Arthur Leung helped select the poetry. See his Cha profile.

Royston Tester helped select the prose. See his Cha profile.

                                                                                                                                                    

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Amanda Faye Lacson, MA, is a graduate of Goddard College’s Transformative Language Arts concentration, which examines how language can be used for social and personal transformation. Her thesis, Unveiling Aphrodite: Examining the Mythology of Romantic Love analyzed mythologies on romantic love and how the stories influenced Amanda’s experience with intimacy, family, and identity. Recently, Lacson’s writing has explored how food can create intimate and family relationship. Through their family archive business, she and her husband are dedicated to helping families give meaning to their life experiences, through storytelling, oral history, and photography. Visit her website for more information. [Creative non-fiction]

Amit Shankar Saha is an academic researcher and a creative writer. He has a PhD in English from Calcutta University. His poems and short stories have appeared in many magazines and periodicals both online and in print. He has also written for the Chicken Soul for the Indian Soul books. He lives in Kolkata and blogs here. Visit his website for more information. Contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it [Void]

Amy Uyematsu is a third-generation Japanese American poet and teacher from Los Angeles. She has three published collections: Stone Bow Prayer (Copper Canyon Press, 2005), Nights of Fire, Nights of Rain (Story Line Press, 1998), and 30 Miles from J-Town (Story Line, 1992). Winner of the 1992 Nicholas Roerich Prize, Amy was a co-editor of the widely-used Roots: An Asian American Reader (UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 1972) and poetry editor for Greenmakers: Japanese American Gardeners in Southern California (2001). [Poetry]

Arlene Yandug teaches literature at Xavier University in the Philippines. She is currently finishing her second collection of poems at the University of the Philippines where she studies Creative Writing. Her poems have appeared in national magazines, anthologies, and online journals. Aside from poetry, her interests include local history, cultural identity and literatures coming from the region. [Void]

B.B.P. Hosmillo is a Filipino poet and a critic of gender and queer precarity. He received the JENESYS Invitation for Graduate Student Research Fellowship in 2011 and the National University of Singapore—Asia Research Institute Graduate Student Fellowship in 2012. Currently, he is based in Rumata Cultural Center Makassar in South Sulawesi, Indonesia where he is completing a book of poetry funded by the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Far Enough East Journal, Mascara Literary Review, Sundog Lit, Alice Blue Review and Nude Bruce Review, among others. Contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it [Poetry] [Cha profile]

Bhanumati Mishra is an Asstistant Professor of English at BHU, Varanasi. She is a regular contributor to The Hindu and The Hindustan Times. Her interest lies in Feminist Studies and Subaltern Writings. She has authored a book titled Amitav Ghosh and His Oeuvre. Contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it [Review]

Bryan Thao Worra is an award-winning Lao-American writer. An NEA Fellow in literature, his work appears internationally in over 100 anthologies, magazines and newspapers in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Korea, Germany, France, England, Singapore, and Pakistan. He is the author of six books of poetry including On the Other Side of the Eye, BARROW, Tanon Sai Jai, Winter Ink, and his most recent book, DEMONSTRA. He is a Cultural Olympian who represented Laos during the 2012 London Olympics' Poetry Parnassus. Visit him website for more information. [Poetry]

Writer and artist Catherine Edmunds has more than 450 published works to her name. Solo works for Circaidy Gregory Press include the poetry collection wormwood, earth and honey; the magical realism novel Small Poisons – a contemporary tale for Midsummer Night’s dreamers; and Serpentine, which explores what happens when art doesn’t only reflect life but is life itself. Her latest novel is Bacchus Wynd, an intense tale of personal re-invention which explores the challenges faced by people with Asperger Syndrome. Current projects include a biography of her mother and a collaborative novel with writer John Bennington. Visit her website for more information. [Void]

Cecilia Chan was born and raised in Hong Kong. She has completed BA in English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her poems were included in Fifty-fifty: New Hong Kong Anthology (2008) and Not A Muse: A World Poetry Anthology (2009). [Review]

Christopher Taylor is a self taught photographer with a postgraduate degree in Zoology. He was born in 1958 in Skegness, England. His works have been featured in eight exhibitions (solo and group) throughout the world in countries such as France, India, China, Japan, Iceland, Netherlands and England, among others. He has been awarded the Bourse pour de la recherche et sejour a l’etranger, FIACRE - CNAP, Paris in 2001 and DRAC (Direction régionale des affaires culturelles) Languedoc Rousillon in 1999. His works have been published in over twenty books and magazines, including Immersions: Mumbai/Bombay. [Excerpts]

