This year's program would not have been possible without our wonderful Team Members and Volunteers. Check out who made this year's program possible here first.
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Patrick Allington is a writer, editor, critic and academic who lives in Adelaide, South Australia. His novel Figurehead (Black Inc. 2009) was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and his essays, short fiction and criticism have appeared widely. He is a Lecturer in English & Creative Writing at Flinders University.
Harry Aveling holds an adjunct appointment as a Professor in the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University. He specialises in Indonesian and Malay Literature, and Translation Studies. Prof. Aveling has published widely in translation theory and is the author, with Teri Yamada, of the new entry on Southeast Asian Translation Traditions in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, 2009.
Benjamin Allmon is an author, journalist, musician, audio engineer, adventurer, and film producer. His books include Foot Notes, Mr Ordinary Dons a Disguise, and The Saltwater Story, a fully-illustrated hardcover collaboration with renowned photographer David Kelly, as well as a feature-length documentary. Shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards’ Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance, The Saltwater Story describes Allmon's three day sea voyage in traditional canoes with the Bundjalung-Yugambeh people of the Gold Coast, a journey not made in over a century. He writes for national and international publications, has released two albums, and is a member of APRA, ASA, and QWC. He has one wife, one son, and two left feet.
Jude Aquilina has published poetry, short stories and articles in Australia and abroad. She has published seven of her own poetry collections including Knifing the Ice, On a Moon Spiced Night and WomanSpeak (co-written with Louise Nicholas). Jude teaches a Professional Writing Unit at TAFE South Australia’s Adelaide College of the Arts. She lives in Milang and was the winner of the 2018 Barbara Hanrahan Fellowship. Jude is a private editor and runs writing workshops in the local and wider community, including in schools and in a prison. Jude collects velvet and electrical insulators and believes in poetry for the masses.
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Inez Baranay is an English language writer of Australian citizenship, immigrant background, transnational culture, and cosmopolitan temperament. Born in Italy of Hungarian parents, Inez grew up in Australia and began publishing short story fiction in small press anthologies during the 1980s that had themes of experimental, feminist and multicultural writing. Since 1989, she has published over a dozen books of fiction and non-fiction (three of them first published in India), as well as many short stories and essays. Her recent books include a novel set in Berlin, Ghosts Like Us and Local Time, a memoir of cities, friendships and the writing life. Her recent novel, Turn Left At Venus will be published in 2019. Inez has a PhD in Creative Writing from Griffith University. In Australia, India, USA and Europe, she has lectured on writing issues and taught creative writing in universities, schools and community groups, given many readings and talks, been a guest at conferences, seminars and literature festivals, and a resident at various international writers’ centres. She runs a newsblog on her website about history and current issues.
Helen Burns is an Australian writer and poet. She has recently completed a cross-cultural novel inspired by the life of an eighth century South Indian poet that spans Tamil Nadu, Australia and France. In 2016,,the novel was selected for the Hachette / Queensland Writers Centre Manuscript Development Program. Research for this work has included interpretive translations of Tamil verse. Four decades after studying Hindi and Asian Studies at the Australian National University this project is in many ways a homecoming. She is currently seeking a publisher.
Pascalle Burton is a poet and performer with an interest in conceptual art and cultural theory. Her collection About the Author is Dead is available from Cordite Books. Her projects include UN/SPOOL (with Nathan Shepherdson), 24 Hour Gym (with Tessa Rose), and performing in the band The Stress of Leisure. Her work has appeared in journals and anthologies, such as Australian Book Review, Australian Poetry Journal, Clan Analogue, Contemporary Australian Feminist Poetry, Overland, Sod and V+L-A=K.
Chantelle Bayes is a writer and researcher living on the Gold Coast. She is interested in contemporary literature, nature writing and representations of the non-human in fiction. Her writing has been published in Axon and Meniscus and performed at the Brisbane Writers Festival, the Melbourne Emerging Writers Festival, and the Newcastle ‘This is not art’ Festival among others.
Sally Breen is the author of The Casuals (2011) and Atomic City (2013) nominated for the Queensland Literary Awards People's Choice Book of the Year in 2014. Sally is a senior lecturer in writing and publishing at Griffith University and fiction editor of the Griffith Review. Her work has appeared widely in Australia including Best Australian Stories, Review of Australian Fiction, Griffith Review and Overland. She is the current APWT chairwoman.
Elizabeth Bryer is the translations editor at TLB’s book imprint, Brow Books, and its flagship print quarterly, The Lifted Brow. She is also a literary translator from Spanish, winner of a 2017 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant from PEN America. She divides her time between Naarm, Australia, on the never-ceded sovereign lands of the Wurundjeri and Boonwarrung people of the Kulin Nation, and Arequipa, Peru.
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Jane Camens is the founder of APWT. On returning to her native Australia after 15 years in Asia and the UK, Jane founded Asia Pacific Writers & Translators (APWT) in 2005. She ran the association without pay until July 2017, when a paid administrator was appointed. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where she also worked for the New Writing Partnership (now the Writers Centre Norwich). Her short stories have won prizes, been published and broadcast in many countries, including Ireland (where she won the Fish Publishing Prize), the UK (BBC World Service short stories), Australia and Asia. She has taught Creative Writing in universities in Australia and Hong Kong and has run her Just Write course in many countries. In 2001 she founded with Nury Vittachi the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, Asia's first international literary festival with a focus of writing from and about Asia.
