Chris
Mooney-Singh was born in
1956 of Australian-Irish descent. He has worked extensively in
publishing, editing and education. He adopted Sikhism in 1989 and has
lived in various parts of India and Asia, including Singapore.
Mooney-Singh is well known for his research into sacred Sikh music and
its lost string instrument tradition, including recent honours in India
for the revival of the rabab, including as an accompaniment to Sikh
devotional poetry.
The founder of Poetry Slam in Singapore and
Malaysia, he has also published two joint collections of
poetry,
two chapbooks, co-edited
The
Penguin Book of Christmas Poems (1992) and has three
spoken word CDs, the latest being
Living
in the Land of the Durian Eaters.
Mooney-Singh is founding director of Lit Up, Singapore, a festival for
emerging writers and performers. In addition, he has also developed and
curates two virtual 3D arts communities at sikhlifeonline.com and
islandsofthearts.org. His poetry has featured online at Times Online,
Mindfire, Umbrella Journal, Cezanne’s Carrot, The Chimaera, Stylus,
Simply Haiku and QRLS. His first collection was
The Laughing Buddha Cab Company
(Word Forward Press, 2007). Chris Mooney-Singh has also appeared at the
Austin International Poetry Festival (2003), Man Hong Kong
International Literary Festival (2004), Singapore Writers Festival
(2007), Kuala Lumpur International Literary Festival (2008), Australian
Poetry Centre Festival (2010), Melbourne Overload Poetry Festival
(2010), Commonwealth Writers Festival, India (2010) and Taboan Writers
Festival (2011). He is a visiting scholar at Monash University.
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Biography