Deborah Guzzi travels for inspiration: China, Nepal (during the civil war), Japan, Egypt (two weeks before ‘The Arab Spring’), and most recently, Peru. First published at the age of sixteen, she writes articles for Massage and Aroma Therapy Magazines. Her poetry can be seen in the Literary Journals of Western CT. University, Inclement Magazine, Pyrokinections, Jellyfish Whispers, Grey Wolf’s Summer Legends Anthology, The Germ, Wilderness Literary Review, Bitterzoet Magazine, The Inwood Indiana Review, and elsewhere. She has published two illustrated volumes of poetry, The Healing Heart and Heaven and Hell in a Nutshell. [Poetry]

Eddie Tay is the Reviews Editor of Cha. He teaches courses on creative writing and poetry at the Department of English, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the author of three volumes of poetry. His most recent collection is The Mental Life of Cities, a winner of the 2012 Singapore Literature Prize (English category). His street photography can be found at Hong Kong Lucida. Tay is currently working on a manuscript that features both poetry and street photography. [Photography] [Cha profile]

Edward Ragg won the 2012 Cinnamon Press Poetry Award and his first collection of poetry is A Force That Takes (Cinnamon Press, 2013). His poems have appeared in the 2014 Forward Book of Poetry (Faber & Faber, 2013), Lung Jazz: Young British Poets for Oxfam (Eyewear/Cinnamon, 2012), New Poetries IV (Carcanet, 2007) and other anthologies; as well as in Aesthetica, Acumen, Agenda, Cordite Poetry Review, Critical Quarterly, Envoi, Orbis, Other Poetry, Papercuts, Poetry Quarterly, PN Review, Seam and The New Writer. Ragg is Associate Professor in English at Tsinghua University and co-founder, with Fongyee Walker, of Dragon Phoenix Wine Consulting. [Poetry]

Eileen Chong is a Sydney poet who was born in Singapore. She was the Australian Poetry Fellow for 2011-2012. Her first book, Burning Rice, was shortlisted for the Australian Prime Minister's Literary Awards 2013. Her next book, Peony, will be published by Pitt Street Poetry in 2014. Visit her website for more information. [Poetry]

Elen Turner is an editor, writer and reader living in Kathmandu, Nepal. She is an editor at Himal Southasian Magazine and Editor-at-Large (Nepal) for Asymptote. She has a PhD from the Australian National University, has had her academic work on lndian literature and feminism published in several academic journals, and writes a blog on South Asian literature. [Review]

Emma Zhang was born in Hebei Province, China. She is a recent graduate from the Contemporary English Studies Programme at Lingnan University, where she won the President’s Award in 2009. Currently, she is a PhD candidate at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, conducting research on the contemporary Chinese-American writer, Ha Jin. She has lived in Hong Kong with her husband and two children for more than ten years. [Review]

Fehmida Zakeer has been published in journals and anthologies such as Rose and Thorn Journal, Out of Print Magazine, The Bangalore Review, The Four Quarters Magazine, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Muse India, Pangea: An Anthology of Stories from Around the World, Ripples: Short Stories by Indian Women Writers, and elsewhere. A story of hers was placed first in the Himal South-Asian short story competition 2013 and another was chosen by the National Library Board of Singapore for the 2013 edition of their annual READ! Singapore anthology. She was twice on the honorable mentions list of the Binnacle Ultra short competition. Her articles have come out in various Indian and International publications including Azizah, Herbs for Health, and Good Housekeeping. [Lost tea]

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is a second-generation Chinese American from California who now divides her time between Michigan and the Big Island of Hawaii. She is a writer, speaker, educator, and activist specializing in Asian Pacific American and multicultural issues. She is a contributor for NewAmericaMedia.org, ChicagoistheWorld.org, PacificCitizen.org, InCultureParent.com, and HuffPostLive. She has published three chapbooks of prose poetry and has been included in several anthologies and art exhibitions. She will have a multimedia artwork with Jyoti Omi Chowdhury entitled "Dreams of the Diaspora" in a Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center Indian American Heritage Project online and travelling art exhibition. Visit her website for more information. [Creative non-fiction]

