Poetry Editor
Eric Yip is from Hong Kong. He won the 2021 National Poetry Competition and was shortlisted for the 2023 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. His poems have appeared in Best New Poets, The Guardian, Oxford Poetry, and The Poetry Review. His pamphlet, Exposure, was published by ignitionpress in 2024.

Reviews Editor
Eddie Tay wrote four poetry collections, Remnants (Ethos Books, 2001), A Lover’s Soliloquy (Sixth Finger Press, 2005), The Mental Life of Cities (Chameleon Press, winner of the 2012 Singapore Literature Prize) and Dreaming Cities (Math Paper Press, 2016) He has been invited to various international literary festivals. Originally from Singapore, he is an Associate Professor of literature at the Department of English, Chinese University of Hong Kong. His latest publication is Anything You Can Get Away With: Creative Practices (Delere Press, 2018). Contact: eddie@asiancha.com [profile | website]

Associate Editors

Arthur Leung holds an MFA in creative writing (with distinction) from the University of Hong Kong and is on the international editorial board of Yuan Yang. He was a winner of the 2008 Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition. In 2009, Leung was commended by the Home Affairs Bureau of the Hong Kong SAR government for his outstanding artistic accomplishments. [profile]

Royston Tester has been jury member for the Commonwealth Fiction Prize and first reader for the Writers’ Union of Canada‘s Short Prose Competition for Developing Writers. He is a professor of creative writing at Mohawk College and is a regular writer-in-residence with Beijing’s Red Gate Gallery. His second collection of stories, Fatty Goes To China (Tightrope Books) will be published in 2012. [profile]

Staff Reviewer

Michael Tsang is a native of Hong Kong, and is Lecturer in Japanese Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, with previous academic experiences in Newcastle University, the University of Warwick, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His interests lie in East Asian literatures and popular cultures, as well as postcolonial and world literatures at large. He is the co-editor of Murakami Haruki and Our Years of Pilgrimage (Routledge, 2021). He writes stories and poems in his spare time, and is always interested in languages, literatures and cultures. In April 2012, Michael joined Cha’s editorial team as Staff Reviewer. He is a founding co-editor of the academic journal, Hong Kong Studies (Chinese University Press). [profile]

Public Relations Manager

Janet Lau is a native Hongkonger. She received her BA and BED from Hong Kong Baptist University.

Webmasters

Tea Tasters

Tea Tasters very occasionally comment on works published in Cha on A Cup of Fine Tea; they are: Tammy Lai-Ming Ho, Jeff Zroback, Bob Bradshaw [profile] and some guests.

More about Cha:

• • A poem by Jeffrey B. Javier, first published in the July 2018 issue of Cha, won the Second Place in the 2019 Hawker Prize
  • Four pieces by Alvin Pang (October 2018 issue), Sigrid Marianne Gayangos (July 2018 issue), Jam Pascual (July 2018 issue), and Yoko Tawada, translated by Susan Bernofsky (April 2018 issue), first published in Cha, were selected for inclusion in The Best Small Fictions Anthology (2019), published by Sonder Press. Cha is one of the five journals chosen to be spotlight journals in the volume [More information]
  • An essay by Paul French, first published in the September 2016 issue of Cha, was expanded and adapted into a four part story-of-the-week of RTHK3 in April/May 2019
  • Works published in Cha have been included in Best of the Web (2009), selected as a winner and finalists of Best of the Net (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2018), selected as a winner and a semifinalist of The Best Small Fictions (2018) and named storySouth‘s Million Writers Award Notable Stories (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014)
  • Several pieces published in the journal were noticed by other editors and translated into languages such as Chinese, Japanese, French and Swedish
  • Time Out Hong Kong (October 2009), South China Morning Post (April 2010), The China Daily (November 2010) and India’s Sunday Guardian (February 2013) have run feature articles on Cha; the journal is mentioned in the CNN article “The Evolution of English Literature in Hong Kong” (2010), the Hindu article “Virtual Bookshelf” (2010), the journal The Year’s Work in English Studies (2010), Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies (2010), King’s College London’s In Touch (2011), Hong Kong’s City Magazine (2014), Los Angeles Review of Books (2016), and most recently, Ming Pao (2017), Apple Daily (2017), and Philippines Graphic (2018), among other places
  • After reading an unpublished book chapter by Donna Miscolta in the May 2010 issue of Cha, Signal 8 Press asked the author for the manuscript and eventually decided to publish the book (2010)
  • A poem by Martin Alexander, first featured in the May 2008 issue of Cha, went on to win the International Grand Prix for Poetry (2009)
  • Selected as The Gatekeeper’s Site of the Week (Wednesday 1 July 2009), on Meet at the Gate, the website of Scottish publisher Canongate
  • Named Best Online Publication of 2011 by storySouth’s Million Writers Award
  • Named Best New Online Magazine of 2008 by storySouth’s Million Writers Award

Very occasionally, we comment on published pieces in the critique column, A Cup of Fine Tea: ‘If something is good enough to be published in Cha, then it is good enough to receive critical attention’ (qtd. from an interview here).

We have also run the following contests (and you can find our special features here):

• • • Auditory Cortex (April 2018)
    • Addiction (September 2016)
    • Distance (June 2016)
    • Hong Kong (December 2015)
    • The Other Side (March 2015)
    • Reconciliation (December 2014)
    • Void (March 2014)
    • Betrayal (March 2013)
    • Misinterpretation (November 2012)
    • The Past (September 2012)
    • Encountering (March 2012)

In the future, Cha will be developed into both an online journal and a print anthology. The eighth issue of Cha can be downloaded as a PDF here and the poetry in the thirteenth issue is available in a booklet.

Cha is also a drink popular throughout Asia and beyond.

Guest Editors and Contest Judges

Guest editors read the submissions with Tammy Ho and Jeff Zroback; they are carefully selected from our past contributors. All new content is currently added to Cha Journal Blog until further notice.