Matthew Condon has been a journalist for more than 30 years, and for almost a decade has been investigating crime and corruption in Queensland. He interviewed disgraced former Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis for over three years, and had exclusive access to Lewis’ private papers. That research became Condon’s best selling true crime trilogy, Three Crooked Kings, Jacks and Jokers and All Fall Down. Most recently he has been investigating the fatal Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub firebombing in Brisbane in 1973. His book on the subject, The Night Dragon, will be published in late 2018.
Anne Connor is a Melbourne writer of fiction and non-fiction. For over two decades she has worked in the writing space, with articles appearing in The Age, Business Review Weekly and various lifestyle and industry magazines. Her short stories have been published in anthologies and received awards. Anne headed up a marketing and communications consultancy for nine years, and studied creative writing at Deakin and the University of Oxford. Two Generations is her debut memoir.
Stuart Cooke is a poet, translator and critic. His latest poetry collection is Opera (Five Islands Press, 2016), and his translation of Gianni Siccardi's The Blackbird was recently published by Vagabond Press. Other books include Speaking the Earth's Languages: a theory for Australian-Chilean postcolonial poetics and George Dyuŋgayan's Bulu Line: a West Kimberley song cycle. His awards include the Gwen Harwood and Dorothy Porter poetry prizes, and he has received fellowships from Omi International Arts Centre and Hawthornden International Writers' Retreat, among others. He is a senior lecturer in creative writing and literary studies at Griffith University.
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John Dale is the author of seven books, including the best-seller Huckstepp, the novella Plenty and crime novels. His campus novel, Leaving Suzie Py, was translated into Turkish, and he has a published memoir, Wild Life, plus anthologies, and the forthcoming Sydney Noir (2018). His essays and non-fiction works have appeared in a variety of journals. He is a Professor of Writing at UTS, and his teaching areas include narrative fiction, creative non-fiction and crime narratives.
Antony Dapiran is an Australian-born, Hong Kong-based writer, lawyer and photographer. He is the author of ‘City of Protest: A Recent History of Dissent in Hong Kong’ (Penguin, 2017), and his writing has appeared in Art Asia Pacific (where he is a contributing editor), Cha, Chart Collective and the LA Review of Books China Blog, among others.
Jose Dalisay Jr., PhD has published more than 30 books of fiction and nonfiction. His second novel, Soledad’s Sister, was shortlisted for the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize in 2007. Dr. Dalisay is a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines, where he also chaired the English department and served as Director of the UP Institute of Creative Writing and Vice President for Public Affairs, the position he now holds.
Shivaji Das is the author of three travel memoirs and photography books. His latest book is ‘Sacred Love: Erotic Arts in the Temples of Nepal’. Shivaji’s work has been featured in TIME, Economist, BBC, Asian Geographic, etc. He is the conceptualizer of Migrant Poetry Contests in Singapore and Malaysia.
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Nick Earls is the author of twenty-seven books for adults, teenagers and children. Two of his novels have been adapted into feature films and five into stage plays. His books have won awards in Australia, the UK and the US, appearing on bestseller lists in those countries. He has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Queensland. His most recent work is the Wisdom Tree novella series, described by the Sydney Morning Herald as ‘a triumphant and extraordinary piece of fiction’.
Phillip Edmonds taught Australian literature & Creative Writing for over twenty years at the Victorian College of the Arts, at Griffith University, and most recently at the University of Adelaide. He has worked in book publishing as a bookseller, and as a journalist and oral historian, and has had a number of unskilled and underpaid jobs. He was active in left- wing politics in Victoria and in small press publishing during the 1970s. His PhD from Deakin University in 1997 is a study of the short story form in Australia during the 70s and the 80s. His most recent experience as a publisher has been producing 'Wet ink,’ the magazine of ‘new writing' from 2005 to 2012. He has published three collections of short fiction, including 'The Soapbox.'
Heather Ellis is the author of Ubuntu: One Woman’s Motorcycle Odyssey Across Africa published by Black Inc. in 2016, and Timeless: Travels On The Silk Road to be released in March 2019. Heather is also a public speaker on sexual health and HIV and is an advocate for women living with HIV in Australia. Ubuntu: One Woman’s Motorcycle Odyssey Across Africa is a memoir about a life-changing adventure into the soul of Africa where Heather finds Ubuntu— a traditional Bantu word that means ‘I am because we are’. It is the universal bond that connects all of humanity as one. Ubuntu details Heather's epic journey from south to north Africa during 1993 to 1994. While her memoir is filled with 'survival-against-the-odds' adventures, it also unfolds as a deeply spiritual journey of personal growth that resonates with all who read Ubuntu.
Timeless: Travels On The Silk Road (available March 2019) is a profoundly engaging tale of life and death that takes the reader on an evocative journey of both hardship and immense beauty on the fabled and timeless Silk Road. It is the story of one woman’s last adventure that becomes her search for salvation as she navigates the pendulum of denial and hope, depression and faith. But it is through this search that the narrative is infused with a deep spiritual power leaving the reader questioning their own mortality and leaving them with a deeper understanding of what it means for the millions globally living with HIV; for the newly diagnosed; and for those, without access to effective treatments, who continue to die from AIDS.
Heather is the chair of Positive Women Victoria, Australia’s only support and advocacy organisation specifically funded for women living with HIV. She is a single mother of three school-aged children and has been living with HIV for 23 years. As well as writing and public speaking, she works in a legal field and sits on two state government advisory groups. Heather has also worked as a journalist for News Ltd and in international community development. And she still rides motorcycles.