Hao Guang Tse is interested in form and formation, creativity and quotation, lyrics and line breaks. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Prairie Schooner, Tincture, Softblow and Third Coast. He has published a chapbook, hyperlinkage, with Math Paper Press and is working on a full-length collection. Currently a Masters student at the University of Chicago, he will be headed home to Singapore in June as a Dean's Fellow in Yale-NUS. [Void]

Hu Jiamin is a young Chinese artist currently based in Beijing. He makes paintings and graphic designs. He has been working with organizations and companies like Lijiang Studio, URBANUS and Yilin Press, and collaborated to many interdisciplinary projects. [Photography]

Jenna Le is the author of Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011), which was a Small Press Poetry Bestseller. Her poetry, fiction, essays, and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, Bellevue Literary Review, Massachusetts Review, Measure, Post Road, Salamander, Smartish Pace, 32 Poems, and elsewhere. She holds a degree in Mathematics from Harvard University and has worked as a physician in Queens and the Bronx, New York. [Poetry] [Cha profile]

Johanna Audiffred is a freelance graphic designer and photo editor working in Paris, France. She received her degree in photography at Parsons School of design in New York City. She currently resides in Paris with her boyfriend John, their goldfish stinky, and her prized snails. [Photography]

John Wall Barger's poems have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, including The Best Canadian Poetry 2008 (Tightrope Books) and The Montreal Prize Global Poetry Anthology (Véhicule Press, 2012). His second collection, Hummingbird (Palimpsest Press), was published in Spring 2012. He currently teaches creative writing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. [Review]

Jyoti Omi Chowdhury was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where his formative years were spent daydreaming about women and soccer, under the cusp of a military dictatorship. He moved to the wilderness of the American prairies and western Canada for his university education, and eventually wound his way to Harvard, where he began to research genocide, gender equity, war theory, and liberalism. He has had solo shows in Boston, Berlin, and Ann Arbor. His work has been featured in Light and Composition, Blur, Los Angeles Times, Vogue Italia, and in galleries in Chicago, Prague, Munich, and Abu Dhabi. Vist his Facebook page and website for more information. [Creative non-fiction | Photography]

Leondrea Tan is a Singaporean currently studying English and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick. Her interests lie particularly in poetry and non-fiction. She enjoys working on her typewriter during her spare time. Her short typewritten works can be found on Facebook under her initials, L.T. [Void]

Maj Ikle is a dyke writer who now lives in remote rural west Wales as part of a women's community. Drawing on the themes that this brings up, nature and compost. Having spent twenty years in London's East End this gives her a perspective on contrasting these two environments. Her first degree in sociology and she is fascinated with how people interact with the world around them and how to encourage them to walk gently on the earth. Visit her website for more information. [Void]

Mark Crimmins has published fiction in Happy, Confrontation, theNewerYork, White Rabbit, Columbia, and Flash Frontier. He was shortlisted for the 2003 Wong Fellowship in Creative Writing. Crimmins has lived in England, the United States, Japan, and Canada. He received a PhD in English from the University of Toronto in 1999 and taught 20th Century Literature at the University of Toronto from 1999 to 2013. He moved to Hong Kong in 2013 and is working on two books: Intersections: Experiments in Short Fiction, and Characters Madmen Alone Can Read, a collection of stories which includes "Incident on Abiko Street", published in this issue of Cha. Visit his website for more information. [Fiction]

Mary J. Breen is the author of two books about women's health, and her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in national newspapers, essay collections, travel magazines, health journals, and literary magazines including Brick, Boston Literary Magazine, Persimmon Tree, Front Porch Review, and The Toast. She lives in Peterborough Ontario Canada where, among other things, she teaches memoir writing with seniors. [Creative non-fiction]

Mingjuan Tan read her first degree at the University of Cambridge, and is now studying graduate medicine. She has received several prizes for her poetry, including a high commendation from the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award. Her writing has been published in journals and anthologies, such as Acumen Poetry Journal (UK), Writers' Forum (UK) and Kulit: Asian Literature for the Language Classroom (Singapore). In 2012, she was awarded a grant by the Singapore National Arts Council to attend the Can Serrat writing residency in Spain. Visit her website here. [Poetry]

Peabody Winston is a store owner in Prescott, Arizona; a teller of kids' tales on the front porch in his rocking chair; a political BS ring master in the back where the men chew, smoke, spit, cuss and drink Schlitz. He works with Dr. Jack Veenum of the University of Arizona when it comes to tall tales. [Fiction]

