Monsters Under The Bed (2006 - 2016)

This is where real creative writing takes place.

We train our students to find their inner voice and equip them with the techniques to articulate their thoughts through the written word.

​Forget about blindly copying off textbooks. That's not how we do it here.

​Our students are immersed in a gamified learning environment where they get to broaden their perspective of life.

I founded Monsters Under the Bed with the vision that every child needs to be given a chance to think creatively. Established in 2006, the company offered programmes that were unique and refreshing in an education landscape dominated by tuition centers. I found that students were enthusiastic about writing but many didn’t know how or where to start. Memorizing “best essays” and writing from a proven template was what most local students have come to equate creative writing with. 

Creativity was a dying trait. 

Monsters Under the Bed spent the early years building a brand for its creative writing programmes with public schools. Two years later, the StoryCraft Writing Programme was recognized by the National Arts Council as an Arts Elective Programme.
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In 2008, together with writers Adeline Foo, Felix Cheong and Aaron Lee, Monsters Under the Bed started Little Lit!, a fringe event in conjunction with the Singapore Writers Festival, targeting young writers who felt intimidated by the main event.

In 2009, Monsters Under the Bed published a monthly literary journal titled 19:49, that was distributed to all secondary schools. Within 18 months, the response overwhelmed the number of pages appropriate for a print journal. The youths were eager to be heard! 

In 2011, the company decided to take the content online and initiated the literary platform, The Budding Writers League. With the support of the National Arts Council, we grew the active membership based to 1,500 writers within the first six months of operation and launched our first anthology that sold out its first print run within the month. Local writers like Dave Chua, Jason Erik Lundberg, Damyanti Ghosh, Don Bosco and Eric Tinsay Valles were regular guests of the League.

In 2012, the league grew to become a self-sustaining eco-system with senior members mentoring junior members. Pioneering members took the lead to start special interest groups within the community. The company shifted focus to setting up an incubation platform within the league. This platform was designed to help serious writers improve their skills and find publishing opportunities.  Tabula Rasa (means “blank slate”, in Latin) was formed in 2013 and managed by writers for writers. The group aim to produce annual anthologies of its best works.

In 2013, Monsters Under the Bed partnered StarHub’s Booktique and was in-charge of its outreach programme to nurture new writers. The INK (stands for Imagination N’ Knowledge) project was conceived to give young students a chance at experiencing writing from beyond their school syllabus. The company conducted 6 national level workshops that year.

In 2014, the company pushed the boundaries of teaching by working with Leroy Lam, an English teacher from Macpherson Primary School, to develop Singapore’s first teaching tool that gamifies the classroom experience. The concept was showcased at MOE’s ExcelFest in March and was awarded an accolade for innovation.

​Crossing the 9th year mark in June 2015, and having made remarkable headway in the creative writing and thinking scene in Singapore, I handed the operational reins to my business partner, Anthony Seah, to focus on developing programmes for the next generation of children. Identifying a need for students to have strong values and positive mindset, I founded a new startup called Brain & Butter.

Brain & Butter, functioning as an R&D arm, would allow me to experiment freely with new concepts and study successful techniques that can work for the local market. Brain & Butter released a product in June 2016 called The Alpha Mind. ​

I officially stepped down from my role as a Director in September 2016, leaving behind a legacy spanning 10 years and 3 months.