenging, but also so fascinating and poetic." During her residency, Tania will also offer two public events.

Previous work by Tania includes the book Tender Delirium, a collection of poetry and short prose that was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize for poetry in 2014. She currently lectures part-time at Lasalle College of the Arts and conducts drawing workshops at The Substation. She is an alumna of other writer's residencies including Hedgebrook in the US and the Toji Cultural Centre in South Korea.

The Quantum Immersion writer's residency was launched under the Centre's outreach programme in 2014 with two appointments. Playwright Eleanor Wong took up the post of writer-in-residence. Her work "Initial Conditions" was staged by Cake Theatrical Productions in March 2015. Cartoonist Otto Fong was appointed Outreach Fellow to create a quantum addition to his children's series of "Sir Fong's Adventures in Science" comic books. That book will be launched in October 2015 during the Singapore Writers' Festival.

The goal of CQT's outreach programme is to engage the public in exploring the ideas CQT works on and their implications, with writer's residencies offering a way to create conversations around CQT research. The objective for these projects is to be inspirational more than directly educational, finding a place for science as a part of culture.