Alvin Ong (b.1988) synthesizes mythologies, histories, and the anecdotal into non-linear narratives and surreal improvisations. A graduate from the Ruskin School of Art and the Royal College of Art, he has since exhibited at Singapore Art Museum (2007, 2012, 2013), Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (2007), Asian Civilizations Museum (2010), Peranakan Museum (2015), Northampton Contemporary (2017), and National Portrait Gallery (2018). He is currently based in London and Singapore.
Ang Shuang’s work has been published in the Asian-American Writers’ Workshop, the Rumpus, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal. She is a Breakout 8 prize winner and Best of the Net nominee. Shuang is currently working on her debut collection.
Soh Yong Xiang is a student. He likes writing, going for walks and eating dim sum. This is his first publication.
Michael Brownstein’s latest volumes of poetry, A Slipknot to Somewhere Else (2018) and How Do We Create Love? (2019), were recently released (Cholla Needles Press).
Colin James has a book of poems, Resisting Probability, from Sagging Meniscus Press. He lives in Massachusetts.
Ally Chua is a Singaporean poet. She works in the communications industry, and writes when she’s not replying emails within seven working days. She is the 2019 Singapore Unbound Fellow for New York City and a member of local writing collective /s@ber. Ally has been published in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Cordite Poetry Review, and Lammergeier Magazine. An avid solo traveler and reader, Ally finds inspiration from a wide variety of sources, including her travels, Richard Siken’s words, the lyrics of Brian Fallon, and zombie video games.
Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé is the author of an epistolary novel, a quasi-memoir, two lyric essay monographs, four hybrid works, and nine poetry collections. A former journalist, he has edited more than twenty books and co-produced three audio books. Among other accolades, Desmond is the recipient of the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award, Independent Publisher Book Award, National Indie Excellence Book Award, Poetry World Cup, Singapore Literature Prize, two Beverly Hills International Book Awards, and three Living Now Book Awards. He helms Squircle Line Press as its founding editor. He can be found at: desmondkon.com
Levi Masuli works primarily with sound and text. He is part of Pedantic Pedestrians. He currently lives in the Philippines.
Joel Pitra is a NYC-based photographer who specializes in interior and architectural work. He takes his teh ping siu dai and his chai tao kway black. pitramedia.com
Min Lim can’t stop writing about bread and her mother. Her works have been featured in Cha: An Asian Literary Review, Softblow, Breakwater Review, and elsewhere.
Shilpa Dikshit Thapliyal is a bilingual poet and author based in Singapore. She is a Pushcart nominee and recently released her second poetry collection Between Sips of Masala Chai (Kitaab International, 2019). Her poems have been featured in QLRS, Shot Glass Journal, Taj Mahal Review, Unmasked: Reflections on Virus-Times, amongst other anthologies and journals. Some of her poems written in Hindi have been translated into Spanish. She has read poetry in Malaysia and at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, Mumbai.
Daryl Li is a writer and editor based in Singapore. He has a website (http://daryl.li/) but it’s not very good.
Jonathan Chan is a recent graduate in English from Cambridge University. Born in New York to a Malaysian father and South Korean mother, he was raised in Singapore where he is presently based. He is interested in questions of identity, human expression, and the intersection of art and faith. He has recently been moved by the writing of Jean Toomer, Carlos Bulosan, and Theresa Cha.
Qamar Firdaus Saini is in the public service, and is especially fond of Explosions in the Sky. He writes to remember. His poems can be found in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Moving Words (Ethos Books), ASINGBOL (Squircle Line Press), This is Not A Safety Barrier (Ethos Books), and various editions of SingPoWriMo (Math Paper Press), among others. His works have also been commissioned by National Gallery Singapore and the Singapore Art Museum. He is currently a member of ATOM, a writing collective.
Jack Xi (they/he) is a queer Singaporean poet. A member of the writing collective /Stop@BadEndRhymes (stylized /s@ber), they can be found on WordPress under jackxisg.wordpress.com. Jack’s been published in OF ZOOS, Wyvern Lit, Perverse, Freeze Ray, and several Singaporean anthologies.
art naming 奇能: artnaming.com.
Natalie Wang writes about cats, ghosts, and womanhood, and maintains that they are all the same thing. She has been published in Fairy Tale Review, Cordite Poetry Review, Corvid Queen, LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, various editions of the SingPoWriMo anthology, and My Lot Is A Sky, an anthology of poetry by Asian women. Her debut poetry collection The Woman Who Turned Into A Vending Machine (Math Paper Press) is a book on metamorphosis and myth.
