Berit Ellingsen helped select the prose. See her Cha profile.

Marc Vincenz was one of the two judges (along with Tammy Ho Lai-Ming) of "The Past" Poetry Contest. See his Cha profile.

Adam Radford lives and works in Hong Kong. He currently lectures part-time on Lifewriting at Lingnan University. He is also completing his Mphil in Cultural Studies, investigating protest as a folk expression, particularly in balladry. In 2011, he delivered a paper in Faro on subversion in Suzhou Kaipian. As a writer he is primarily a diarist, keeping journals for much of the last decade and beyond. This narrative has found its way into his poetry collection Man on the Pavement, a selection of his travel writings and musings. [Read]

Alice Tsay currently resides in Michigan. A native of California, she has taught English in Hong Kong and Taiwan and holds degrees from Amherst College and Oxford University. She is a staff reviewer for Cha. [Read] [Cha profile]

Andrew Barker holds a BA (Hos) in English Literature, an MA in Anglo/Irish Literature and a PhD in American Literature. His poetry has been published in Asia Literary Review, Fifty/Fifty and City Voices. Snowblind from my Protective Colouring, his first book of poetry, was published in 2009 by Chameleon Press, with the villanelle-sequence Everything in Life is Contagious performed at the Fringe Theatre as part of The Hong Kong Literary Festival. He operates the online poetry tuition site Mycroft. [Read]

Angela Tung's work has appeared in The Bellingham Review, Dark Sky Magazine, The Frisky, CNN Living, Matador Life, The Nervous Breakdown, and various anthologies. She has taught English in China, was a corporate cog in New York City, and now writes in San Francisco. She also blogs about words and language for Wordnik, an online dictionary. Her memoir, Black Fish: Memoir of a Bad Luck Girl, was a finalist for the 2010 Graywolf Nonfiction Prize. She is at work on a novel. Visit her website or follow her on Twitter for more information. [Read]

Ashley Dean writes poems and teaches in Suzhou, China. He grew up in St. Louis. He studied literature at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and Murray State University. Currently, he is working on a series of poems and paintings, and training for the Gobi March, a seven day race in the Gobi Desert. [Read]

Birgit Linder grew up in Germany and has lived in the United States, Taiwan, China and now Hong Kong. She is professor of Comparative Literary Studies at the City University of Hong Kong where she teaches courses in comparative literature and translation studies. Her research topics and publications include representations of madness in Chinese and other literary tradition, comparative Gothic literature, Medical Humanities in the Chinese context, and the literary relationships between Germany and China. She has previously published poetry in the International Literature Quarterly, Cerebration, Kavya Bharati, Clockwise Cat, Mad Poets Review and Cha. [View]

Currently an undergraduate student studying English Literature at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Brian Yang has lived and studied in America, China and Hong Kong. He loves literature, history and a sense of adventure. He will complete his BA degree next year at the Sorbonne in Paris as an exchange student. Immensely interested in languages and different cultures, Yang aspires to travel and learn as much as he can before he starts his first job. [Read]

Born in California in 1956, David Raphael Israel was educated at a small Quaker school.  He's written poetry from a young age. After studying classical Chinese at UC Berkeley, he pursued arts journalism, focusing on music. He wrote and edited at EAR Magazine (NYC), then moved to Washington, DC.  Emigrating to India (2007), he lived at Dhrupad Sansthan (a music school in Bhopal), returning to California in 2009. His ghazals are seen in Ravishing DisUnities and Here and Now: an Anthology of Delhi Poets. His experimental documentary, Padma Bilawal, was screened in Bangalore. Living in Los Angeles, he plays sarangi. [Read] [Cha profile]

Dorothy Chan recently graduated cum laude in English from Cornell University. She has started her MFA in poetry at Arizona State University. She was the 2011 recipient of the Corson-Browning Award for Poetry and the 2011 and 2012 recipient of the Robert Chasen Memorial Prize from Cornell University's English Department. She has six forthcoming poems in the winter 2012 issue of The Writing Disorder. Chan loves bold poetry—the bolder and unabashed and even cheeky, the better. She draws inspiration from her favorite places: art museums, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Ithaca. [Read] [Cha profile]

Eleanor Goodman (顾爱玲) writes poetry, fiction, and criticism, and translates from Chinese. Her work appears widely in journals such as Pathlight, PN Review, Los Angeles Review, Chutzpah <<天南>>, Pleiades,  Guardian and The Best American Poetry website. She is a Research Associate at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. Visit her website for more information. [Read]

Evelyn A. So is an MFA candidate in creative writing at San Jose State University. Her work can be found in Caesura, Red Wheelbarrow (National Edition), Reed Magazine and the anthology Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here. She is working on a poetry manuscript and essays and memoirs on art, culture and travel. [Read]

