Steve Ausherman is a photographer, poet, fly fisherman, traveller, potter and high school fine arts instructor who lives in New Mexico, USA. His photos have recently appeared in the journals 580 Split and the South Loop Review. As well, his poetry has recently appeared in The Aurorean, THE Magazine, Keyhole, Main Channel Voices, Avocet, and the online journal Roadkill Zen. He has been teaching photography to high school students for the past eleven years and spends his summers traveling with his wife Denise. [View]

Nigel Beale is a freelance writer/broadcaster who specializes in literary journalism. His articles and reviews have appeared in, among other places, The Washington Post, The (Manchester) Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Canadian Bookseller, BorderCrossings and Canadian Art magazines. In his role as host of The Biblio File radio program he has interviewed many of the world's most admired authors; plus publishers, booksellers, editors, book collectors, librarians, conservators, illustrators, and others connected with the book. Visit his website for more details. [Read]

Amy Cheng was born in Taiwan, raised in Brazil and the U.S.A. She received a BFA degree from the University of Texas at Austin, and an MFA degree from Hunter College, City University of New York. She has permanent public art installed in three American cities. Her paintings have been exhibited both in the U.S. and abroad. She is a Professor in the Art Department at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Visit her website for more details. [View]

Patrick Donnelly is the author of The Charge (Ausable Press, 2003, since 2009 part of Copper Canyon Press) and Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin (forthcoming from Four Way Books). He has taught writing at Colby College, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and elsewhere. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, The Yale Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Massachusetts Review. Donnelly and Miller's translations have appeared in Circumference, thedrunkenboat.com, eXchanges, Metamorphoses, New Plains Review, Noon: The Journal of the Short Poem, Poetry International and Translations and Transformations: the Heike Monogatari in Nô. [Read]

Viki Holmes is a widely anthologised and prize-winning British poet and performer who began her writing career in Cardiff as part of the Happy Demon poetry collective. She has been living and writing in Hong Kong since 2005. Her poetry has appeared in literary magazines and anthologies in Wales, England, Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, Macao and Singapore. She was twice a finalist in the John Tripp Award for spoken Poetry (Wales), and was a runner-up in Hong Kong's inaugural Poetry Slam. Her first collection, miss moon's class, is published by Chameleon Press (Hong Kong) and she is co-editor of the Haven (Hong Kong) anthology of world women's writing Not A Muse. Holmes's poetry has previously been published in issue #3 of Cha. [Read]

Luisa A. Igloria is the author of Juan Luna's Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize for Poetry, University of Notre Dame Press), Trill & Mordent (WordTech Editions 2005), and eight other books. Originally from Baguio City, she is associate professor at Old Dominion University, where she also directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing. Igloria's poetry has previously been published in issue #2 of Cha. Visit her website for more details. [Read]

Lillian Kwok is a second-generation Chinese American whose parents immigrated from Hong Kong and Taiwan. She was raised in southeastern Pennsylvania, and recently graduated magna cum laude from Pepperdine University where she studied English literature and Spanish. Beginning in August she will be teaching English in Yilan County, Taiwan on a Fulbright grant. [Read]

Franky Lau is a Hong Kong-based photographer and photo journalist. Though born in Hong Kong, Lau finds Sichuan and Xinjiang the most beautiful regions of China. He has photographed both areas extensively and is currently planning his sixth trip to Xinjiang in 2009. Recently, Lau has also started to focus his camera on the Hong Kong region. Subjects and locations such as Tai O's village life, Stanley's exotic mixture of East and West, Cheung Chau's dramatic contrast of present and past, the bygone Star Ferry Pier, da pai dongs and shops selling stinky tofu have all attracted his attention. Lau is determined to capture history and memories through images. While he feels that he can speak through his photographs, Lau also enjoys writing and hopes one day to publish a collection of photography and text. His photography has previously been published in issues #4 and #6 of Cha. [View]

The stories, poetry, and humor of Larry Lefkowitz have appeared in publications in the U.S., Israel and Britain. Lefkowitz is currently looking for publishers for two novels: the first one is about a 19th century Jewish peddler looking for the Lost Tribes of Israel among the American Indians, and the second one is about the assistant to a literary critic who, following the critic's death, is asked by his widow to complete an unfinished novel left by him. This second novel is replete with literary references. Lefkowitz's fiction has previously been published in issue #3 of Cha. [Read]