Peter Phillips is a Sydney-born writer who has lived in Hong Kong for the past seven years. In 2012, he received his MFA in fiction from City University of Hong Kong, where he has also lectured in the English Department. He has been a finalist in the Indiana Review’s 1/2K Prize and his short story "The Troubled Boyhood of Baldwin Wong" is forthcoming in The Queen of Statue Square: New Short Fiction from Hong Kong. Phillips endured brief stints as a lawyer, TV writer and utterly hopeless mobile phone salesman before retraining as an English teacher, a role he passionately enjoys at a Hong Kong secondary school. He is a fiction reader for the online journal, Drunken Boat. [Fiction]

Priya Sarukkai Chabria is a poet, novelist, essayist and translator with five published books. Awarded by the Indian Government for her Outstanding Contribution to Literature, her work is translated into six languages and is published or forthcoming in Adelphiana, Soundings, South Asian Review, Caravan, Post Road, The British Journal of Literary Translation, Drunken Boat, Another English: Anglophone Poems from Around the World, among others. Forthcoming in 2015 are translations of Tamil mystic poet Aandaal (Zubaan) and a short story collection (Niyogi Book). She edits poetry at Sangam. Visit her website for more information. [Excerpts]

Ranu Uniyal is Professor of English at Lucknow University. Her poetry has appeared in Mascara Literary Review, Jaggery, Medulla Review, Sketch Book, Twenty 20, Whispers, Littlewood Press, Muse India, Kavya Bharati, Femina, Manushi, Indian Literature and several anthologies both in India and abroad. She has published two poetry collections: Across the Divide (2006) and December Poems (2012). Her English poems have been translated in Hindi, Malayalam, Urdu and Uzbek languages. She also writes poetry in Hindi. She is a founding member of a day care centre for children with special needs in Lucknow. Contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it [Poetry]

Reid Mitchell is a New Orleanian who has taught in China. His work has appeared previously in Cha and is Consulting Editor of the journal. He has also served as poetry editor for Asia Literary Review. His work has appeared there as well as in Softblow, Pedestal, In Posse, and elsewhere. He has collaborated with Tammy Ho Lai-Ming on various dialogues and villanelles. His novel A Man Under Authority was published by Turtle Point Press. His favorite food is either wild duck gumbo or Hunan style fish head with red and green peppers, but he will usually settle for a beer and a bowl of suan cai. [Poetry] [Cha profile]

Reihana Robinson is a writer and artist and organic farmer living on the Coromandel in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Her writing has been published in the USA, Asia and New Zealand. Aue Rona is the title of her first volume published by Steele Roberts, NZ 2012. Cutthroat, Landfall and Takeahe are a handful of literary publications to carry her work. Anthologies include Te Ao Marama and Notes to the Transalators. Contact: reihanarobinson.co.nz [Poetry]

Renée M. Schell’s poetry has appeared in Catamaran Literary Reader, Cæsura, On the Dark Path: An Anthology of Fairy Tale Poetry, Perfume River Poetry Review, and other journals, and online at literarymama.com. She holds a Magister degree from the University of Bonn and a PhD in German Studies from Stanford University. She is a freelance editor and translator from the German as well as a poetry editor for the Willow Glen Poetry Project and Red Wheelbarrow. Every year she celebrates Beethoven’s birthday with a few sonatas and a cake with candles. [Poetry]

Rhiannon Jenkins Tsang was born in Yorkshire and read Chinese at St. Anne’s College, Oxford. She made her first trip to China in the summer of 1986. She has worked in business and as a freelance writer in the UK and Taiwan. Her debut China historical novel The Woman Who Lost China was published by Open Books in June 2013. Daria Berg, Professor of Chinese Culture and Society at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, wrote of The Woman Who Lost China: "The new, must read China book. Rhiannon Jenkins Tsang knows China and writes with insight and passion.” The book was also highlighted in Rana Mitter's ten book literary tour of China in The Telegraph. Tsang’s poem, "Oxford is a Port", won first prize at the Melbourne Festival, UK, in August 2013. She is a former runner-up in the Woman and Home magazine short story competition and has had a short story about being an English mother in Taipei broadcast on BBC Radio Oxford. She works as an author and also runs Chinese Culture and Language Programs for businesses in the UK. She is a non-practising lawyer. Contact: @rhiannonjtsang [Interview]