Isabel Yap was born and raised in Quezon City, Philippines. She is currently finishing an undergraduate degree in Marketing, with minors in English and Japanese Studies, at Santa Clara University, California.  Her poetry and short stories have appeared in the Philippine Speculative Fiction series, The Philippines Free Press, Lauriat and Santa Clara Review, among others. She was recently awarded an honorable mention in the American Academy of Poets Tamara Verga Poetry Prize. In her spare time, she likes to dream. Visit her website for more information. [Read]

James Valvis is the author of How To Say Goodbye (Aortic Books, 2011). His writing can be found in many journals, including Anderbo, Arts & Letters, Baltimore Review, Barrow Street, Juked, LA Review, Nimrod, Pedestal Magazine, Rattle, River Styx, and storySouth. His poetry has been featured at Verse Daily and the Best American Poetry website and his fiction has twice been a Million Writers Notable Story. He lives near Seattle. [Read]

Jeanne Morel writes poems and short prose pieces and is interested in fragments and collage, in arrivals and departures, and in the spaces and edges in between. Her chapbook That Crossing Is Not Automatic was published by Tarpaulin Sky. She holds an MA in South East Asian Studies from University of London School of Oriental and African Studies and is an MFA candidate in Poetry at Pacific University. In the mid-1990s, she lived in Cambodia and taught at the University of Phnom Penh. [Read]

Joanne Lee is a native of Chicago, Illinois where she currently practices law as a commercial litigator. Prior to law school, she graduated with a BA in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana, with a concentration in Asian American Studies.  Joanne's favorite poets include Ted Kooser, Kimiko Hahn and W.B. Yeats.  Although much of her current writing is catered towards the courtroom, she has been writing poetry and short-fiction since she was in high school. Her work was recently featured in Side B Magazine . Visit her website for more information. [Read]

Joshua Burns owes a lot to William & Mary, especially for his previous publication in The Gallery and indirectly for his forthcoming publication in elimae. His artistic sensibilities would not exist were it not for his roommates or that class he took on Chinese contemporary art. On his road to repaying all who he owes, he writes paranormal romance and urban fantasy reviews for Rabidreads.ca and combs over his precious MFA application. [Read 1 2]

Originally from Toronto, Kate Rogers considers herself a citizen of the world. She has lived in Asia and has taught literature and language at college and university level there for 12 years. During that time, her poetry has appeared in anthologies and literary magazines in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada, the U.S. and the UK including Canadian Woman Studies, Descant, Cha, Asia Literary Review, Crave it Anthology, The New Quarterly, The Mad Woman in the Academy Anthology, Contemporary Verse 2, The New Quarterly, the We Who Can Fly Anthology (Tributes to Adele Wiseman) and dimsum. Her most recent poetry collection is City of Stairs (Haven Books 2012). She is co-editor of the women's poetry anthology, Not A Muse (Haven Books, 2009), with Viki Holmes. Her first poetry collection, Painting the Borrowed House (Proverse Hong Kong), appeared in 2008. Rogers's collection of essays about conservation and bird watching in Taiwan, The Swallows' Return, was published in a bilingual English and Chinese edition by the government of Taiwan in 2006. [Read] [Cha profile]

Currently teaching in Guangzhou, Ken Turner is an American who has been working outside of the US for nearly twenty years. He has lived and taught in Congo, Pakistan, Ivory Coast, and Venezuela as well as China. His poems have appeared in print and online in publications such as Southern Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Silk Road, and The Literary Bohemian. Recent work can be found in The Summerset Review, Waccamaw Journal, Switched-On Gutenberg as well as Cha. [Read]

Koon Woon, "paper son" name for Locke Kau Koon, is from Nanon Village in Guangdong Province of the PRC.  He immigrated to the USA in 1960 at age 11 from Hong Kong. He is fourth-generation immigrant to the USA from the Locke family. He owes his progress in poetry from the red dirt and the short pines he found beyond his second-maternal Uncle Li Gar Sum's house in Bow Lung Village, and in America, the kettle moraines of Wisconsin where his dear friend Betty Irene Priebe helped him come back from the private hell of mental illness. His second book of poems, Water Chasing Water, is soon available from Kaya Press (NY, NY), under the astute and kind guidance of his editor/publisher Sunyoung Lee. [Read]

Lucy Schappy works in a variety of media but favours oils for their colour intensity and layering abilities. Her boldly coloured canvases are a reflection of the vibrancy of living with two creative children and an act of defiance against dullness. Artists that have influenced her work include Vassilly Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Schappy has exhibited her work in numerous solo and group shows as well as in commercial galleries. Visit her website for more information. [View]