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Eva Leung received a BA with a double major in English and Comparative Literature from the University of Hong Kong. She is currently doing an MPhil in English Literature at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and is working on autobiographical fictional writings. Since secondary school, she has enjoyed writing both short stories and poems. Apart from reading and writing, she has a wide range of interests, including learning foreign languages, singing, playing the piano and horseback riding. [Read]

Pierre Lien is currently a Hong Kong local undergraduate, expecting to complete his BA in English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2010. His interests lie in linguistics, drama in performance, Shakespeare and creative writing. He likes to explore new forms of writing and is hoping to one day publish a poetry collection of his own. Contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it [Read]

Belle Ling Hoi Ching is a graduate of the University of Hong Kong and has a Masters of Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Sydney. She has a special interest in writing poetry and short stories. Her favourite novelist is Haruki Murakami, and she admires poetry which has deep philosophical significance, especially the poems by Martin Harrison. [Read]

Christopher Luppi is from New York, but has spent the last fifteen years living in Asia. In addition to various columns in South East Asian d.i.y. punk rock fanzines, his fiction has appeared in Octopusbeakinc, Pequin, and elimae. He is currently teaching English at a university in the northeast of Thailand where he lives with his wife. He is now chipping away at what he hopes will be his first novel. [Read]

Jonathan Mendelsohn, an instructor of English at the University of Toronto, is currently working on his first novel. The book, which might just be a love story, is set in Japan, where he lived for five years. He has previously published in newspapers in Canada and magazines in Japan, including a review of Haruki Murakami's Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. Mendelsohn's creative non-fiction has previously been published in issue #3 of Cha and he will serve as the guest prose editor of the November 2009 issue of the journal. Visit his website for more details and other such monkey business. [Read]

Stephen D. Miller is assistant professor of Japanese language and literature at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is translator of A Pilgrim’s Guide to Forty-Six Temples (Weatherhill Inc., 1990), and editor of Partings at Dawn: An Anthology of Japanese Gay Literature (Gay Sunshine Press, 1996). He lived in Japan for nine years between 1980 and 1999, in part as the recipient of two Japan Foundation fellowships for research abroad. He is currently working on a study of the Buddhist poetry in the Japanese imperial poetry anthologies. Miller and Donnelly's translations have appeared in Circumference, thedrunkenboat.com, eXchanges, Metamorphoses, New Plains Review, Noon: The Journal of the Short Poem, Poetry International and Translations and Transformations: the Heike Monogatari in Nô. [Read]

Nikesh Murali's poems and short stories have appeared in ebooks, ezines, anthologies, journals and magazines all over the world. His works have been translated into several languages. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2007 by Shalla Magazine. He has a Masters in Journalism and Teaching, and is working towards a Doctorate in Creative Arts. He is a tutor and researcher at James Cook University. Visit his website for more details. [Read]

Ng Yi-Sheng is a poet, playwright, journalist and gay rights activist. His first poetry collection, last boy, won the 2008 Singapore Literature Prize. He has also published a non-fiction titled SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century, which was a bestseller in Singapore, and a novelisation of the movie Eating Air. He blogs here. [Read]

O Thiam Chin's short stories have been published in literary journals: Asia Literary Review, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, and in anthologies such as Best of Singapore Erotica, SilverFish New Writings 6 and Body2Body. His debut collection of short stories, Free-Falling Man, was self-published in 2006, and his new story-collection, Never Been Better, will be published in 2009 by MPH Publishing. [Read]

Divya Rajan, originally from Bombay, is a poetry reviewer for Sotto Voce Magazine. She is also currently involved in translating Modern and Post- Modern works of selected Malayalam poetry for Muse India. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Gloom Cupboard, Foundling Review, Poetry Friends, Read This, The Times of India, Ultraviolet, Femina and other literary publications. Her artwork has been displayed at a suburban Chicago Art Gallery and is forthcoming in Blue Fifth Review. She blogs here. [Read]

Sri Lankan born Prashani Rambukwella is a professional writer who graduated with a BA in English Literature from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, where she is known as a playwright and director. Prashani is an avid fan of children’s literature. Her first book, Mythil’s Secret, was published by Perera Hussein Publishing House in 2009. [Read]

