The 10-day Singapore Writers Festival closed with writers irreverently dissecting whether “True Art is Always Ugly” to an overflowing house at the festival's main tent on SMU's Campus Green. The festival, which concluded on Nov 9, saw more than 19,600 people participating in a record 280 events that featured over 200 writers from Singapore, Asia and around the world. More than half of the ticketed programmes were sold out, including workshops conducted by featured authors, a lecture by acclaimed travel writer Paul Theroux, the Balik Kampung Literary Walk, as well as Body X, an interactive bilingual murder-mystery production.