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Mary Farrow is the manager of Emerald Community House Inc.(ECH), the director of the Centre of Resilience and editor of the Emerald Messenger. Mary uses her skills in community development practice to help strengthen the community from the ground up, through numerous community programs, activities, markets, festivals and services. In 2013, she made it a key strategy to embed resilience into ECH’s Strategic Plan, which invests in “community continuity” when tackling adversity, and promotes social inclusion through the arts. As the Centre Manager, Mary directs the unique Centre of Resilience (CoR) model and recently launched the Emerald Messenger. In 2016, CoR was recognized for a “High Commendation” at the Victorian Resilient Australia Awards. Mary is a part time mature age student at Monash University in the Master of International Development Practice.
Sanaz Fotouhi is the director of APWT. She holds a PhD in English literature from the University of New South Wales. Sanaz is interested in narrative and stories that emerge from the diasporic experience. Her first book The Literature of the Iranian Diaspora: Meaning and Identity since the Islamic Revolution was published in March 2015 (I.B. Tauris). Her stories and creative fiction are also reflective of her multicultural background. Her work has appeared in anthologies in Australia and Hong Kong, including in The Southerly, The Griffith Review, The Mascara Literary Review, as well as in the Guardian UK and the Jakarta Post. Sanaz is one of the founding members of the Persian Film Festival in Australia as well as the co-producer of the multi-award winning documentary film, Love Marriage in Kabul.
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Vladimeir Gonzales is a writing fellow of Likhaan: University of the Philippines Institute of Creative Writing.Vladimeir is also the chairperson of the University Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature. He writes essays, short stories, plays and has papers that are focused on fan fiction and plays/dramas translations. His recent body of work is composed of translations of foreign drama texts into Filipino, which were also performed by different university-based organizations.
Romi Grossberg is a holistic counsellor, public speaker and author of The 5-Minute Guide to Emotional Intelligence and The Key. She is currently finishing her first memoir Hip Hop & Hope, from the Slums of Phnom Penh. Romi lives in Thailand working as a counsellor, writing therapist and course facilitator.
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Rebecca Haque is a Professor and former Chair (2009-2012) at the Dept. of English, University of Dhaka. She is a literary critic, writer, poet, translator, and columnist.
Jane Houng has lived and worked in Hong Kong for over thirty years. She has published Bloodswell (2012), Cat Soup and Other Short Stories (2015), Pun Choi: Retellings of Chinese Folk and Fairy tales (2016) and Hong Kong Movers and Shakers (2017) with QX Publishing Company. She also writes for Oxford University Press, Pearson Education Asia and Sing Tao Publishing Corporation, and reviews children’s books for the Asian Review of Books.
Matt Hetherington is a writer, teacher, music-maker, and moderate self-promoter living in the Tweed Valley, Northern New South Wales. His fifth and most recent collection is The Love of the Sun.
John Holliday specialises in biographical writing. He wrote ‘Mission to China: How an Englishman brought theWest to the Orient,’ published by Amberley Publishing in the UK, while a Chinese version of the book is to be published this year by Cosmic Light Publishing in Taipei. He is currently working on another biography about an American which does not involve Asia.
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Sreedhevi Iyer is the author of ‘Jungle Without Water,’ which was shortlisted for the Penang Monthly Book Award in 2017 at George Town Literary Festival. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, with work appearing in Drunken Boat, Hotel Amerika, The Writer's Chronicle, Asian American Literary Review, Asia Literary Review, Two Thirds North, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and many more. She has guest edited on the Hong Kong Special Folio with Drunken Boat and on a special issue of Cha. At the moment she’s working on a monograph on literary discourse analysis and lives and teaches in Melbourne.
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Ozi Jarel is a Ugandan and Sudanese poet & rapper based in Brisbane, Australia. At the age of nine he started composing poems about his experiences growing up in an ethnically diverse environment. Inspired by his passion for story telling and the influence words can have on the listener, he began performing spoken word poetry four years later in Kampala. After moving to Australia three years ago to pursue a degree in Architecture, he continues sharing his spiritual journey using a unique style of word play.
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Suzanne Kamata is an expat American who has lived in Japan for the last 30 years. She is the author of ten published books with two more forthcoming that include novels for adults and young adults, anthologies, a nonfiction travel book for literacy learners, and a bilingual picture book for children. Her work reflects the diversity of her own family life.
Professor Nigel Krauth is head of the writing program at Griffith University, Australia. He has published novels, stories, essays, articles and reviews. His research investigates creative writing processes and the teaching of creative writing. He is the General Editor of TEXT: Journal of writing and writing courses www.textjournal.com.au. His book Creative Writing and the Radical (MLM, Bristol) is due for publication in July 2016.
Shelley Kenigsberg is a freelance editor, writer and trainer. She runs S K Publishing and edits for publishing houses and private clients, in fiction and non-fiction. In 2009, Shelley started Editing in Paradise offering writing and editing retreats (long and short) in paradisiacal places (Bali and Australia). The programs cover Life Writing and Memoir, creative writing and self-editing masterclasses. She also trains editors, and editing and writing for trade, corporate, academic and educational, government and private clients. Shelley is Head of the Macleay Diploma in Book Editing and Publishing and has delivered the course for the past 23 years. She is writing her own book; it's taking some time.
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Louisa Lim is a writer, journalist and podcaster. In 2014 she wrote The People's Republic of Amnesia; Tiananmen Revisited (Oxford University Press), which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Helen Bernstein Book Prize for Excellence in Journalism. She is a Senior Lecturer in Audiovisual Journalism at the University of Melbourne, and co-hosts an award winning podcast on China called The Little Red Podcast.She is currently writing a book about Hong Kong, which will form a creative practice PhD from Monash University. She was a BBC and NPR correspondent in China for a decade.