Kathryn (Kate) Rogers has twice been short-listed for the Winston Collins Best Canadian Poem Prize by Descant Magazine (Toronto) in January 2008 and February 2009. Her poetry, essays and reviews have been published in anthologies and literary magazines in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada, the U.S. and the UK. They have appeared in the Asia Literary Review, Many Mountains Moving, Dimsum, Pressed, The New Quarterly, Contemporary Verse II, Canadian Woman Studies, The Mad Woman in the Academy and Orbis International. Her work also appeared in the anthology, We Who Can Fly: Poems, Essays and Memories in Honour of Adele Wiseman. Rogers is co-editor of the international women's poetry anthology Not A Muse (Haven Books, Hong Kong, March 2009); her poetry collection, Painting the Borrowed House, debuted at the Man Hong Kong Literary Festival in March 2008, is available on Amazon.com and from Proverse, Hong Kong. Originally from Toronto, Rogers has been teaching writing, literature an English for Academic and Professional Purposes for colleges and universities in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan for the past ten years. A bi-lingual Chinese and English collection of her essays about conservation, bird watching and culture in Taiwan, The Swallows' Return, was published in June 2006. Rogers currently teaches in the Division of Language Studies at the Community College of City University in Hong Kong. [Read] [Cha profile]

Steven Schroeder is the co-founder, with composer Clarice Assad, of the Virtual Artists Collective (a "virtual" gathering of musicians, poets, and visual artists) that has published five poetry collections each year since it began in 2004. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in After Hours, Concho River Review, the Cresset, Druskininkai Poetic Fall 2005, Macao Closer, Mid-America Poetry Review, Poetry East, Poetry Macao, Rhino, Shichao, Sichuan Literature, Texas Review, TriQuarterly, Wichita Falls Literature & Art Review, and other literary journals. He has published two chapbooks, Theory of Cats and Revolutionary Patience, and three full-length collections, Fallen Prose, The Imperfection of the Eye, and Six Stops South. He teaches at the University of Chicago in Asian Classics and the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults and at Shenzhen University in China. Schroeder's poetry has previously been published in issue #5 of Cha. [Read]

Rohith Sundararaman is a poet based out of Mumbai, India. His work has appeared or will appear in elimae, Eclectica, Ghoti Magazine, Tipton Poetry Journal, Two Review, Edifice Wrecked, GUD Magazine, and other places. Recently, his poem was selected as the best in a contest judged by Marvin Bell. In his spare time, Sundararaman likes to read a lot of Murakami, and go out on photowalks. [Read]

Gillian Sze was born and raised in Winnipeg. Her work has appeared in CV2, Prairie Fire, and Crannóg. She is the author of two chapbooks, This is the Colour I Love You Best (2007) and A Tender Invention (2008). Her collection of poetry, Fish Bones, was published by DC Books in 2009. She completed her Master's degree in Creative Writing and resides in Toronto, Canada. Sze's poetry has previously been published in issues #5 and #6 of Cha and she will serve as the guest editor of the February 2010 issue of the journal. [Read]

Kok-Meng Tan is a Singapore architect practising in Shanghai. In his spare time, he writes about architecture and urban life. [Read]

Anne Tibbitts lives and writes in Jefferson County, MO where she teaches part time at Jefferson college. Tibbitts's writings have appeared in several publications including Mothering Magazine, Word Salad Poetry and Green Hills Literary Lantern. She is 46 years old. [Read]

David C.E. Tneh is an academician and poet from Malaysia whose creative writings have been published in Malaysia, Singapore, and the United States. His poetry has been published in Asiatic and In Our Own Words vol. 7(2007). He is currently teaching English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Creative Industries, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR). [Read]

Lynn van der Velden-Elliott is a Canadian living in the Netherlands. Photography - particularly and almost exclusively medium format analogue photography - makes her very happy. In March 2009, she travelled to Hong Kong with her husband, a Polaroid 680, and a Great Wall DF-2 camera, and found beauty and inspiration everywhere she ventured. She loves colour and texture and light, and capturing those details not always apparent at first glance. Her images can be found on her website and on her Flickr stream. [View]

Les Wicks' books are The Vanguard Sleeps In (Glandular, 1981), Cannibals (Rochford St, 1985), Tickle (Island, 1993), Nitty Gritty (Five Islands, 1997), The Ways of Waves (Sidewalk, 2000), Appetites of Light (Presspress, 2002), Stories of the Feet (Five Islands, 2004) and The Ambrosiacs (Island, 2009). Wicks has been a guest at most of Australia's literary festivals, toured widely and been published in over 200 newspapers, anthologies and magazines across twelve countries in seven languages. He runs Meuse Press, which focused on poetry outreach projects. Visit his website for more details. (Photo by Susan Adams.) [Read]