Shiau is the author of
Heartland (1999),
Peninsular: Archipelagos and Other Islands (2000), and
Velouria (2007). The book received the
Singapore Literature Prize Commendation Award in 1998, together with
Alfian Sa'at's
Corridor.
Heartland was named by Singapore's English daily
The Straits Times in December 1999, along with
J. M. Coetzee's
Disgrace, as one of the 10 Best Books of the Year. In 2007, an academic edition of
Heartland was adopted into a textbook for Singapore secondary schools offering
English literature in their
GCE O-Level curriculum. In the same year,
Mediacorp commissioned the adaptation of
Heartland into a telemovie directed by
K Rajagopal.
Heartland, the telemovie, was broadcast in August 2015.
Peninsular: Archipelagos and Other Islands (2000) A year after
Heartland was published, Shiau released a poetry collection,
Peninsular: Archipelagos and Other Islands. Poems from
Peninsular have been included in several international and Singapore anthologies. Emeritus Professor
Edwin Thumboo wrote an essay about
Peninsular titled 'Time and Place: History and Geography in Daren Shiau's Poetry' in which he commented: "The incisive revelations of Shiau's work begin with the significance and the reach of his themes. Interrelated and overlapping, they explain both the intrinsic unity of his work and – for me at least – its importance in the present overall balance of Singapore literature in English".
Velouria (2007) and microfiction Velouria is a seminal collection of Singaporean microfiction, published by Shiau in 2007. In the same year, Shiau received the top prize in
The Straits Times’ inaugural microfiction competition with his story ‘Sedimentary’. ‘Sedimentary’ was included in the 2017 reprint of
Velouria. The title story of the book is named after a track by Boston-based alternative rock band, the
Pixies. Other stories in the volume were named after songs by artistes such as
My Bloody Valentine and
Thelonious Monk. In 2005, Shiau was first runner-up in the Golden Point Award creative writing competition for his short story,
Take Your Wings Off, I Say. Undeterred, he further truncated the story into a piece of microfiction which then anchored
Velouria. An editorial on Shiau's writing on
poetry.sg notes that his “wry observational poetry is transposed into [his] later collection of microfiction,
Velouria, which also maintains the elegiac quality of poetry, while combining the compression and suggestiveness of poetic language with the broader narrative and character developments afforded by prose”.
Other literary involvements Shiau has been invited to read in New York, Boston and London. He has been a guest writer at the
Melbourne Writers Festival, and the
Hong Kong International Literary Festival. His works have also been translated into several languages, namely Italian, German, Chinese, Malay, Tamil, and have been featured in cross-discipline public performances by other artists. In 2015, Shiau collaborated with indie band Riot in Magenta to present a performance at the
Esplanade Recital Studio as part of the
Singapore Writers Festival. Shiau has served as a writing mentor for the Creative Arts Programme administered by the
Ministry of Education, and the
National Arts Council's Mentor Access Project. == Conservation ==