Joshua Ip is a poet, editor, and literary organiser. He has edited nine anthologies and written four poetry collections, most recently footnotes on falling (2018). He co-founded Sing Lit Station, an over-active literary charity that runs community initiatives including SingPoWriMo, poetry.sg, and several workshop groups. www.joshuaip.com/
Jamie Uy is a student at New York University Abu Dhabi majoring in Literature and Film Studies. A Filipino-Chinese Singaporean, she calls Singapore home.
N.W. Hall is a good unknown poet. Maybe N.W. is reading somewhere, or writing somewhere, or studying the indentations in a ketchup packet at a Del Taco all alone. In any case, N.W. Hall has other poems that other ghost people have read and often enjoyed. Find another N.W. Hall poem in Blackbox Manifold.
Australian by birth and of Montenegrin origin, Pavle Radonic has spent eight years living in Southeast Asia, which has provided unexpected stimulus. Previous work has appeared in a range of literary journals and magazines, most recently Panoply, The Blue Nib, Ginosko, Midway Journal & New World Writing.
Winston Plowes: in the summer, Winston’s a hare chasing bicycles and winning by miles; in the winter, he talks to moths about art, categorises lost jigsaw pieces, and tunes the family silver. Each night his word art returns to roost guided by starlight from the pages of journals published worldwide, back to his floating home in Calderdale, UK, where he lives with his seventeen-year-old cat, Sausage. www.winstonplowes.co.uk
Daryl Lim Wei Jie is a poet and critic based in Singapore. He is particularly interested in the intersections between poetry and history. His first collection of poetry, A Book of Changes, was published by Math Paper Press in 2016 under the Ten Year Series imprint. He is the editor of Food Republic: A Singapore Literary Banquet, an anthology of literary food writing, together with Tse Hao Guang and Ann Ang.
ko ko thett is a Burma-born poet, literary translator and poetry editor for Mekong Review. He is currently based in Norwich, UK.
Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Grain, and Harvard Review. Her newest poetry collections are Where We Went Wrong (Clare Songbirds Publishing), Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing), and The Tooth Is the Largest Organ in the Human Body (Anaphora Literary Press).
Andy Winter (they/them) is a gay, non-binary poet based in Singapore. Their works have been published in Cartridge Lit, Cordite Poetry Review, Corvid Queen, Prachya Review, and Freeze Ray Poetry.
Toh Hsien Min’s most recent book of poetry is Dans quel sens tombent les feuilles (Paris, 2016). His poems also found shelter during the Covid lockdown with the likes of Arc Poetry Magazine, SAND Journal, and The Stinging Fly.
Lawdenmarc Decamora is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize–nominated Filipino writer with work published in twenty-one countries around the world. Earning an honourable mention on the 2018 special Love issue of Columbia Journal, Lawdenmarc holds an MFA in creative writing and is now an MA Literary and Cultural Studies candidate at the Ateneo de Manila University. He is the new assistant editor of the century-old UNITAS Journal while serving as a faculty researcher at the University of Santos Tomas. His full-length poetry book is set to come out in mid-2021 from Atmosphere Press. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in North Dakota Quarterly,The Seattle Review, The Common, Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, CHA, Cordite, and QLRS, among other numerous places. He also has his poetry included in the recent Asia-Pacific literary anthology Meridian: The APWT Drunken Boat Anthology of New Writing.
Jimmy Bullis studied poetry writing at the University of Virginia. He has spent the past decade as a recording and touring musician, writing on or between stints out on the road. Currently, he is studying architecture at Rice University in Houston.
Maria Sowter: mariasowter.xyz @mariasowter
Daryl Qilin Yam (b. 1991) is a writer of prose and poetry, born and based in Singapore. He is also an arts organiser / producer, and sits on the board of directors at the literary charity Sing Lit Station. His first novel, Kappa Quartet (Singapore: Epigram Books, 2016), was longlisted for the inaugural Epigram Books Fiction Prize, and has been released in Singapore and in the U.K. His second novel is forthcoming from Epigram Books in 2021. darylqilinyam.com
Wayne Low is a poet and fictionist from Singapore who has previously been published in QLRS. His recent stint working at an Alternative Radio Station in Manila made him consider the poetics of isolation; physical or otherwise. His work revolves around scenes of trauma, domesticity, and media mythology.