Archives: Authors

JOHN BALCOM teaches at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. His Columbia University Press translations include Cao Naiqian’s There’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night (2009); Huang Fan’s Zero and Other Fictions (2011); and Yang Mu’s Memories of Mount Qilai: The Education of a Young Poet (2015).

Malcolm Mejin is the author of the Diary of a Rich Kid series. He first started writing the series in 2017 for fun, never intending to publish it. However, with his friend’s advice, he decided to self-publish the series, which spawned three books originally. Lost in Space is the first book in the series published under Penguin Random House SEA. His first attempt at writing began at six years old, when he tried to write a short fantasy story and turn it into a home-made book. Ever since then, he has never stopped writing. Malcolm Mejin is also a frequent fixture at both public and international schools during his school tour, which he uses as a platform to empower and inspire youths, and share his passion in writing.

Dipika Mukherjee is an internationally acclaimed writer and sociolinguist with a passion for Southeast Asian literature. With over two decades of experience, she has mentored aspiring writers in the region and founded the prestigious D.K Dutt Award for Literary Excellence in Malaysia in 2015. Mukherjee has edited five anthologies of Southeast Asian fiction, including the notable titles Endings and Beginnings and Bitter Root Sweet Fruit.
Her literary achievements include being longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize with her debut novel, Ode to Broken Things, and winning the UK Virginia Prize for Fiction with her second novel, Shambala Junction. She has also authored the captivating short story collection Rules of Desire and several poetry collections, such as Dialect of Distant Harbors and The Third Glass of Wine.
In addition to her writing, Mukherjee is a dedicated educator. She teaches at the Graham School at the University of Chicago and StoryStudio, leveraging her expertise and a Ph.D. in English (Sociolinguistics) from Texas A&M University.
Mukherjee’s exceptional work has been recognized through numerous grants and fellowships, including the Esteemed Artist Award from the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. She has also been honored with prestigious awards like the Quill and Ink Poetry Prize and the Fay Khoo Award for Food+Drink Writing. Through her teaching engagements and creative writing workshops held in various cities worldwide, including Chicago, Amsterdam, New Delhi, Kolkata, Penang, and Kuala Lumpur, she continues to inspire and nurture aspiring writers.

Alice Huang Wijaya is a Chinese Indonesian writer, multimedia storyteller, and tech professional currently based in Singapore.

She has studied, worked, and traveled extensively in the United States, Europe, and Asia throughout her twenties. A versatile multimedia storyteller, she covers a wide variety of eclectic topics such as sex, gender and relationship, underground culture, psychedelics, and spirituality, technology, cryptocurrency and finance. Her work has appeared for media publications like VICE, Rice Media, Cointelegraph, and The Edge.

The excerpts of her debut autofiction The American Dream had been workshopped during her studies with esteemed writers such as Laura Van Den Berg and Jamaica Kincaid. It was also shortlisted for SingLit Station 2020 Manuscript Bootcamp award. Alice holds a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University.

Tulachandra was the pen name of Chancham Bunnag. The name was an amalgam of her husband’s first name and the first syllable of her own. She was born in 1921, the eldest daughter of Khun Chamnan Worakit (Lui Indhusophon), an official in the Post and Telegraph Department, who later became Permanent Secretary for Communication. Her mother was a daughter of Phra Sophon Aksornkit (Lek Smitasiri) a major publisher of the inter-war years.
Chancham was an outstanding student at Rajini School, a leading girls school, whence she won a government scholarship to study abroad in the second batch opened to women. She chose to go to the United States and enrolled at Goucher College in Baltimore. She was majoring in English Literature when Pearl Harbour was attacked in December 1941.
Thai students were given the choice of staying on and join the Allies war efforts or repatriation. Chancham chose the latter because she was worried about her parents. Arriving back in Bangkok in 1942, she married Tula Bunnag, son of a former Thai Minister at the Royal Thai Legation, Washington D.C. They had two sons.
Chancham started her career at the Ministry of Finance, but she was not numerate and did not enjoy the work. As soon as she could, she resigned and joined the United States Information Service (USIS) where she found her vocation as a translator. She translated Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage for USIS and debuted as Tulachandra. From then on, as an independent author, she translated many books, including Prisna, culminating in Four Reigns, by M.R. Kukrit Pramoj, the most famous Thai novel of modern times.
Tulachandra preferred to call her translations English versions of the books. She took editorial liberty with the text but always with permission of the author. She thought she had improved on the original in the English version. ‘For continuously creating over a long period widely acknowledged popular works of value to Thai literature’, she was awarded the Naradhip Prize of The Writer’s Association of Thailand in 2002. She passed away in 2006.

Rohan Gunaratna is Professor of Security Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technology University, Singapore. He was founder of Singapore’s International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research.

He received his Masters from the University of Notre Dame in the US where he was Hesburgh Scholar and his doctorate from the University of St Andrews in the UK where he was British Chevening Scholar. A former Senior Fellow at the Combating Terrorism Centre at the United States Military Academy at West Point and at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Gunaratna was invited to testify on the structure of al Qaeda before the 9/11 Commission.

The author of 20 books including Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (University of Columbia Press), Gunaratna edited the Insurgency and Terrorism Series of the Imperial College Press, London. He is a trainer for national security agencies, law enforcement authorities, and military counter terrorism units, interviewed terrorists and insurgents in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and other conflict zones. For advancing international security cooperation, Gunaratna received the Major General Ralph H. Van Deman Award.

Ivy Ngeow was born and raised in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. She holds an MA in Writing from Middlesex University, where she won the 2005 Middlesex University Literary Press Prize out of almost 1500 entrants worldwide. Her debut, Cry of the Flying Rhino (2017), was awarded the International Proverse Prize in Hong Kong. Her novels include Heart of Glass (2018), Overboard (2020) and White Crane Strikes (2022). She is commissioning editor of the Asian Anthology New Writing series. The American Boyfriend was longlisted for the Avon x Mushens Entertainment Prize for Commercial Fiction Writers of Colour 2022. She lives in London.

Dano Chow is a writer from Batu Pahat, Malaysia. His first short story ‘Sons and Daughters’ was published in Little Basket 2017: New Malaysian Writing by Fixi Novo. In 2021, his poetry collection Everything in Life Is a Fire was published by Shuren Press. In 2023, his poem ‘The world is not masculine’ was published in Issue 11 of Portside Review. His debut novel Unquiet Heart Soliloquy was published by Penguin Random House SEA in 2023. Dano has served as an editor for architectural publisher Suburbia Projects, and graphic design studio Where’s Gut. He holds an MA in Philosophy from the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP). He also translates from Malay and Mandarin into English with the aid of his trusty corgi, Pagi.

Bonnie Hayden Cheng is passionate about corporate wellness – the ‘S’ of ESG. She holds a unique position designing and implementing cutting-edge, research-backed solutions to help companies deliver impact on real-world challenges and create awesome corporate cultures where people thrive.

She is an Associate Professor of Management and MBA Program Director of HKU Business School, University of Hong Kong, having received her PhD from the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. She is the Chief Resilience Officer at Human at Work, Scientific Advisor of One Mind at Work, Ex-Officio member of the Male Allies Leadership Council, an initiative of The Women’s Foundation Hong Kong, and Academy of Management Scholar and Subject Matter Expert.

As a wellbeing advocate, she works closely with leading organizations to champion mental health in the workplace. Her work transforming companies to make positive change has received numerous awards across various sectors. Her research has been published in prestigious journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and profiled by outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, and Harvard Business Review.