He teaches part-time at LASALLE College of the Arts and is guitarist for The Oddfellows, for whom he wrote and sang the hit "She's So Innocent".
As a 14-year-old, he was introduced to the music of Charlie Parker, Bob Dylan, and Joni Mitchell, and the literature of JD Salinger, Saul Bellow, and Philip Roth.
[5] Tan later attended Jurong Junior College and graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Literature in 1990.
In 1982, Tan was awarded a merit certificate for "Swan Leda" in the Shell National Short-Story Competition.
His novel All Broken Up and Dancing (1992) was originally a short story published in The Straits Times in 1985.