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WENA'S ROAR TThe
well-composed and intelligent Wena Poon belies a fire within. She reveals how
she transformed from a shy little girl into the go-getting lawyer and writer she
is today.
TEXT SHANTI GANESAN While
other 14-year-olds were out engaging in the latest fads, Singapore-born writer/lawyer
Wena Poon was at home diligently working on a sci-fi novel. It appeared her being
accepted in Singapore’s Gifted Programme was already bearing its first fruit
of success. “Less than 10 of us were selected from my school,” she
says. “We were too young to know what it was all about. But then, looking
back as an adult, I realise that that was one of the great
things to happen to you as a 9-year-old because you’re put on a special
track.”
Today, 34-year-old Wena is a corporate lawyer specialising in international mergers
and acquisitions and capital markets, and a member of the New York and California
State Bars. She is also a writer and produces work in other genres alongside her
literary efforts. But until Wena was about 10 years old, she was very shy, timid
and a bit fearful. And only child till she was 11, she was shielded by protective
parents. The prodigy wasn’t able to truly explore her talents until much
later and Wena’s meekness offered her nothing but the ability to fade into
the background. “When I was about 14, I started having
a voice of my own,” she says. “The same group of girls were kept together and
we were all very bright. We were very competitive and I think we had a bit more
aggression and ambition than most girls our age. We just became more demanding
of what we expected from life,” she notes. “I was 14 when I wrote my first novel.
There was really nothing we couldn’t do. We always had a vision ahead of our time,”
she adds. | 
