Archives: Authors

Elizabeth Smith Alexander was born in St. Andrews, Scotland in 1954, although her family moved to England a few years later. Her earliest memories include producing a newspaper with the John Bull printing set she was given one Christmas. She wrote and directed her first play, Osiris, at age 16, performed to an audience of parents, teachers, and pupils by the Lower Fifth Drama Society at her school in Bolton, Lancashire. Early on in her writing career, Liz wrote several short stories featuring ‘The Dover Street Sleuth’, Dixon Hawke for a D.C. Thomson newspaper in Scotland. Several of her (undoubtedly cringe-worthy) teenage poems were published in An Anthology of Verse.

Liz combined several decades as a freelance journalist writing for UK magazines and newspapers ranging from British Airway’s Business Life and the Daily Mail, to Marie Claire and Supply Chain Management magazine, with a brief stint as a presenter/reporter for various radio stations and television channels, including the BBC. In 2001 she moved to the United States where she earned her master’s degree and Ph.D. in educational psychology from The University of Texas at Austin.

She has written and co-authored 17 internationally published, award-winning non-fiction books that have been translated into more than 20 languages.

In 2017, Liz relocated to Malaysia. She lives in Tanjung Bungah, Pulau Pinang where she was inspired to embark on one of the few forms of writing left for her to tackle: the novel.

Ian Hamilton is the acclaimed author of fourteen novels in the Ava Lee series and three in the Lost Decades of Uncle Chow Tung series. His books have been shortlisted for numerous prizes, including the Arthur Ellis Award, the Barry Award, and the Lambda Literary Prize, and are national bestsellers. BBC Culture named Hamilton one of the ten mystery/crime writers from the last thirty years who should be on your bookshelf.

Mookie KATIGBAK-LACUESTA is the author of four poetry collections: The Proxy Eros (2008), Burning Houses (2013), Hush Harbor (2017), and Eros Redux (2019). She obtained an MFA from the New School University in 2004, and has since taught in major universities in Manila. Katigbak-Lacuesta has also co-edited various literary Filipino poetry anthologies for the Cordite Poetry Review and Vagabond Press. In 2019, she co-edited The Achieve Of, The Mastery, a survey of contemporary Philippine Poetry in English, with Dr. Gemino Abad.

Widely-awarded for her work in the Philippines, Katigbak-Lacuesta has also been the Filipino delegate to international literary festivals in Rotterdam, Medellín, San Francisco, Macau, and Kuala Lumpur. In 2015, she completed a writing residency for the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.

Leila Aboulela is an award-winning novelist and playwright. Translated into fourteen languages, her novels were all longlisted for the Orange Prize and include The Translator (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), Minaret and Lyrics Alley (also Fiction Winner of the Scottish Book Awards). Aboulela grew up in Khartoum, Sudan, and now lives in Aberdeen.

Matthew Friedman is a leading, internationally renowned global expert on modern slavery and human trafficking. An award-winning public speaker, author, filmmaker, and philanthropist, Friedman regularly advises heads of governments and intelligence agencies.
As the founder and CEO of The Mekong Club, Friedman is considered the leading catalyst of the anti-slavery movement in Asia’s business sector by captains of industry. The Mekong Club is one of the first international not-for-profit organisations of its kind based in Asia to use a ‘business-to-business’ approach to fight slavery. Bridging the gap between the public and private sectors, the Mekong Club helps companies of all sizes to understand the complexities of human trafficking and to reduce their vulnerability within their supply chains/business environment. Together with business partners, the Mekong Club is spearheading innovative and strategic projects to achieve a slave-free world.
In 2017, Friedman received the prestigious ‘Asia Communicator of the Year Gold Award’ for giving more than 800 presentations to 80,000 people, including government leaders and the Vatican, on the topic of modern slavery within a five-year period in different countries. Friedman has a unique and powerful speaking style that inspires people and helps them reach their fullest potential.
Each year he is cited at least 40 times in the news media (CNN, Bloomberg, Reuters, Associated Press, the Financial Times, The Economist, etc.) and invited to speak at major international conferences around the world.
During his time as a UN and US diplomat, he managed and directed tens of millions of dollars to major humanitarian portfolios impacting millions of people for the World Bank, the U.S. State Department, and the United Nations. His work over the last 30 years of pioneering and managing international anti-human-trafficking projects from Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand and Hong Kong has given him access to many influential networks in different countries throughout the world.
Friedman is the author of 12 books including non-fiction accounts of his human rights work, to a book that outlines his unique philosophy of ‘time’. A long-time supporter of film and the media arts, Friedman was an executive producer and advisor on four award-winning films, one of which was nominated for an Emmy and another executive produced by Emma Thompson.
Friedman has launched a new global campaign called Be the Hero and has published a book to go with it entitled Be the Hero: Be the Change (published on Amazon in March 2020). He believes that the collective actions of ordinary people have the greatest chance of effecting a real transformation. He considers everyone who volunteers, no matter how big or small the gesture, to be heroic.
Friedman is represented by international speaker agencies and provides a range of inspirational keynote speeches to teach, mentor and motivate people from all walks of life to step up and take a stand in life. He has an uncanny ability to take something as complicated and confusing as slavery and break it down into a series of simple messages that walk an audience down a path to understanding. He has shifted the mindsets of many, even the most resistant detractors. His is always a message of hope.
Friedman is married to Sylvia Yu Friedman, who is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, international speaker, and author of Silenced No More: Voices of Comfort Women. She also fights the scourge of modern slavery, and together in the summer of 2016, they gave 113 presentations in 27 U.S. cities. Friedman has done speaking tours in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Singapore.

