The bakery queue at seven
Kaya buns steaming, riders checking phones, aunties with canvas bags. Four out of six strangers nod when the door chime rings.
Read fragmentTiong Bahru · Singapore
Notes from a window desk in the city
Essays, city sketches, and reader letters — written slowly, published when ready.
I live on Yong Siak Street. Most pieces start on walks to the market or on the MRT. This site is my open notebook: fragments about hawker queues, borrowed books, and the weeks when I publish nothing at all.
Five small mercies
- Pavement smell after rain
- A novel finished between MRT stops
- Letters starting with "this may be strange, but"
- Tea poured twice before writing
- One walk home without headphones
"Rest is not the absence of work — it is the room work needs to mean something."Read essay
Three books that stayed
The Gift — underlined the same passage as ten years ago.
Letter from Jurong
Does daily writing make loneliness louder or softer? Some days, both.
Why I keep a paper calendar
Blank weeks on paper show life accumulating — doctor visits in pencil, Penang sketched in the margin.
Read note
I walk this block when a draft refuses to close. Light pools where shophouses meet the sidewalk.
Maya Tan
Former magazine editor. Notebook hoarder. Studio on Yong Siak Street.
Writing in public is an act of trust. Thank you for reading.
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Notes · City Fragments · Reading Log · Slow Seasons · Correspondence
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