LATHA has published two collections of modern Tamil poetry: Theeveli (Firespace), and Paampuk Kaattil Oru Thaazhai (A Screwpine in Snakeforest). Her poems have been anthologized in Journeys: Words, Home and Nation, a multilingual anthology published by The Centre for the Arts, National University of Singapore (1995), Rhythms-A Singaporean Millennial Anthology of Poetry, published by the National Arts Council (2000), and Kanavum Vidiyum - Anthology of Contemporary Tamil Poetry by Women Poets by the Sahitya Academy of India (2003).

Her bilingual poem Still Human was also featured in the MRT trains: Poems on the Move series by the National Arts Council. Her poems and short stories have also appeared in prominent Tamil literary journals like Kanayaazhi (India), Kaalachuvadu (India), Uyirnizhal (France) and Sarinigar (Sri Lanka). Theeveli is used as a BA literary text in Periyar University, India and in Tamil Nadu. She is currently a News Editor with Tamil Murasu.


Born in 1943
Kannabiran is a short story writer, novelist and language teacher. He has published four collections of short stories, including the famous Irupathainthu Aandukal (25 Years) (1980) and the metaphoric novel Beedam (Seat of Power). His short stories have been translated into English and Malay. He has conducted workshops for young writers, and judged writing competitions. He represented Singapore at the Iowa International Literary Forum (1988) and was honourary writing Fellow at the University of Iowa for three months. He received SEA Write Award (1990), Montblanc-NUS Centre for the Arts Literary Award (1998), Thamizhavel Award and the Cultural Medallion (1999).


Lilin is currently a Junior College teacher. At University, she wrote her thesis on the function and significance of food in Children's Literature and is currently working on another one on Auto/biographies in Singapore. Her academic interests include post-colonial literature, film melodrama, life writing and modern art. In her other life, she writes poetry and short fiction. Her first book, The Story of Ms. Poet, published by Ethos Books, about a little girl who wants to write poetry in Singapore, was recently launched at the 2007 Singapore Writers Festival.


Koh Beng Liang is the author of Last Three Women (2002), a first book of poems published by Ethos Books. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1999, where he studied electrical and computer engineering. He is a co-founder of the2ndrule, a guerilla creative email magazine.


Born in Singapore in 1963, Koh Buck Song read English at Cambridge University. He has authored or edited 11 books, including his own verse collections A Brief History of Toa Payoh and Other Poems (1992) and The Worth of Wonder (2001), and the anthology Singapore: Places, Poems, Paintings (1993). His wider experience includes spells as a journalist with The Straits Times, as a Major (NS) in the army, and, currently, as the head of corporate communications in the Economic Development Board.


Gilbert Koh, born 1973, is a lawyer. His poetry has been published in various publications in Singapore and elsewhere, including Atlanta Review, Papertiger, Slope, No Other City - The Ethos Anthology of Urban Poetry, Love Gathers All - The Philippines-Singapore Anthology of Love Poetry, From Boys to Men - A Literary Anthology of National Service in Singapore and Poetry Billboard.


Trained in Professional Publishing (Books) at Stanford University, with a Master of Theological Studies (World Religions) from Harvard University and Master of Fine Arts (Creative Writing) from the University of Notre Dame, Desmond is the recipient of the Singapore Internationale Grant, awarded to launch at the First Prague International Poetry Festival the anthology For the Love of God, which brought together 35 award-winning religious and literary contributors from across the world.

His poetry and prose have appeared in more than 30 literary journals including AGNI, Confrontation, Faultline, Gulf Coast, Harvard Review, New Orleans Review, The Pinch, Seneca Review, Sonora Review and Versal. Desmond teaches creative writing at Ngee Ann Polytechnic's School of Film & Media Studies where he has twice received the Departmental Teaching Award, as well as the Dr Hiew Siew Nam Distinguished Academic Award.