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Jennifer Mackenzie has had a long term engagement with Asia, mainly writing poetry, researching, work and travel. Her most recent book is ‘Borobudur and Other Poems’ (Lontar 2012) and she is currently working on a poetic biography of ‘Pramoedya’ and a collection of essays about writing from and about Asia, called ‘Writing the Continent.’
Jessica Faye Marino is a writer, a performance poet, and a daughter of Baguio. She is a member of the Ubbog Cordillera Young Writers Group and the Baguio Writers Group. She has performed her poetry in various stages in the Philippines and across South East Asia. Her poetry is a form of autobiography - a reflection of one's passions, struggles, and triumphs and tackles issues on indigenous identity, trauma and healing, and female sexuality. She started doing performance poetry in 2011 at Baguio's very own Mt. Cloud Bookshop, seven years and countless scribble-filled notebooks later, she is still performing, learning and immersing in communities that share her craft.
Philip McLaren is an award winning Sydney author Sweet Water, Stolen Land (winner of the prestigious David Unaipon Award), Scream Black Murder (short-listed for the Ned Kelly Award), Lightning Mine, There’ll Be New Dreams, Utopia (winner of France’s Auteurs d’Ailleurs Award), West of Eden and Innocent Abroad. Many of his works are translated and taught in universities across Europe, the US, and Australia. Both his parents are Kamilaroi First Nation Australians from Coonabarabran.
Plia Mustamaki is a Finnish writer who is currently located in Abu Dhabi, where she teaches the NYU’s writing program. She has a Ph.D in English Literature from Rutgers University, and has travelled extensively. Her travel writing has been published in Punctuate, The Cultureist and Matador Network.
Kevin Maher teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Macau. He has published short stories in Macau, Hong Kong, South Korea and the U.S. He has self-published a narrative biography on South Korea called ‘No Couches in Korea’ (2016), and is releasing a new book published by ASM/Macau, that has a narrative fiction style entitled ‘Moon Over Macau’ (2018).
Sophie MacNeill is a writer and PhD candidate at Griffith University on the Gold Coast, where she is working on her first novel. Her practice-led research explores transcultural identity in the context of contemporary return narratives. Sophie’s short fiction has appeared in Talent Implied: New Writing from Griffith, Pink Cover Zine, the Bareknuckle Poet Annual Anthology, and the upcoming ACE Anthology by Recent Work Press.
Joe Milan Jr. is a BMI PhD Fellow of Creative Writing at UNLV, a fiction editor at Witness, and a MFA graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He's Korean American and has lived in Korea for nine years. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in wonderful places like Broad Street, F(r)iction (2017 Short Story winner selected by Celeste Ng), The LA Review of Books’ Blarb, Books Actually Gold Standard 2016 anthology, The Kyoto Journal, and others.
Jonathan Morley teaches Literature and Creative Writing at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou. From 2013 to 2017 he was the Programme Director at Writers' Centre Norwich, curating and expanding the organisation's artistic programme as it campaigned to become the National Centre for Writing. His most recent collection of poems, Euclid's Harmonics, winner of a Cafe Writers Commission, is published in the UK by Ink Sweat & Tears.
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Anisa Nandaula is the 2018 recipient of the Arts Queensland XYZ Award for Innovation in Spoken Word, 2016 Queensland poetry slam champion, the runner up Australian poetry slam champion and nationally renowned poet. This published poet has performed her work at festivals around the country such as the Queensland poetry festival, Townsville Multicultural festival, Women of the world festival and African Australian film festival. Her unique and captivating exploration of identity and politics has been showcased at the Sydney Opera house, Slama Lama ding dong in Melbourne and Adelaide writers center. Her combination performance, engaging use of language and profound ideas can capture the heart of any audience. She is a published author releasing her debut collection titled Melanin Garden.
Sahib Nazari is a Griffith University graduate in Creative Writing and Literature. He was born in Afghanistan and grew up in Pakistan where he lived with his family before moving to Australia in 2005. Sahib voices his words through writing – short stories and occasional poetry. He can speak, read and write in English, Urdu, Persian and Hazaragi languages. In Australia, he’s been published in Talent Implied, the annual anthology of Griffith University creative writing students.
Lucy Neave is a lecturer in Creative Writing at the Australian National University. She is the author of Who We Were, a novel published by Text (Melbourne, 2013), which was shortlisted for the ACT Book of the Year Award in 2014. She has published in Best Australian Stories 2009 & 2014, and in Australian and American literary journals, including Overland and Southerly. Her scholarly essays are on fiction writing process, writers' practices and pedagogy. She is the recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts grant, a Varuna Second Book Fellowship and is a former Fulbright scholar.
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Liz Packer coordinates the Adelaide College of the Arts Professional Writing program (which includes writing fiction, poetry, film and TV scripts, plays, children's stories, fantasy and sci-fi, and business writing). She teaches in the program, and has specialist knowledge and experience in elearning, print resource development, and curriculum development. As part of her role at ACArts, Liz coordinates the writing stream in the Flinders University Bachelor of Communication and Professional Writing, and teaches in the program.
Julia Prendergast’s novel The Earth Does Not Get Fat was published by University of Western Australia Publishing (2018). Her short stories have been recognised and published: Lightship Anthology 2 (UK), Glimmer Train (US), TEXT (AU) Séan Ó Faoláin Competition, (IE), Review of Australian Fiction, Australian Book Review Elizabeth Jolley Prize, Josephine Ulrick Prize (AU). Recent short stories feature in Australian Short Stories 66 (Pascoe Publishing 2018). Julia is a Lecturer in Writing and Literature at Swinburne University, Melbourne.
