Mark Powell was born in Sevenoaks, Kent, in 1963 and now lives in Singapore. He’s an award-wining novelist, playwright and screenwriter. Known as an explosive storyteller, Mark delivers brutally realistic fiction with strong, clever and fearless characters. He credits his adventurous and fun childhood for his creative talents. He writes in several genres including thriller, action and adventure, romantic comedy and mystery, for adults and young adults.
His published works include: Quantum Breach (Marshall Cavendish, 2009), Deep Six (Marshall Cavendish, 2010), The Somali Sanction (Amazon, 2012), The Adventures of Danny Dare (Amazon, 2013), 16 Swipes: No Breakfast (Marshall Cavendish, 2019), 16 Swipes, The Other Perspective (Penguin Random House SEA, 2021), Bad Juice (Amazon, 2022) and now his latest novel, Duxton Hill. In the works are: The Silver Spoon Club and Escape.
Paul GnanaSelvam is an Ipoh-born writer and poet whose work often focuses on the experiences, issues and identity conflicts of those in the Indian diaspora. Writing since 2006, he has published both locally and internationally in anthologies, literary journals and e-magazines. His first collection of short stories, a mixed bag of themes on the slice-of-life stories of Malaysian Indians, was published in 2013. He currently teaches writing while undertaking research on instructional communication and L2 writing in Higher Education at University Tunku Abdul Rahman in Kampar, West Malaysia.
Dr Azly Rahman grew up in Johor Bahru, Malaysia and holds a Columbia University (New York City) doctorate in International Education Development and Masters degrees in six fields of study: Education, International Affairs, Peace Studies, Communication, Creative Non-Fiction, and Fiction Writing. He has written more than 350 analyses/essays on Malaysia. His 30 years of teaching experience in Malaysia and the United States spans over a wide range of subjects, from elementary to graduate education. He is a frequent contributor to scholarly online forums in Malaysia, the USA, Greece, and Montenegro.
He has edited and authored seven books; Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, Present, Future (2009), Thesis on Cyberjaya: Hegemony and Utopianism in a Southeast Asian State (2012), The Allah Controversy and Other Essays on Malaysian Hypermodernity (2013), Dark Spring: Essays on the Ideological Roots of Malaysia’s General Elections-13 (2013), a first Malay publication Kalimah Allah Milik Siapa?: Renungan dan Nukilan Tentang Malaysia di Era Pancaroba (2014), Controlled Chaos: Essays on Mahathirism, Multimedia Super Corridor and Malaysia’s ‘New Politics’ (2014), and One Nation under God, Bipolar (2015), a joint publication between Gerakbudaya and World Wise Books of New Jersey, USA, being a compilation of essays on Malaysian Cultural, Creative, and Critical Studies.
Vicky Chong graduated with Master of Arts – Creative Writing from Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, in September 2018. Her works have been published in Readers’ Digest, The Graduate and Singapore Marketer. Her creative non-fiction stories were published in two anthologies, My Story, My Life and Feast! by Singapore’s National Library Board. Her short story, Chun Kia, was one of the ten selected for 2017 George Town literary Festival Fringe Publication The Zine. Short story The Uber Driver won third prize in the 2018 Nick Joaquin Literary Awards Asia-Pacific. Her 200-word short story was published in The Sunday Times on 10 February 2019 in celebration of Valentine’s Day. Short story Harvey Crescent was published in Business Mirror, Philippines, on 24 February 2019, and ‘Camel’s Tears’ on 28 April 2019.
Two short stories published in November 2020 were Marriage Lessons in the anthology Letter to my Son, and My Girl in Singapore in the anthology A View of Stars.
Ben Bland is Director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute. Ben was previously an award-winning correspondent for the Financial Times in Indonesia, China and Vietnam. His first book, Generation HK: Seeking Identity in China’s Shadow, was acclaimed as a ‘prescient, rollicking read’ by the Financial Times, a ‘David versus Goliath tale’ by the Sydney Morning Herald, and ‘lively’ and ‘illuminating’ by the Times Literary Supplement.
The Lowy Institute is an independent, nonpartisan international policy think tank. The Institute provides high-quality research and distinctive perspectives on the issues and trends shaping Australia’s role in the world.
The Lowy Institute Papers are peer-reviewed essays and research papers on key international issues affecting Australia and the world.
For a discussion on Man of Contradictions with Ben Bland and leading Indonesia experts, visit the Lowy Institute’s daily commentary and analysis site, The Interpreter: lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/debate/manof-contradictions.
