Andrew Leci is a reformed investment broker, theatre actor, producer, director; an erstwhile television sports presenter and broadcast journalist; a lapsed chef and restaurateur, and a constant op-ed, food, politics, lifestyle, art and sports writer.
Growing up and having been educated (partly and mostly) in the UK, he embraced the expat life in his 20’s and hasn’t looked back since, having founded a controversial theatre company in Malaysia in the early 1990s, whose speciality was political and social satire. Subsequently, he has written for a number of high-profile media publications in Asia and beyond. Having trained as a chef, he helmed an award-winning restaurant and bar in East Malaysia, before becoming a well-known face on the region’s television screens while anchoring football and other sporting events for ESPN STAR Sports, Fox Sports and then Ten Sports. Returning to his true love, writing, Andrew now contributes to a number of publications both in print and online, and has irregular columns for Robb Report and Tatler.
Only Connect is his second novel, after Once Removed, published by Marshall Cavendish in 2009. He lives in Singapore with his long-suffering partner, three equally long-suffering cats, a shrew, 24 goldfish and Punch, the pleco.
Lucy Hamilton grew up in Dronfield, a quiet town in the north of England. She lived briefly in Australia, before moving to Hong Kong, where she began work on her first novel, The Widening of Tolo Highway. The novel is a semi-fictional account of expatriate life in the New Territories, set against backdrop of the 2014 Umbrella Revolution. While writing Tolo Highway, she also trained as a Behaviour Analyst, dividing her time between the USA, Asia and the UK. In 2019, she completed a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Sheffield, where she had previously studied English Literature as an undergraduate. She now teaches in Stylistics at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China.
Bede Scott lives in Singapore, where he is an associate professor in the School of Humanities at Nanyang Technological University. He is the author of On Lightness in World Literature (2013) and Affective Disorders: Emotion in Colonial and Postcolonial Literature (2019).
A professional historian and former journalist, Justin Tyler Clark lives with his family in Singapore. His personal and historical essays have appeared in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. The Zero Season is his first novel.
Catherine Dellosa plays video games for a living, reads comics for inspiration, and writes fiction because she’s in love with words. She lives in Manila, Philippines with her husband, whose ideas fuel the fire in her writing.
Her Young Adult fantasy novel, Of Myths And Men, has been published by Penguin Random House SEA and is her love letter to gamer geeks, mythological creatures, aliens, and epic quests to save the world. Of Life And Lies is the second book in the trilogy. She is currently working on a few more projects up her sleeve.
She has also penned The Choices We Made (And Those We Didn’t) published by BRUMultiverse, as well as Raya and Grayson’s Guide to Saving the World and The Bookshop Back Home as part of #romanceclass – a community of Filipino authors who are equally in love with words too.
When she’s not lost in the land of make-believe, she works as a games journalist for one of the biggest mobile gaming media outlets in the UK. She one day hopes to soar the skies as a superhero, but for now, she strongly believes in saving lives through her works in fiction. Check out her books at bit.ly/catherinedellosabooks, or follow her on FB/IG/Twitter at @thenoobwife.
Low Ying Ping is the author of the Mount Emily novels, a middle grade/young adult fantasy series featuring time travel and friendship. The first book, Mount Emily, was shortlisted for the Hedwig Anuar Children’s Book Award 2018 and the second book, Mount Emily Revisited, won the Singapore Book Awards 2017 in the Middle Grade/Young Adult category. Three of the books have also been shortlisted for Singapore’s Popular Readers’ Choice Awards. Mount Emily was also selected for inclusion in the National Arts Council of Singapore’s Read Our World: SingLit Book Gift for Schools.
She has also written an English adaptation of the Chinese classic, Journey to the West, for children aged 7-10 years old. Her short story, ‘The Age When Magic Begins’, won second prize in the British Fantasy Society’s short story competition 2018. Her poems and critical essay have appeared in Singa, the journal of the National University of Singapore Centre for the Arts and QLRS (Quarterly Literary Review Singapore). She holds a Master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Warwick, UK.
The story you are about to read came to Fredrik Haren at 2 a.m. one night in Bangkok. It came like a gift. A gift with a message.
The story came fully developed, ready to be written down. And it demanded to be told.
This book is that story, written down as it was told to the author.
Fredrik Haren lives in Singapore with his wife and three children. His middle child, Maria, had invisible friends until she was five.
Leslie W is the pen name of Kayce Teo.
She graduated with an English Literature degree from the National University of Singapore and was one of six mentees selected for the Mentor Access Project’s Fiction category. This annual programme initiated by the National Arts Council, Singapore, develops young and emerging writers in Singapore’s four official languages.
Her debut fantasy novel, The Night of Legends, was written under the mentorship of award-winning writer Dave Chua. The Light of Stars is the exciting sequel to the trilogy.
When she is not busy working and parenting, she dreams up new and exciting stories. Follow her writing journey on Instagram @kayceteowrites. Learn more on kayceteo.com
Born in New Zealand, Vicki always dreamed about travelling the world and writing about her adventures. At the age of nineteen, she set off on a solo expedition to Africa. Falling in love with the continent and the freedom of travel, she felt a yearning to go further and explore even more far-flung corners of the planet.
Vicki’s advertising career helped power her wanderlust even further, taking her from New Zealand, to the concrete jungles of London, Dubai and Singapore. Travel writing soon followed as she chronicled her adventures of more than fifty countries that she had by now visited-from ancient souks in Yemen, to the glaciers of Greenland.
The idea of taking on the formidable task of writing a novel was conceived aboard a glorious dahabiya on the river Nile in Egypt, where the Victoria West series was born.
It was at this point that Vicki decided to bring back the fun and glamour of the old Golden Age detective novel in a new crime series that would put a modern twist on the classic murder mystery-each book set in one of Vicki’s favourite destinations so readers could escape to exotic places and enjoy new cultures . . . all while figuring out whodunnit!
Heidi Shamsuddin was born in Malaysia, and spent part of her childhood growing up in Seattle, Washington and Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. After leaving school, she studied law at Nottingham University, obtained a postgraduate degree in corporate law, and after taking her Bar exams, eventually worked as a maritime lawyer in a London law firm. In 2007, she returned home and began to write fiction.
Heidi is now an award-winning author of stories inspired by Southeast Asia for both children and adults. Her first short story Johan the Honey Hunter, won the regional prize for the Eye Level Children’s Literature Award in 2012. Shortly after, she signed an eight-book contract with Oyez! Books to write The Door Under the Stairs series for children. Since then, she has written and published short stories, readers and picture books including The Malay Tale of the Pig King, which is based on the Malay epic, Hikayat Raja Babi.
In 2017, she was invited as a speaker to the Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) in Singapore to talk about the folktales of the region, and in 2018 she was invited to give a TEDx talk at University of Malaya on why we still need our fairy tales. In 2017, her screenplay for Batik Girl won the Intellectual Property Creators’ Challenge (IPCC) Award and was made into an award-winning short animated film by R&D Studio and Tudidut Studio. Batik Girl has gone on to receive the Honorable Mention in Audience Favorites award at the Florida Animation Festival, Best Animated Short Film prize at the Festival de Largos y Cortos de Santiago 2019 in Chile, as well as Gold Medal in the Regional category at the 20th Digicon6 Asia in Japan.
Heidi has recently embarked on a project to collect and adapt the folklore, fairy tales, fables, myths, epics, legends, wonder and magic tales from all around the Nusantara region, with the aim of spreading and disseminating these traditional tales. As a way to reach a wider audience, she began an online project to highlight and discuss these stories on her YouTube channel (Heidi Shamsuddin) and at www.heidishamsuddin.com.