Rochelle Potkar is an alumna of Iowa International Writing Program (2015) and the Charles Wallace Writer’s fellowship (2017). She is the author of The Arithmetic of breasts, Four Degrees of Separation, and numerous other stories. Her poem The girl from Lal Bazaar was shortlisted for the Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Prize in 2018, while Place won an honorable mention at Asian Cha’s Auditory Cortex, Skirt was made into a poetry film by Philippa Collie Cousins for the Visible Poetry Project, To Daraza won the 2018 Norton Girault Literary Prize in poetry and War Specials garnered a 1st Runner up in the The Great Indian Poetry Contest of 2018. Rochelle was editor of the Goan-Irish anthology, Goa: a garland of poems with transcreations by Gabriel Rosenstock that included The Collected Works of Joseph Furtado - Golden Goa! and Songs in Exile. Her reviews have appeared in Wasafiri, Indian Literature, Asian Cha, and Chandrabhaga while her latest book Paper Asylum has received encouraging reviews.
Jemma Purdey is the author of Anti-Chinese Violence in Indonesia, 1996-1999, Singapore: ASAA SEA Publications Series, Singapore University Press, 2006, and the biography From Vienna to Yogyakarta: The Life of Herb Feith, Sydney UNSW Press, 2006. She has published in Indonesia Dari Yogyakarta ke Vienna: Kehidupan Herb Feith, KPG Publishing, Jakarta, 2014. Jemma’s research interests include biography, human rights and reconciliation in Indonesia, as well as Australia’s relationship with Indonesia. Jemma has written widely on Indonesian politics and contemporary history and is the editor of Knowing Indonesia: Intersections of Self, Discipline and Nation, Monash University Publishing, Clayton, 2012, and is co-editor with Antje Missbach of Linking people: Connections and encounters between Australians and Indonesians, Regiospectra, Berlin, 2015. She is Chair of the board that publishes the magazine Inside Indonesia and is co-editor of the Herb Feith Translation Series, Monash University Publishing.
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Mirandi Riwoe is an award winning writer and prose editor at Peril Magazine. Mirandi has a PhD in Creative Writing and Literary Studies (QUT). Her novella The Fish Girl won Seizure’s Viva la Novella V and was shortlisted for The Stella Prize, while her debut novel She be Damned will be followed by A Necessary Murder. Her work has appeared in Best Australian Stories, Meanjin, Review of Australian Fiction, Griffith Review and Shibboleth. Mirandi has received an Asialink residency with the Shanghai Writers Association and fellowships from the Queensland Literary Awards and Griffith Review.
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Jayanthi Sankar is very excited about writing her first and current novel in English. Born and brought up in India, Jayanthi has lived in Singapore since 1990, and has been creatively active for the past twenty-two years.She has been published in several magazines including Indian Ruminations, Muse India, The Wagon, and Opinion. Her short story ’Read Singapore,’ has been published in Issue Two of the quarterly magazine Ceriph, and has been translated and included in the Russian anthology: To Go to S'pore, plus contemporary writing from Singapore, edited by Kirill Cherbitski. Another short story ‘My mother is a feminist,’ has been included in the ‘The other’ anthology.
Starting her career with pencils and charcoals, she has been self-teaching sketching, drawing, and painting and has yet to work with oils and portraits.
Her artworks have already been featured in zines like theworldofapu, and marketing booklets and the compilation 1000 paintings of Diaspora artists all over the world. She has a few events of exhibitions planned in the coming year.
Aruna Shahani was born and raised in Delhi, India and is a medical doctor by profession. Aruna has worked and lived in India, Australia, UK, USA, Sri Lanka and Singapore, and chose to retire a few years ago to chase her other passions of writing, painting, yoga, and travel. She writes poetry and short stories in English on subjects that are close to her heart.
As a versatile poet, Aruna expresses herself on a wide spectrum of themes in a contemporary style, often using free verse. She has published an anthology ' In Reverie' with other poets in 2016, and her solo collection of 50 poems 'Mid Autumn Musings' is being launched at Singapore Writers Festival in November, 2018.
Ravi Shankar has published and edited books of poetry including the Muse India award-winning Tamil translations of 9th century poet/saint Andal "The Autobiography of a Goddess.” He was the 2011 National Poetry Review Prize winner for "Deepening Groove" and the 2005 Finalist for the Connecticut Book Awards for "Instrumentality." Along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, he edited W.W. Norton’s "Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from Asia, the Middle East & Beyond." He has won a Pushcart Prize and a Glenna Luschei Award from Prairie Schooner. He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and the Corporation of Yaddo. Shankar has taught and performed his work around the world and is the Founding editor of Drunken Boat, one of the oldest online journals. He holds a research fellowship from the University of Sydney and his "Many Uses of Mint: New and Selected Poems 1997-2017" has just been published with publishers Recent Works Press.
Shock Therapy Productions is a Gold Coast born arts company founded in January 2015 by Sam Foster and Hayden Jones. Shock Therapy Productions has quickly established itself as a leading company in the delivery of high quality, relevant, multidisciplinary performance, and a leader in the Arts and Culture sector on the Gold Coast and in South East Queensland. Company founders Sam Foster and Hayden Jones have a wealth of industry experience, artistic vision and enthusiasm that drives the ethos of the company. Shock Therapy Production’s vision is to create Provocative Arts Experiences through storytelling that explores what it is to be human - provocative, challenging, uplifting and impactful.