Koh Buck Song (family name: Koh) is a Singaporean brand adviser and the author and editor of more than 30 books, including one on Singapore’s country brand – Brand Singapore: Nation Branding In A World Disrupted By Covid-19 (third edition, 2021, with a Chinese translation published in China, 2012). He has advised foreign governments on building their nation brands, and has spoken extensively on country branding internationally, including in London, Oxford, Cambridge (Massachusetts), Chicago (Illinois), Phuentsholing (Bhutan), Tahiti, Tokyo, Shanghai and Melbourne.
An avid traveller, he has visited more than 80 countries and territories, from Antarctica to Zimbabwe. An artist of haiga, a modern interpretation of the 16thcentury Japanese art form of ink sketches combined with haiku poetry, he has held several exhibitions in Singapore and Laos. This book features a haiga artwork for each of the 13 countries visited. He read English at Cambridge University in the UK and has a master’s in public administration from Harvard Kennedy School, USA. As an adjunct editor at Singapore’s Centre for Liveable Cities, he has authored and edited reports on the annual World Cities Summit since 2014. Previously, he was a columnist and political and arts journalist with Singapore’s main English daily The Straits Times, and head of global media relations and strategic planning at the Singapore Economic Development Board. As head of public affairs (Southeast Asia) with the communications consultancy Hill & Knowlton, he advised the Singapore government on many aspects of urban development, including the global launch of Gardens by the Bay and the National Gallery Singapore.
Barrie Sherwood was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Canada. His previous works include the novels The Pillow Book of Lady Kasa and Speed of Lightness, and a collection of short stories, The Angel Tiger. He lives in Singapore.
Grace Chia is an author of over ten books of prose and poetry. She has been nominated for the Mslexia Novel Competition and Epigram Books Fiction Prize longlists and shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize (Poetry) and Singapore Book Awards, the latter for her Penguin Random House SEA novel, The Arches of Gerrard Street. Her other novels are The Wanderlusters and White Cloud Mountain. Her poetry collections are Mother of All Questions, Cordelia, and Womango, from which her poems have been used in classroom teaching. In her free time, she enjoys baking or watching cat videos.
Robin Hemley (Robinhemley.com) was born in New York to a literary family. His parents were both writers and publishers and translators of the Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer. He grew up in the Midwestern U.S. and studied as a high school student in Osaka, Japan. At Indiana University, he majored in Comparative Literature and also studied Japanese and other subjects in the East Asian Languages and Culture Department. He received his MFA at The Iowa Writers Workshop in the 1980’s. Since then, he has been a professor at a number of universities, including The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Western Washington University, St. Lawrence University, where he was then inaugural Viebranz Chair in Creative Writing, The University of Utah, The University of Iowa, where he directed the Nonfiction Writing Program for 9 years, Vermont College of Fine Arts, where he was Faculty Chair, and most recently at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, where he was the inaugural Director of the Writers’ Centre and where he is currently Professor of Humanities and Writer-in-Residence. He frequently gives writing workshops around the world. He is likewise a Professor Emeritus at the University of Iowa and Distinguished Visiting Faculty at RMIT University in Melbourne.
He has published fourteen books of fiction and nonfiction and his work has been published in many of the leading journals in the U.S. as well as in the U.K. Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Singapore, The Philippines, China, Iceland, and Ukraine. He has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation as well as the Rockefeller Foundation, three Pushcart Prizes in both nonfiction and fiction, The Independent Press Book Award, The Nelson Algren Award for Fiction, an Editor’s Choice Award from The American Library Association, the Governor’s Award from the State of Washington, and many others. He has been a Fellow at the Bellagio Center for the Arts at Lake Como, Italy, The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, The MacDowell Colony, Varuna Writers Centre, The Bogliasco Foundation, The Hermitage, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and many others. He is the Founder and past President of NonfictioNOW, the leading international conference for literary nonfiction. He is a Contributing Editor of The Iowa Review, and Fourth Genre and with the writer Xu Xi, he organizes writing retreats and workshops through Authors at Large (AAlauthors.com).
Rudolf Beger is a German national, is a former chairman of trend-setting conferences at Management Centre Europe (Brussels) and Zentrum für Unternehmensführung (Zurich) and a speaker at industry conferences (Financial Times, UK Celebrity Speakers, pp). Rudolf wrote standard-setting books on corporate communication (in German (Gabler Verlag, 1989), and in English: Present-Day Corporate Communication, www.springer.com, 2018); he is also the author of a romantic novel entitled Dreisam, published by Fouquet’s Literatur-Verlag (out of business), 2003 (currently translated into English for publication). In 2020, Rudolf will complete a highly topical 450-pages political thriller entitled The Lobbyist on the automotive industry (for publication). Rudolf wrote numerous articles, papers and White Papers on EU industrial policy, and was a writer for German antique magazines. His artistic works were shown in ca. 40 solo- and group exhibitions all over the world. In 2011, he won the 1st Prize for his artistic work by the Monaco State Ministry/UNESCO.
