Desmond Francis Xavier Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé is the author of an epistolary novel, a quasi-memoir, two lyric essay monographs, four hybrid works, nine poetry collections, a creative guided journal, and several chapbooks. A former journalist, he has edited over 25 titles. He is the recipient of the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award, Singapore Literature Prize, Poetry World Cup, two Illumination Christian Book Awards, two Independent Publisher Book Awards, and five Living Now Book Awards. Desmond has taught writing for over two decades.

John Yau is a poet, fiction writer, art critic, and publisher of Black Square Editions. The recipient of the Jackson Prize in Poetry in 2017, his recent books of poetry include Tell It Slant (2023) and Genghis Chan on Drums (2021). He lives in Beacon, New York (USA).

Mary Jean Chan is the author of Flèche (2019), which won the Costa Book Award for Poetry. Bright Fear (2023), Chan's second book, was shortlisted for the 2023 Forward Prize for Best Collection. A recent judge for the 2023 Booker Prize, Chan is currently the 2023-24 Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellow at the University of Cambridge.

Cyril Wong is a poet and fictionist. A two-time recipient of the Singapore Literature Prize (2006 and 2016) and the National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award for Literature (2005), he completed his doctoral degree in English Literature at the National University of Singapore in 2012. His most recent work is Beachlight, published by Seagull Books in 2023, and his writings have appeared in international magazines and anthologies by W. W. Norton and Everyman’s Library.

Hsu-Ming Teo is a Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at Macquarie University, Australia, and the author of Love and Vertigo (2000) and Behind the Moon (2005). She has served as a judge for the Man Asian Literary Prize, the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award, The Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award, and the 2024 Miles Franklin Literary Award.  

Laksmi Pamuntjak is an award-winning, bilingual Indonesian novelist, poet, short story writer and food critic. She writes on culture and politics, including op-eds for the Guardian. Pamuntjak’s first novel Amba/The Question of Red (2013), translated into several languages, won Germany’s LiBeraturpreis in 2016 and was recently featured among "6 Books to Read About Indonesia" by The Economist. Its sequel, Fall Baby (2019), won the 2020 Singapore Book Award for Best Literary Work. The movie adaptation of her novel Aruna dan Lidahnya is currently playing on Netflix. She also hosts Podcast Kitab Kawin, a popular podcast on women based on her short story collection.

Professor Rajeev Patke was educated at the University of Poona (India) and the University of Oxford (UK), where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He has been affiliated with the National University of Singapore since 1988, and has been Director of the Humanities Division at Yale-NUS College since 2012. He is the author of six books on literary studies, has co-edited seven other books, and has published numerous articles and book chapters on Anglophone literatures, with special reference either to modernism or postcoloniality. He has also written extensively on Singapore writing in English and produced two CDs of Singapore poets reading from their work.

Alice Pung OAM is the Artist-in-Residence at Janet Clarke Hall, the University of Melbourne and Adjunct Professor at RMIT University's School of Media and Communication. She is the author of bestselling books published in Australia, the UK and the US. In 2022, Alice was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for services to literature.

Neil Murphy is a Professor of English at NTU Singapore, and previously served as the Director of the NTU-NAC Asia Creative Writing Programme (2019 – 2023). His recent publications include John Banville (2018) and The Routledge Companion to Literature and Art (2024; co-edited with W. Michelle Wand and Cheryl Julia Lee).

CT Lim writes about history and popular culture in Singapore. He serves as the Singapore country editor for the International Journal of Comic Art. His most recent book is Drawn to Satire: Sketches of Cartoonists in Singapore (2023). He reads too many comics.

Paul Gravett is a London-based writer and curator specialising in international comics. He co-founded Escape Magazine and directed the first Cartoon Museum in London. His notable works include Comics Art (2013) and Stories To Change Your Life (2005). He also writes for the Times Literary Supplement, Guardian, Independent, Bookseller, ArtReview, among others. You can find more about him at www.paulgravett.com

Photo Credits: Coco Wang

Dwinita Larasati (pen name Tita Larasati) is an industrial designer, lecturer and researcher at the Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB). She is also a co-founder of an independent publishing company that focuses on graphic diary, graphic travelogue and children’s comics. Her own graphic diary works have been exhibited and published in the US, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Singapore.

Shelly Bryant divides her year between Shanghai and Singapore, working as a poet, writer, and translator. She is a published author and has translated work from the Chinese for Penguin Books, Epigram Publishing, the National Library Board in Singapore, Giramondo Books, HSRC, and Rinchen Books, and edited poetry anthologies for Alban Lake and Celestial Books. Her translation of Sheng Keyi’s Northern Girls was long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012, and her translation of You Jin's In Time, Out of Place was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2016.

Susan Harris serves as the editorial director of Words Without Borders. With Ilya Kaminsky, she coedited The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (2010).

Tiffany Tsao is a literary translator and writer. Her translations of Indonesian fiction have been awarded the PEN Translation Prize, the NSW Premier's Translation Prize, the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses, and longlisted for the International Booker Prize. She is the author of three novels, the latest of which was The Majesties (2018). She holds a PhD in English from UC-Berkeley.

Photo Credits: Leah Diprose