Archives: Authors

David Seow graduated from the University of Portland, Oregon with a BA in Communications. He is the author of over forty-five well-received children’s picture books, including the Sam, Sebbie and Di-Di-Di & Xandy series. His books There’s Soup on Fly! and Blow a Kiss were finalists for the SCBWI Crystal Kite Members Choice Award in 2012.
Two of his titles, A Day with the Duchess and A Royal Adventure, were featured in Hola! Hello! Online, The International Business Times, and The Sunday Express. ‘Stamford Raffles: Zombie Zapper’ is David’s first published middle-grade story.

Mark Yong is an artist and a self-proclaimed professional chef with an ardent love for burgers. When he isn’t doodling away in his sketchbook or watching the latest superhero flicks, you can find him hunting for the best burger in town.

Sharmila Bhushan has a Master’s Degree in Spanish from Jawaharlal Nehru University. After a brief stint early on in her career as a Spanish language teacher at Symbiosis Institute of Foreign Trade Pune, she chose to pursue a freelance career as a Spanish and Portuguese translator and interpreter. In her career spanning over twenty-five years she has worked in a diverse range of fields and is on the translators’ panel of several companies, human rights, women’s health and women’s rights organizations. She is also Spanish language conference interpreter and has provided simultaneous interpretation services in over sixty international conferences.
Besides her love for languages, she also actively pursues her twin passions of music and painting and is part of an amateur band and has been actively involved with the Mago Memorial Art Foundation to promote art. Website: www.sharmilabhushan.com

John McGlynn has translated or edited over 100 works, including translations of several of works by Pramoedya which he published using his pen name, Willem Samuels, including The Mute’s Soliloquy. According to Tempo (Indonesian magazine), “Over the years, McGlynn worked to produce English translations of Indonesia’s top literary works, collaborating with a diverse group of translators, such as Harry Aveling, an authority on Indonesian and Malay literature.

John Balcom teaches at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. His 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).

Migs Bravo Dutt is a writer and researcher who has published work in several countries, regions, and cultures. She is the author of the contemporary novel, The Rosales House, from Penguin Random House SEA (PRHSEA), and a forthcoming collection of novellas, Room 216, also from PRHSEA. Migs has also published several essays, including one in the Washington Post about her pandemic experience in the USA. She has contributed prose and poetry to anthologies and journals and has been featured in literary interviews and programs in Asia, Europe and the USA. Her short fiction was selected for 22 New Asian Short Stories, Kitaab’s The Best Asian Short Stories, and Growing Up Filipino 3. Migs has co-edited Get Lucky: An Anthology of Philippine and Singapore Writings in 2015 and its sequel Get Luckier: An Anthology of Philippine and Singapore Writings II in 2022.

Born Mumtaz Ali in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, Sri M is a spiritual guide, social reformer and educationist. He heads the Satsang Foundation. In 2011, he wrote his memoir, Apprenticed to a Himalayan Master: A Yogi’s Autobiography, which became an instant bestseller; the sequel, The Journey Continues, was published in 2017.

O Thiam Chin is the author of three novels and six collections of short fiction. His debut novel, Now That It’s Over, won the inaugural Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2015. His work has appeared in Granta, The Cincinnati Review, Manoa, The Brooklyn Rail, QLRS, World Literature Today and elsewhere.

Josephine V. Roque is a freelance journalist and editor. She has worked in print and online publications in Manila and Shanghai. Joyce obtained her MFA in creative writing from De La Salle University and has received prizes for her essays from the Doreen Fernandez Food Writing Competition and Ateneo Art Awards. She also contributes art criticism and profiles for ArtAsiaPacific Magazine and ArtReview Asia.

Tutu Dutta lives in Kuala Lumpur; she was born in India but grew up in Malaysia. She has a BSc from Universiti Putra Malaysia and an MPhil from the University of Malaya. As an undergraduate, she won a scholarship from Japan Airlines, to attend Summer School at Sophia University in Tokyo, an eye-opening experience which instilled in her a love for folklore. She has also studied at the University of Strasbourg, France.
Dutta started writing children’s books when she lived in far flung cities as the spouse of a diplomat, including: Singapore, Lagos, New York, Havana and Zagreb. She has a daughter, Shona Yean, who was born in Singapore in 1992. Shona is her informant on youth and popular culture and keeps her abreast of international trends; Shona qualified as a Barrister at Middle Temple Inn (UK) in 2017.
To date, Tutu Dutta has authored nine books, including Timeless Tales of Malaysia, Eight Treasures of the Dragon, and the middle grade duology, The Jugra Chronicles, a story set in 17th Century Borneo. Phoenix Song is her first picture book; published by Lantana Publishing (UK) and illustrated by Martina Peluso. It is also her first book, to be translated into Malay, and was published by Oyez! in 2017.
In 2016, Marshall Cavendish decided to publish a new edition of Timeless Tales of Malaysia, entitled The Magic Urn and Other Timeless Tales of Malaysia. This was followed by Nights of the Dark Moon, a collection of dark folktales from Asia and Africa, in 2017. It was reprinted in 2019 and garnered renewed interest and positive media reviews in Malaysia and India.
In 2019, an anthology she co-edited with Sharifah Aishah Osman, entitled The Principal Girl: Feminist Tales from Asia, was published by GB Gerakbudaya Enterprise Sdn Bhd, a publisher known for social activism. This book was a surprise hit with YA readers and received wide media coverage and reviews.
She was invited as a speaker at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content in Singapore, twice. The first in 2013, where she presented a paper entitled Adapting Asian Folktales for Children’s and YA Literature, and in 2017 she presented two papers, Folklore Finesse and Hidden Elements. She was also one of the speakers at a panel of Malaysian authors during the East-West Conference organized by the University of Malaya in 2017.
Tutu Dutta was also one of the judges for the Scholastic Asia Young Writers Award 2014, representing Malaysia. Her stories are rooted in Asian culture and reflect the research she had put into the subject. Readers and reviewers have also pointed out the feminist leanings and the deep reverence for nature, in her stories. In fact, Timeless Tales of Malaysia, inspired a group of children to produce a video about it and was the subject of a Master’s Degree in English Literature at the University of Malaya.
She is active in local literary circles and is a Committee Member of the Malaysian Writers Society, helmed by Tina Isaac and Gina Yap, since its inception in 2017; and also a member and Patron of The Classic Challengers, a readers and writers collective, helmed by Nazli Anim Ghazali and Vickneswaran Manickasagar.