Shock Therapy have been awarded the Matilda Award for Best Independent Production for the last 3 consecutive years and have also been finalists in the Gold Coast Young Entrepreneurs Awards for the past 2 years. The company received funding from the City of Gold Coast between 2015 – 2018 to assist with establishing the organisation and aid in the growth of the Arts and Cultural sector of the entire Gold Coast. Shock Therapy’s work has been commissioned by major festivals, been published by Playlab, toured both nationally and internationally and been acclaimed by audiences and critics alike.
Eve Stafford is Program Director of Cairns Tropical Writers Festival.
David Stavanger is a poet, performer, cultural producer and lapsed psychologist. In 2013 he won the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize, resulting in the release of The Special (UQP), his first full-length collection of poetry which was awarded the 2015 Wesley Michel Wright Poetry Prize. His prose-poem ‘The Electric Journal’ was a 2016 Newcastle Poetry Prize finalist and forms the spine of his next Australia Council funded collection CASE NOTES. David was Co-Director of the Queensland Poetry Festival (2015-17) and is the Co-Editor of Verity La’s SLOT MACHINE, Australian Poetry Journal 8.2 SPOKEN, and the forthcoming SOLID AIR: Collected Australian & New Zealand Spoken Word (UQP, 2019.) He is also sometimes known as Green Room-nominated spoken weird artist Ghostboy, featuring at festivals nationally and touring internationally in various iterations as well being at the forefront of establishing poetry slam in Queensland. These days he lives between the stage and the page.
Neville Sarony is a practising Queen's Counsel based in Hong Kong, ex-Gurkha Officer and Foreign Service Officer. He is the published author of the Max Devlin political thriller novels The Dharma Expedient and Devlin's Chakra as well as the memoir Counsel in the Clouds, which traces how he became the first foreign lawyer to work in Nepal. He is a regular contributor to the Hong Kong Economic Journal and Asia Times. Writer of topical lyrics parodying politics and events, which he also performs, he is a noted jazz pianist and vocalist. A popular speaker at after-dinner events, the Hong Kong International Literary Festival has hosted promotions for all his books. Devlin's Chakra is now available in Nepali and his books can be purchased from Amazon (both paper and kindle versions) on order in UK bookshops, or from the Gurkha Museum [email protected]. Arrangements are in hand for distribution in Australia.
Emmanuela Shinta is a Dayak leader, activist, filmmaker and writer. With a reputation for leading and empowering young people, she regularly speaks at workshops, panels, activist forums and even in churches around the region. Shinta’s YOUTH ACT Campaign is recognised in Asia Pacific, having been featured in the UNICEF Publication, 2017. Shinta produces short films and documentaries oriented to Indigenous peoples rights; ‘When Woman Fight’ is one of her documentaries which has been shown in international film festivals and forums. She is also an active minister in Christian outreach and ministry. Shinta is the founder of Ranu Welum Foundation, ALIVE Global Ministry, and EL Creative Productions. She is also the founder of DANUM Magazine and the author of books such as ‘ Enlightened’ (2016) and ‘Me, Modernism and my Indigenous root,’ which will be launched this year.
James Shea is the author of The Lost Novel (Fence Books, 2014), Star in the Eye (Fence Books, 2008; 2017), and the chapbook Air and Water Show (Convulsive Editions, 2013). His poems have appeared in various publications, including Boston Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Jubilat, and The New Census: An Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. His translations of Japanese and Chinese poetry have appeared in Circumference, Gin’yu, The Image Hunter (2016), and The Iowa Review. Formerly an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Nebraska Wesleyan University, he received a Fulbright Scholar Grant for Hong Kong (2013-2014), where he taught at the Department of Humanities and Creative Writing. In addition to serving as the Associate Director of the International Writers’ Workshop, he is the Poetry Reviews Editor for the Hong Kong Review of Books and an advisor to the Hong Kong International Literary Festival.
Luna Sicat Cleto teaches Creative Writing in Filipino at the University of Philippines in Diliman. Her novels include Makinilyang Altar (UP Press, 2003) and Mga Prodigal (Anvil, 2010), while recent publications are: Bago Mo Ako Ipalaot (poetry collection, High Chair publications, 2018), Sapantaha: Kalipunan ng mga Maikling Kuwentong Spekulatibo at Imahinatibo (co-edited with Roland Tolentino, UP Press, 2017), Kapag Sumalupa ang Gunita: Mga Piling Journal Entries ni Rogelio Sicat (editor, Ateneo de Naga University Press), Pag-ahon sa Kahirapan: Mga Kuwento ng mga Nanay (editor, Eight Books Publishing, 2019).
Francine Smith is a Children's Author of "The Dragonfly Who Lost A Wing But Could Still Fly," an inspirational and courageous story of perseverance and resilience. Hand painted highly detailed beautiful illustrations in water colour. Four years ago the idea came to Francine after a mastectomy. A gentle way for a Mum to explain to her young ones without instilling fear or trauma. Since then Francine is on to her 6th cancer. The latest being a brain tumour operated on mid October 2018.
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Te Whiu, Annie Since 2005, when Annie moved from a career in education to the arts, she has primarily worked as cultural producer and has a broad range of festival and event experience, most recently having co-directed Australia’s flagship poetry gathering, the Queensland Poetry Festival from 2015-2017. Annie is also an experienced theatre practitioner, having studied a Double Major in Drama & Literature and winning several short play awards as a Director. Annie is currently the Co-Editor of online poetry journal Verity La’s Slot Machine. Born and raised in Brisbane, Annie is a descendent of the Te Rarawa tribe in Northland, Aotearoa. She currently resides on Bundjalung country where she is focusing on her writing, weaving and centering marginalized voices in the Australian arts sector.
