BACK in 1998, an anthology called More Than Half The Sky: Creative Writings By Thirty Singaporean Women received glowing reviews in newspapers.

Edited by poet and former National University of Singapore lecturer Leong Liew Geok, it has since been used as a textbook at NUS and Nanyang Technological University.

Almost 10 years on, however, Leong, 59, finds herself wondering why women are producing less than half the literature in Singapore.

'Today, ironically, there seem to be fewer women writers around,' she says.

Her view is confirmed by a glance through the local literature section at any bookstore or library, where nine out of every 10 Singapore books are by men.

Meanwhile, all 15 writers shortlisted for last year's Singapore Literature Prize (SLP) were men.

The desire to draw attention to scribes of the fairer sex is what pushed home- grown bookseller BooksActually and local arts venue The Substation to jointly organise How To Cook A Wolf: A Two-Step Women's Poetry Session, which will be held on Friday and Saturday.

Part performance, part bonding-session, it will feature established writers like Leong, who has two poetry collections under her belt, reading alongside younger voices like Teng Qian Xi, 24, who plans to publish her first collection next year.

Some aspiring poets, such as the youngest reader, Rachel Au-Yong, 17, even hope to catch the attention of a publisher.

'Apart from meeting the more experienced poets, I'd get to meet some of the publishers, too, perhaps show them my poetry and ask for their opinions,' says the Hwa Chong Institution student.

Her initiative is unusual for a young female writer, judging from the anecdotes of the other participating poets and local publishers.

Investment manager and poet Madeleine Lee, 44, has noticed that young women are more coy than their male peers when it comes to sharing their writing.

'Both boys and girls attend the workshops I conduct in schools, but when it comes to standing up to read or handing over their work, the girls normally fight shy,' says Lee, who has published two collections of poetry and co-written a third with playwright Eleanor Wong.

The poet admits that she herself considered getting published only in 2003, after more than 20 years of writing, when she joined a National Arts Council writing programme and was urged on by her mentor, SLP-winning novelist Suchen Christine Lim.

'Upon publishing my first book, I realised Suchen was right - she said I was ready and if I did not publish, I would never know where my poetry stood,' she says.

Ethos publishing manager Chan Wai Han notes that the predominance of published men might be the snowball effect of published male poets going on to recommend their friends, mostly men, to publishers.

However, one woman writer it has published recently is teacher Jasmine Seah, 24, who wrote the poems that accompany her friend Jennifer Koh's photographs in the book Light Is Like Water.

They pitched the book to Ethos because Chan is Koh's aunt.

'Some of my female friends write and have been published online. But when I asked them why they don't try pitching to a publisher, they usually say they don't feel the need to get published,' says Seah.

And even if a woman does pass a manuscript to a publisher, she is less likely than a man to commit herself to the inevitable editing and rewriting process, says publisher Enoch Ng, who has encountered such fickleness several times since he established firstfruits almost 10 years ago.

Though it might take more than a poetry reading to encourage women to stick through the year-long editing process, perhaps How To Cook A Wolf is the first step to getting them to share their writing in the first place.

Hazel Lim, 32, who is used to public speaking as a lecturer at Lasalle-SIA College of the Arts, confesses herself nervous over what will be her first poetry reading.

'Sharing my writing is just very intimate,' she says. 'For me, it is something private that is hidden in journals.'

How To Cook A Wolf will be held at Random Room, The Substation, on Friday from 7.30 to 9pm, and at BooksActually on Saturday from 2.30 to 5pm. Admission is free but donations are welcome. Wine will be provided on Friday and tea on Saturday. Call BooksActually on 6221-1170 for more details.

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