Hi Aswani! What was your background prior to enrolling in LASALLE?

I was a Writer-in-Residence for Buds Theatre Company for a while, where I wrote scripts for school and community theatre performances and ran playwriting workshops for the company’s youth theatre wing. Subsequently, I transitioned to the freelance world, taking up a few ad hoc theatre projects and commissioned works. I also branched out to explore directing for theatre and oral storytelling. Besides theatre, I taught English language and creative writing at enrichment centres.

When people ask you the world’s most annoying question — “what’s the book about?” — how do you respond?

In October 2019, I visited Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam with my classmates from LASALLE College of the Arts to attend the ANCER (Asia Pacific Network for Cultural Education and Research) Lab. Arts and cultural administrators, educators, and researchers in Southeast Asia came together to discuss the development of arts management and cultural leadership in the region. Through our site visits and conversations, a theme that stood out to me was the value of trust in an arts ecology.