Matthew A. Hamilton is an MFA candidate at Fairfield University and a poetry reader for Mason's Road and Drunken Boat. Prior to graduate school, he served as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Armenia (2006-2008) and the Philippines (2008-2010). He is also a former Legislative Assistant in Washington, DC, and a Benedictine Monk. Hamilton's poetry can be found in Atticus Review, Boston Literary Magazine, The Istanbul Literary Review, and other venues. His chapbook, The Land of the Four Rivers, is published by Cervena Barva Press. [Read]

May Dy removed the beginning and end of her full name, Zeny May Dy Recidoro. She is taking up Art Studies (major in Art History) at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. After winning the Amelia Lapeña-Bonifacio Literary Prize for poetry in 2011, she was encouraged to write more poetry and since then, her poems have been published in qarrtsiluni and Red Poppy Review. [Read]

Michael Gray is a MFA candidate at California State University-Fresno and an editorial assistant for The Normal School. He sometimes writes cat poems. Gray received a 2012 AWP Intro Journals Project Award and attended the Raleigh Review Writers' Studio Workshop taught by Dorianne Laux and Joseph Millar. Some of his work appears on DownToEarthNW.com, in Rock & Sling, the Aurorean, Cha and forthcoming in Puerto del Sol. He is also known as "顾明康". [Read]

 

Michael Tsang received his BA in English and MPhil in Gender Studies from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is now reading for a PhD degree at the University of Warwick, specializing in postcolonial English literature in Hong Kong. Language and literature are part of his life. He likes to write stories and poems in his spare time, and is devoted to language learning. His ultimate goal is to learn Tibetan and Finnish. Tsang is a Staff Reviewer for Cha. [Read] [Cha profile]

Michelle Esquivias is currently studying English in the University of the Philippines Diliman. When not writing or reading, she enjoys drawing and watching procedurals on television. [Read]

Murli Melwani's short stories have been published in various countries. A few have been included in anthologies, including Stories from Asia: Major Writers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (Longman Imprint Books, U.K) and a short story of his was a finalist in the 2012 Enizagam Literary Awards in Poetry and Fiction. Melwani is the author of Stories of a Salesman (a collection of short stories), Deep Roots (a 3 Act Play) and two books of literary criticism. Themes in the Indian Short Story in English: An Historical and a Critical Survey was published in 2009 to favorable reviews. Visit his website for more information. [Read]

Philip John received a degree in Marketing Communications from Mudra Institute of Communication, Ahmedabad (MICA). Currently, he works as a marketing executive with a consulting firm. His passions include literary fiction, jazz, movies, vintage art, comics, poetry and twentieth century American culture. Writers he admires and reads frequently include Michael Ondaatje, Philip Roth, George Orwell and J M Coetzee. He has a yen for speculative and historical fictions. He enjoys writing short stories, poetry and essays. He maintains a blog called The Plot Against Good Sense. John lives and writes in Bangalore, India. [Read]

Reid Mitchell, who grew up in New Orleans, teaches at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He has an MFA from Warren Wilson College and currently is taking a post-MFA course through the City University of Hong Kong.  His poems have appeared in Asia Literary Review, Pedestal, In Posse, and elsewhere. His novel A Man Under Authority was published by Turtle Point Press. He has also collaborated with Tammy Ho as well as working in various ways with Cha. [Read 1 2] [Cha's profile]

Richard K. Kent is a professor of art history at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He teaches courses in East Asian archaeology and art history and in the history of photography. He received a BA in English literature from Oberlin College and an MA and PhD in Chinese art and archaeology from Princeton University. Apart from his identity as a scholar of Chinese painting and photography, Kent is a poet and photographer. His poems have been published in Field, The Antioch Review, The Midwest Quarterly and other small magazines. His photography has been shown in over thirty juried exhibitions. [Read]

Richard Luftig is a past university professor of Special Education in Ohio, USA and now resides in California. He is a recipient of the Cincinnati Post-Corbett Foundation Award for Literature and a semi finalist for the Emily Dickinson Society Award. His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals in the United States, and internationally in Japan, Canada, Australia, Europe, Thailand, Hong Kong and India. One of his published poems was nominated for the 2012 Pushcart Poetry Prize. His poems have been translated into various languages including Spanish, Polish, German and Japanese. [Read]

Ricky Garni lives and works in Carrboro, NC (USA). He is particularly fond of manhood for amateurs. His poems appeared in Everygreen Review, Sixth Finch, The Bakery, Reprint Poetry and many other periodicals. His latest work, Butterscotch, was released in 2012. His first, Peppermint, in 1995. Visit his website for more information. [Read]

