SMU Assoc Prof Kirpal Singh, who was a moderator at the 13th biennial Singapore Writers' Festival, says Southeast Asia should start to look at itself as more like the EU, as a real regional grouping so there will be Southeast Asian writers, rather than just Malaysian or Singaporean. Meanwhile Neil Gaiman, who was one of the highlights of the festival, had people queuing for hours just to get a ticket in his talks. One of them was 22-year-old SMU undergraduate Yi Xuan who came as a character from Gaiman's Sandman comics.