Anita Antony Thomas is an author, blogger and a website designer.
Her first book, Senserly, Amako, was launched in Singapore in January 2018 at the ASEAN-PBD Writers Festival. In April, it was launched in Lucknow, India at the SRMU Kitaab Literature Festival. In September, the book was showcased at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC 2018) and in January 2019, she will be conducting three workshops based on the book at The Hindu Literary Festival in Chennai, India. Anita has worked as a media producer, owned a film production company and freelanced in India, Indonesia and Singapore in production and writing for advertising, design and public relations agencies, corporate clients and non-profit organisations.
Anita designed, set-up, co-owns and maintains (since 2004) www.singaporeforkids.com, a website for residents in and visitors to Singapore. She has an abiding interest in everything new and intriguing that impacts the way we think and live and her passions are the theatre of the absurd, travel, photography, animals, food, music and children (in no particular order). She is currently working with young professionals in Singapore to capture the spirit of her book in a song and a short animated film.
Merlynn Tong is an Actor and Playwright. As a playwright, she will be standing on the shoulders of giants to adapt Sophocles’ Antigone for Queensland Theatre (2019). She has written two one-woman shows, Ma Ma Ma Mad (2015), the true story of her mother’s suicide and Blue Bones (2017), a semi-autobiography of teenage romance as it blossoms then warps in the heat of a bustling Singapore. In 2018, Merlynn wrote Good Grief, a play for Queensland Theatre’s The Scene Project,where she take ancient myths and legends from around the globe and reimagines into modern day moments. Her solo work Blue Bones has recently won 6 Matilda Awards including the Lord Mayor Award for Best New Australian Work, Best Mainstage Production and Best Female Actor in a Leading Role. Some of her recent performances include Top of the Lake: China Girl (2017, BBC & Sundance Films, Jane Campion), The Mathematics of Longing(2018, La Boite Theatre), The Lost Lending Library(2018, Punchdrunk & Imaginary Theatre), Hotelling(2017, Bleached Arts), Bitch: Origin of the Female Species (2017, Brisbane Festival), Blue Bones(2017, Playlab & Brisbane Powerhouse), Viral(2016, Shock Therapy Productions, Gold Coast Arts Centre), Straight White Men(2016, La Boite Theatre), Ma Ma Ma Mad(2015, Brisbane Powerhouse), The Theory of Everything(2015, Brisbane Festival), The Wizards from Oz (2015, Taiwan, Taoyuan International Children’s Festival) and Hot Brown Honey(2015, Judith Wright Centre).
Tiffany Tsao is a writer and translator. She is the author of the literary thriller Under Your Wings and the Oddfits fantasy series (The Oddfits and The More Known World). Her translations from Indonesian to English include Dee Lestari’s novel Paper Boats, Laksmi Pamuntjak’s The Birdwoman’s Palate, and Norman Erikson Pasaribu’s poetry. She is on staff at the world literature quarterly Asymptote as their Australia Editor-at-Large. She received her Ph.D in English from UC-Berkeley in 2009, and lives in Sydney, Australia with her family.
Rolando B. Tolentino is faculty of University of the Philippines Film Institute and former dean of the UP College of Mass Communication. He is Director of the UP Institute of Creative Writing where he also serves as fellow. He has taught at the Osaka University, National University of Singapore, and University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include Philippine literature, popular culture, cinema and media, interfacing national and transnational issues. He writes and has published books on fiction and creative non-fiction. He is a member of the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (Filipino Film Critics Group), Altermidya (People’s Alternative Media Network), and Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND-UP).
Deedle Tomlinson was born and raised in the Philippines. Her poems, reflecting her peripatetic life, appear in Under The Storm: An Anthology of Contemporary Philippine Poetry and in the special literary issue of Silliman University Journal, as well as Tomas, the literary journal of University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines. Her essays and recipes have been published in the book, Potluck: Hidalgo Bonding. She is the project manager for New York Writers Workshop and lives in Brooklyn with her husband Tim.
Tim Tomlinson is co-founder of the New York Writers Workshop and the co-author of its popular text, The Portable MFA in Creative Writing. He is also the author of the poetry collections Yolanda: An Oral History in Verse, and Requiem for the Tree Fort I Set on Fire. This Is Not Happening to You, a collection of short fiction, appears in September 2017. His work has been published in Australia, China, Singapore, the Philippines, and in many venues in the US, including the anthologies Long Island Noir (Akashic Books), and the Brooklyn Poets Anthology (Brooklyn Arts Press). He’s given workshops and talks at many international locations, recently including Guangzhou and Shanghai, China, Adelaide, Australia, and at the Philippines Consulate in New York City. He’s a certified yoga instructor, an avid scuba diver, and his past addresses include extended residencies in Shanghai, Manila, London, Florence, New Orleans, Boston, Miami, Andros Island, Bahamas, Manhattan, and Brooklyn, where he currently lives with his wife. He’s a member of Asia Pacific Writers & Translators. He teaches writing workshops and seminars in New York University’s Global Liberal Studies program.