Rosebud Ben-Oni is a playwright at New Perspectives Theater, and also currently developing a new play about the U.S.-Mexican border with Bob Teague, Artistic Director of Truant Arts. Her work appears in B O D Y, Arts & Letters, Texas Poetry Review and Puerto del Sol. Her first book of poems SOLECISM is forthcoming from Virtual Artists' Collective in 2013. She is co-editor of HER KIND, the official blog of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. Vist her website for more information. [Read]

Born in 1981, Australian poet Sam Byfield has published a chapbook (From the Middle Kingdom, Pudding House Press) and is finalising his first full length collection. His work has appeared extensively at home and internationally, including in HEAT, Meanjin (Southerly Australia), The Warwick Review (UK), The National Poetry Review, Cream City Review, Meridian (USA), The Asia Literary Review (Hong Kong) and previously in Cha. [Read] [Cha's profile]

Samuel Tsang is an avid reader of literature in Chinese and English. Sometimes, he dabbles in French and Japanese works too. He especially hero-worships J. M. Coetzee, Seamus Heaney, Thomas Pynchon and Franz Kafka. When he is not reading, he writes poems, watches movies, takes photographs and wanders as a flâneur. He has a BA, BEd and will further his knowledge of Linguistics at Oxford University this coming October. [Read]

Sarah Coomber lives with her husband and son in southwest Washington state, where the topography, weather and temperament remind her of the Japanese town where she spent two years teaching in her mid-twenties. She has an MFA in creative writing and an MA in mass communication, and her essays have appeared in the South Dakota Review, the Christian Science Monitor, the Japan Times and the Star Tribune. Having previously worked in public relations, academia, journalism and science writing, she now does advocacy writing for hire. Her autumn goal is to complete her memoir about living in rural southwestern Japan. She continues to study the koto. [Read]

Shaily Sahay's stories have been anthologized in Ripples by APK Publishers and appeared online on Asia Writes and Muse India respectively. One of her stories is also set to appear in the anthology Celebrating India by Nivasini Publishers. In another lifetime, she was a Computer Engineer and a part time Verbal Ability Instructor. She is now a freelance writer, editor, translator (Hindi <> English) and a voice artist. She works for NGOs, helping them with their documentation and translation assignments. She is working on her first novel apart from doing short stories. She lives in Bombay, India. She has attended Priya Sarukkai-Chabria's poetry workshop organised by Open space, Pune and she is an alumnus of the Just Write residency, Bangalore, Nov 2011, conducted by Anil Menon, Anjum Hasan and Rimi B Chatterjee. [Read]

Sucharita Dutta-Asane is based in Pune. She did her M.Phil in En­glish Literature from the Department of English, University of Pune. In 2008, she received Oxford Bookstores debuting writers' (second) prize for her anthology, The Jungle Stories. Her short stories have appeared in Zubaan's Breaking the Bow, an anthology of speculative fiction based on The Ramayana (2012), Ripples, an Anthology of Short Stories by Indian Women Writers (2010) and in Unisun Publications' Vanilla Desires (2010). Her articles, book reviews, short stories, and a novella, Petals in the Sun have been extensively published across electronic publications. Her short story "Cast Out" is part of the forthcoming Asia-Africa anthology Behind the Shadows, to be available on Amazon Kindle from 1st October 2012. At present Dutta-Asane jug­gles writing with editing and bringing up two very young kids. [Read]

Victoria Law is a writer, photographer and mother. She is a member of ABC No Rio's Visual Arts Collective and a co-founder of its black-and-white community darkroom. She is drawn to photograph places and cultures in danger of disappearing and has returned yearly to Hong Kong to both visit her family and document changes in her favourite places. She is also the author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women and the co-editor of Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements. [View]

Violet Kieu is a doctor and writer from Melbourne, Australia. Her writing won a Boroondara Literary Award in 2001 and was shortlisted for the Fellowship of Australian Writers' Marjorie Barnard Short Story Award in 2009. Violet has published in Peril and her medical writing has also been published in the Australasian Journal of Dermatology, Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery and the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery. She likes to travel. [Read]

William Whitaker graduated from Yale University with degrees in Political Science and International Relations. Considering the socio-political and economic dynamics of the North Africa and East Asia, he studied the relationship between diplomacy and conflict, trying to understand why peace sometimes fails. To this end, Whitaker worked as an intern for the United Nations in Washington, D.C., as well as for multiple U.S. Congressmen. These questions also underlay his interest in journalism. While at Yale, he reported for the Yale Daily News before ultimately serving on its editorial board as City Politics & Business Editor. When he was not tutoring new reporters or advising first year students as a Freshman Counselor, he played violin for several college orchestras and an improvisational jazz band. Whitaker recently finished a two-year fellowship teaching analytical critical thinking and essay composition at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He now lives in Hong Kong, working to develop and launch his own startup company. [Read]