Sylvia Yu Friedman is an award-winning Author, TV Host, Keynote Speaker and Advisor to Ultra High Net Worth families.

She is a Director at a private equity firm that provides advisory services to prominent family offices in Asia Pacific and across the globe.

Since 2005, Sylvia has spearheaded philanthropic initiatives for some of the world’s wealthiest families, making a significant impact on countless lives while shining a light on the worst human rights abuses of our time.

Her pioneering investigations into the dark underworld of sex trafficking and modern-day slavery for two decades – often at risk to her own life – have shattered barriers and charted a course for a new generation of philanthropists and activists.

In Hollywood and Singapore, a producing team is developing a TV series based on Sylvia’s life and memoir, A Long Road to Justice. She also hosts the digital interview show Inspiring YOU with Sylvia Yu on LinkedIn, spotlighting remarkable individuals. Additionally, she is a Luminary Thinker for the RedBoxMe ideas platform, a collaboration with Cartier.

Recognized as one of the Top 10 LinkedIn Creators in Hong Kong by Favikon, Sylvia holds the #6 spot. Her influence and inspiration are showcased on the Favikon Top 200 Global LinkedIn Creators list, which features the most influential personalities from around the world.

An accomplished author, Sylvia has written four books, including A Long Road to Justice: Stories from the Frontlines in Asia and Silenced No More: Voices of Comfort Women, the only journalistic account of historical Japanese military sex slavery during WWII with a call to healing the wounds of history and racial reconciliation.

Her latest book is Fearless: A Guide to Freedom and Fulfilling Your Fullest Potential, and her debut novel, Butterflies, will be published in 2025.

A former TV anchor, Sylvia was honored with the Global Top 50 Women In Sustainability Awards 2022 by The SustainabilityX® Magazine. She was also listed in the Top 100 Human Trafficking & Slavery Influence Leaders in 2017 and received the International Human Rights Press Award in 2013 for her documentary series on human trafficking.

Sylvia is married to Matthew Friedman, a top-ranked keynote speaker, CEO of The Mekong Club, and former U.N. and U.S. diplomat.

Jose Elvin Bueno is a Filipino-American fictionist, playwright, and novelist.
He was the recipient of the Grand Prize in the 63rd Palanca Awards for Literature for his novel of Subversivo, Inc.
He currently lives in New York.

Anjana Rai Chaudhuri was born in Kolkata, India, and obtained a PhD in Chemistry from the United States. She lived in America for six years, married her Singaporean husband there, finally settling in Singapore. Anjana worked for many years as a research scientist in premier universities (including the University of Oxford, UK) and is the author of a science book chapter, fourteen research papers and review articles published in prestigious chemistry journals. Anjana’s love of English Literature led to a BA in English Language and Literature from the Singapore University of Social Sciences in 2012. She is a double gold medal winner, for her master’s in chemistry and BA in Literature, respectively. Motivated by her husband’s diagnosis of chronic leukaemia, Anjana became a founder/moderator of cancer patient support groups, volunteering at the Singapore General Hospital, which led to the hospital awarding her an inspirational caregiver award. Her work with cancer patients led to two publications, one in the prestigious British Medical Journal. Anjana is the author of three works of fiction. Her first novel, a historical romance, The Scent of Frangipani, was published in 2019 by Monsoon Books, UK.

Chi P. Pham is a Tenured Researcher at the Institute of Literature, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, Hanoi. She received her first Ph.D. degree in Literary Theory in Vietnam and her second Ph.D. degree in Comparative Literature in University of California, Riverside (USA). She is the secretary of the Association for the Study of Literature and Ecology in ASEAN (ASLE-ASEAN). Her publications include, Aesthetic Experience in Ramayana Epic (Hanoi National University Press, 2015); Literature and Nation-building in Vietnam: The Invisibilization of the Indians (Routledge, 2021). She is also the co-editor of Reading South Vietnam’s Writers: The Reception of Western Thought in Journalism and Literature (Springer Nature, 2023). She has edited four collections of Indian and South East Asian folktales in Vietnamese translation, and has co-edited a collection of Vietnamese environmental short stories in English translation entitled Revenge of Gaia: Contemporary Vietnamese Ecofiction with Chitra Sankaran (Penguin Random House, 2021). She has also co-edited Ecologies in Southeast Asian Literatures: Histories, Myths and Societies with Chitra Sankaran and Gurpreet Kaur (Vernon Press, 2019) and The Vietnamese Literature: Readings from the Inside (special issue in SUVANNABHUMI Multi-disciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 14.1, 2022) with Uma Jayaraman. Her latest publications in the field of Environmental Humanities include “Political Orientation in Ecocriticism: National Allegory in Vietnamese Ecofiction by Tr?n Duy Phiên.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 24.5 (2022) and Environment and Narrative in Vietnam(co-edited with Ursula K. Heise, co-author of one chapter, and single author of another chapter) contracted for publication by Palgrave Macmillan.