Richard L. Provencher has published poems in print and online with magazines such as Inscribed, In Touch, Ottawa Arts Review, Paragon 111, Tower Poetry, Caduceus, Strong Verse, Parenting Express, among others. His work is a combination of nature and community issues. He and his wife, Esther, live in Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada; they have four children and five grandchildren. As former foster and present adopting parents, they were inspired by their youngest adopted son to write A Boy Named Wish. Visit their website for more information. [Void 1 2]

Shaily (or Smita) Sahay is a writer, poet and editor based in Mumbai. Her short stories, poetry and book reviews have appeared in Ripples, Pedestal Magazine, Celebrating India, Muse India, Cha, and elsewhere. A Computer Engineer by education, in another lifetime, she worked for Accenture as an SAP Consultant. She is currently co-editing, with Charles Fishman, Veils, Halos and Shackles: International Poetry on the Abuse and Oppression of Women, and working on her first book of fiction. She has read her poetry at 100-1000 Poets for Change in Mumbai and Pune and the Prakriti Poetry Festival in Chennai. She will be joining the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, class of 2015. [Review | Interview]

Sreedhevi Iyer is an Indian-Malaysian-Australian who no longer knows what to call herself. She is a graduate of the first cohort of City University Hong Kong’s unique MFA program in Asian Writing in English. Her fiction work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in the United States, along with publications in literary journals in Australia, Malaysia, United States, and Sweden. She is a fiction reader for Drunken Boat, the oldest online literary journal, and is finishing her first novel. She currently teaches Creative Writing at City University Hong Kong, where she is doing her PhD in English. [Fiction]

Suzanne Hermanoczki is a writer of fiction and creative non-fiction. Her works which feature people, place and identity, mixed code and bi- & multi-culturalism have appeared in Cha, Hong Kong U Writing: An Anthology and SWAMP. Currently completing her PhD in creative writing at the University of Melbourne, she also holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Creative Writing (short fiction) from The University of Hong Kong, and a Masters in Creative Writing from The University of Melbourne. She has completed a novella — a collection of interlinked short stories (currently unpublished) and is now working on her first novel. [Poetry]

Vaughan Rapatahana is a long term resident of Hong Kong, with homes also in Aotearoa-New Zealand – where he was born – and Pampanga, Philippines. Lived and worked in a variety of countries as teacher of English – from PR China to U.A.E; Brunei Darussalam to Republic of Nauru. PhD Existential Literary Criticism, University of Auckland. Widely published in a variety of genre across the globe – from fiction to language critique; poetry to original philosophy. Was highly placed in 2013 erbacce Poetry Prize and semi-finalist in initial Proverse Prize for Literature. 2014 will see OutLoud Too, the anthology of Hong Kong poets that Rapatahana instigated and was lead editor for and Atonement - a further collection of poems (ASM/Flying Islands, Macau.) Rapatahana is also instigator and lead editor for Confronting the Hydra - the follow up to the significant language critique English Language as Hydra (Multilingual Matters, U.K. 2012). [Essay]

William B. Noseworthy is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His minor is in Diaspora History and Literature and his interests include Borderlands Theory, Highland-Lowland Relations and the History of the South China Sea. He received a Bachelors of Arts in History and Religion with minors in East Asian Studies and Jewish studies from Oberlin College in 2007, before going on to complete a Masters of Arts in History at UW-Madison in 2011. He has recently published on the subject of Vietnamese Literature in The Middle Ground Journal and in an edited volume on Vietnamese and American New Formalism. He has also published articles on highland-lowland relations in Southeast Asia for Asian Highlands Perspectives and ASEAS: the Austrian Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, study pieces on Cham religious ceremonies and Cham identity for The IIAS Newsletter and book reviews for The IIAS Newsletter, Studies on Asia, Explorations, New Asia Books and Cha. With support from a Center for Khmer Studies and the Herfurth Fellowship, Noseworthy is spending 2013 to spring 2014 in Vietnam and Cambodia researching for his dissertation, tentatively titled "Cham Scholars and 'Remembering the Boundaries,' Akhar Thrah, 1651-1969." The project explores how a diverse group of authors re-solidified their communal identity around a manuscript tradition and created an intellectual middle ground during several centuries of crisis. In his free time, Noseworthy enjoys writing poetry, cooking and playing the guitar. [Review]