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From February to June 2025, for three hours every weekday, Ratna Damayanti Taha would open her laptop and work.<\/span><\/p>\n At 9am, once her apartment was quiet, the 44-year-old would sit at her kitchen island with a cappuccino \u2013 no sugar, lots of milk \u2013 and return to her manuscript.<\/span><\/p>\n She was working on her novel Mind The Gap, which follows Nora, an introspective Malay girl whose coming-of-age plays out against the expansion of Singapore\u2019s MRT system from the 90s to the present. As more train lines are added, she grapples with questions about meritocracy, race and how to chart her own path.<\/span><\/p>\n That manuscript won the 2026 Epigram Books Fiction Prize in January. The win, which came with S$25,000 and a publishing contract, still feels surreal, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n What felt more real was<\/span> the moment she submitted her draft.<\/span><\/p>\n In July 2025, Ratna carried five copies of her manuscript in a tote bag to the Epigram Books office\u00a0<\/span>in\u00a0<\/span>Toa Payoh North. After handing them over, she walked out to the open-air car park beside the industrial building.<\/span><\/p>\n Without planning to, she sat down and began to cry. \u201cIt was around 10am, and the heat was quite unforgiving\u00a0<\/span>\u2013\u00a0<\/span>one of those very bright, Singapore days,\u201d she recalled. \u201cIt felt very still, like the world had paused for a bit.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n She felt relief mostly, that she had made it to the end. And joy, as she had finally ticked off something that had been sitting with her since she was a child.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI was flooded with emotions,\u201d said the stay-at-home mother of four, who works part-time as an academic and market researcher, and freelance translator.<\/span><\/p>\n After she calmed down, she called her husband at work. \u201cI didn\u2019t really say much. I think I just wanted to hear his voice. That was enough.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Ratna\u2019s love for stories began with listening. Her father worked shifts \u2013 48 hours at work and the next 48 at home. When he was home, he would put Ratna and her brothers to bed and tell them bedtime stories he\u2019d improvised.<\/span><\/p>\n Her mother, who did not learn English in school, taught herself through public libraries\u00a0<\/span>\u2013\u00a0<\/span>borrowing Danielle Steel novels, cookbooks and children\u2019s books. She worked on her pronunciation by talking to their neighbours and watching Sesame Street and The Electric Company with Ratna.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\nTHE FIRST “TO-BE-READ-OUT” MOMENTS<\/span><\/h2>\n