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Anurag Mohanty Viswanath has over a 100 articles written about China and the Chinese culture, included in the Bangkok Post, Prachatai & Nation (Thailand), the Far Eastern Economic Review (Hong Kong) and in the Journal of Contemporary Asia (Manilla). Her book, Finding India in China: Travels to the lesser known was published in Singapore in 2015. Within India, she has written in Economic and Political Weekly, Global Affairs and Indian Management. She was a regular writer at Business Standard from 2007-201, and since 2011, she has been a leading columnist with Financial Express. She graduated in Political Science from Miranda House and has a Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Delhi. She was awarded a Visiting Research Fellowship from the Government of India for Fudan University, as well as a Fellowship from Ford Foundation, Delhi. Anurag also secured a Research Scholarship from the Indian Council of Social Science Research.
Marby Villaceran is a professor at the Department of English and Comparative Literature in the University of the Philippines, Diliman. She has a BA and MA in Creative Writing from the University of the Philippines and was conferred a PhD in Sociology by La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.
Malachi Edwin Vethamani is Professor of English at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia and holds a doctoral degree from University of Nottingham, UK. He is a poet, writer and critic, with his first collection of short stories entitled ‘Coitus Interruptus and Other Stories’ (Maya Press, 2018). He has published two volumes of poems, ‘Life Happens’ (Maya Press,2017) and ‘Complicated Lives’ (Maya Press, 2016). He edited a volume of Malaysian poems entitled ‘Malchin Testament: Malaysian Poems’ (Maya Press, 2017) which covers a period of 60 years. In 2003, he edited a volume of poems for young adults entitled ‘In-Sights: Malaysian Poems’ (Maya Press, 2003). In 2015, He published 'A Bibliography of Malaysian Literature in English' (Petaling Jaya, Maya Press).
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Samuel Wagan Watson was born of Wunjaburra/Munanjali and German heritage. Samuel is a writer who lives and works on the southside of Brisbane. His poetry has been awarded accolades, such as the David Unaipon Award for Emerging Indigenous Writers, The Kenneth Slessor Prize, The New South Wales Premier’s Book of the Year and the Victorian Scanlon Award. Samuel’s poetry has been translated into a dozen languages and is the subject of music, film and television projects that have been interpreted into public art projects throughout Brisbane. His work has even found a home on the International Space Station under a commission from the Japanese Aeronautical Exploration Agency. He has just completed a publication for Sydney’s Museum of Arts and Applied Sciences, which is a combination of poetry, prose and technical writing entitled ‘The Time Traveller’s Baggage’. Samuel is enrolled on an Indigenous Creative Writing program at the Batchelor Campus of the Northern Territory’s Charles Darwin University. His work is published by University of Queensland Press.
Yen-Rong Wong is a Brisbane-based writer of nonfiction and the founding editor of Pencilled In, a magazine devoted to publishing and championing the work of Asian Australian writers and artists. She was shortlisted for the Deborah Cass Prize in 2017 and for the Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award in 2018. She will be a Katharine Susannah Prichard writer-in-residence for 2019. Her work has appeared in many publications, including The Guardian, SBS, Meanjin, and Overland. She is currently working on her first full-length manuscript.
Ingrid Woodrow is an Australian writer. She holds an MA (Writing) from the University of Queensland and will complete a PhD submission (Creative Writing) at Griffith University in 2018. Her novel, Goddess and the Galaxy Boy (2001) was shortlisted in the Australian/Vogel award. Her writing has been published in numerous national and international anthologies, journals and periodicals including Meanjin, Journal of Australian Studies and Artlines.
Darryl Whetter is the inaugural director of Creative Writing MA at LaSalle College of the Arts in Singapore. He is the author of three books of fiction and two poetry collections. His novels include the bicycle odyssey The Push & the Pull and the multi-generational smuggling epic Keeping Things Whole. Origins, his first book of poems, received a starred review in Quill & Quire. His debut collection of stories was a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of 2003. In the mid-2000s, he regularly reviewed books on national CBC Radio and his reviews have appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Montreal Gazette, The National Post, and Detroit’s Metro Times. His scholarly articles on contemporary literature and Creative Writing pedagogy have been published by Routledge, the National Poetry Foundation (US), and Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle.
Jena Woodhouse's eight published books include Farming Ghosts (Ginninderra 2009): a narrative of the Pacific, and Green Dance: Tamborine Mountain Poems (Calanthe Press 2018). Her writing has received honours and awards in the categories of poetry, adult fiction and children's fiction.
Born in Capricornia, she grew up on a farm near Queensland's Capricorn coast. She holds degrees in Russian language and literature and creative writing, as well as qualifications in education and language testing.
Recent creative writing placements include a Hawthornden Fellowship (Scotland, 2011); a bursary to CAMAC Centre d'Art, Marnay-sur-Seine (France, 2015); a creative residency at the Australian Archaeological Institute, Athens (Greece, 2016); writer in residence at Booranga Writers Centre, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga (2016); writing retreats at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre (Ireland, 2017, 2018); embedded author at the British School at Knossos, Crete (Greece, 2016, 2017, 2018).
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Yolanda Yu Miaomiao was born in north eastern China and has been living in Singapore since 1998. She has received multiple literature awards including the Singapore Tertiary Chinese Literature Award, and the Golden Point Award 2017, 1st place, Chinese Short Stories, and Golden Point Award 2015, and was 1st Runner Up in Chinese Poetry. Her work has been published in anthologies, magazines & newspapers including the New York Times Travel Magazine, Guangxi Literature, Zuo Pin Magazine in China, and Lianhezaobao and Bukit Timah Literature in Singapore. She was a spokesman at Makassar International Literature Festival and will give a workshop at the Japanese Writers Conference. She is set to participate in a book launch for her collection of short stories "Neighbor's Luck," at Singapore Writers Festival in early November, 2018.