Born in 1944
Edinburgh-born Kon won first prize in the National Playwrighting Competition three times, for The Bridge (1977), about drama therapy in drug rehabilitation; Trial (1982), where Socrates is tried for sedition in Singapore; and Emily of Emerald Hill (1984), a monodrama on a waif who becomes a Peranakan matriarch. It was invited to the 1985 Commonwealth Arts Festival in Edinburg, and to the 1986 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Besides plays and short fiction, Kon has published two novels, The Scholar and the Dragon (1986), set during the early twentieth century, and Eston (1995), a fantasy narrative which took the Merit Award in the 1994 Singapore Literature Prize. Kon also writes lyrics for musicals. She is 2006-2007 President of the Musical Theatre Society, and currently Chairperson of Musical Theatre Pte Ltd.


(1939 – 2002) The late Kuo Pao Kun was born in Hebei Province, China. He received an education in Mandarin and English when he came to Singapore in 1949. After school, he worked at radio stations in Singapore and later in Australia, maintaining his interest in drama by writing, performing, as well as watching Asian and Western plays staged in the two countries.

In 1965 he set up the Practice Performing Arts School with his wife, Goh Lay Kuan, with the aim of carving a professional niche for the performing arts in Singapore. Over the next twenty years he actively wrote and directed plays in Mandarin and English, conducted countless drama, directing and stage lighting workshops. He also introduced local theatre practitioners to the new theatres of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong by inviting guest directors and actors and by organising seminars and workshops. He was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 1989 for his outstanding contributions and achievements in Singapore theatre, and has set up a multi-purpose arts centre called ‘The Substation’. He was the artistic director of Practice Theatre Ensemble and Substation.


Lydia Kwa was born in Singapore, but left for Canada in 1980 to study psychology. She began to take her writing seriously while a graduate student in clinical psychology at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

As a teenager studying at Tanjong Katong Girls' School in Singapore, she was fond of writing silly poems and odd compositions. Her secondary one teacher asked to borrow her composition book to show future students.

However, her writing life was to signficantly take off in 1989 when she won the first prize in a Queens campus literary magazine poetry contest and received honorable mention for another poem entered in a university contest a few months later. Since then, her work has appeared in numerous Canadian literary magazines and anthologies such as Many-mouthed Birds, Swallowing Clouds and You Be Me. She has been most recently interviewed in conversation with Shirley Geok-Lin Lim and Fiona Cheong in The Women's Review of Books (July 2002).

Her first book, a collection of poems, The Colours of Heroines (Toronto:Womens Press) was published in 1994. George Woodcock, distinguished writer, referred to Kwa as "a memory writer of almost Proustian intensity, who has lived variously and remembered astonishingly (B.C. Bookworld).

Her second book, a novel, This Place Called Absence, first released in Canada in 2000, was nominated for the amazon.com/Books in Canada First Novel Award, and the Re-Lit Award. It has been described by W.P. Kinsella as "beautifully written, hauntingly poetic, with a cast of memorable characters" (Books in Canada). The Globe and Mail said: "This novel announces a strong and, most gratifying, a unique new voice."

The U.S. edition of This Place Called Absence (New York: Kensington, 2002) has been described as an "extraordinarily beautiful, complex and rawly emotional debut" (Baltimore Sun). A Booklist review announces that "Kwa incisively juxstaposes divergent cultures and tender psyches, paying homage to the resiliency of the spirit with beguiling imagery in this psychologically complex tale." The novel has been shortlisted for the ISO Violet Quill Award in the U.S. Seix Barral publishers in Barcelona have released a Spanish translation in the Fall of 2002.

Lydia Kwa currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, and is working on an epic novel set in Tang dynasty China.


Writer and executive story editor for a children's drama show Kids United. Educ: ACS; ACJC; University of Canberra.

Author of the Crossroads series published by Federal Publications: Nearest Available Chick Syndrome; Walking the Balloon; Skive; Elevator Food.

Prizes and Awards
1994 1st Prize Canberra chapter of the Fellowship of Australian Writers annual short story competition
2000 University of Canberra's Distinguished Alumni Award for contributions to creative writing
2001 Singapore Broadcasting Authority's National Scriptwriting Competition Silver Award for Ceciliation