Archives: Authors

M.M. Monippally is a Professor of Communications at IIM Ahmedabad. A specialist in strategies of managerial communication, persuasion, and bad news delivery, he has designed and run training workshops for middle and senior managers at Morgan Stanley, Reuters India, ICICI Bank, MICO Bosch, Global Trust Bank, and many other organizations.

Elaine Chiew is a writer and a visual arts researcher, and editor of Cooked Up: Food Fiction from Around
the World (New Internationalist, 2015). Twice the winner of the Bridport Short Story Competition, she has
published numerous stories in anthologies in the UK, US, and Singapore. Originally from Malaysia, Chiew
graduated from Stanford Law School and worked as a corporate securities lawyer in New York and Hong Kong
before studying for an MA in Asian Art History at Lasalle College of the Arts Singapore, a degree conferred by
Goldsmiths, University of London. She lives in Singapore and blogs at www.invisibleflaneuse.blogspot.com.

Akshita Nanda’s first book Nimita’s Place, was a finalist for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2017. Born in
Pune, she has lived in Singapore since 1995 and has a B.Sc. (Hons) from the National University of Singapore.
Her columns on arts and culture for The Straits Times are well-received. Akshita was one of the speakers at the
Singapore Writers Festival 2018.

Noelle Q. de Jesus is a Filipino American writer whose first book, BLOOD: Collected Stories (Ethos Books) won
the US-based 2016 Next Generation Indie Book Award for the Short Story. A Palanca Award winner and a
University of the Philippines’ Writers Workshop fellow, she has published short stories in Southeast Asia and
the United States, including Puerto del Sol and Mud Season Review. She is currently working on her first novel,
Dome of Another Sky. She lives with her husband in Singapore and they have two children.

Vittoria D’Alessio is a British/Italian writer and editor. As a journalist, she has contributed to newspapers and
magazines around the world, focusing mainly on topics relating to women, health and human rights.

Zoӫ Richardson is an award-winning English Literature and Language teacher who has taught both in Asia and the UK. She’s an Oxford University graduate who has had a number of academic papers and poems published; this is her first co-authored work for children. Prior to teaching, Zoӫ worked in advertising and broadcasting. She has two sons, both born in Singapore, and it is their emotional journey that has been the primary inspiration for Archie’s Cloud.

Sun Jung received her Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne, and was a research fellow at both Victoria
University and the National University of Singapore. Prior to her academic career, she worked as a writer
for media production companies and cultural magazines in Los Angeles and Seoul. During this time, she
also collaborated with Korean film producers on script development. Ever since her first visit in 2012 to
Bukit Brown, one of the largest Chinese cemeteries outside of China, she has been fascinated by the stories
of those who were buried there. After leaving her academic career behind, she devoted herself to writing.
Previously published works were her book of essays, The Letter, I Sent You (1991) and her academic book Korean
Masculinities and Transcultural Consumption (2011).

Laksmi Pamuntjak is a bilingual Indonesian novelist, poet, journalist, essayist, and food critic. Her first
bestselling novel, Amba: The Question of Red tells a modern story of two ill-starred lovers, Amba and Bhisma
of the great Hindu epic Mahabharata, who were driven apart by one of the bloodiest purges in the
20th century—the massacre of up to one million accused communists in Indonesia between 1965 and 1968.
The book won the Germany’s LiBeraturpreis 2016 and has been translated into several languages.
Laksmi’s second novel, Aruna and Lidahnya, was a bestseller in Indonesia and published in the US in February
2018 under the title The Birdwoman’s Palate (AmazonCrossing).

Anjum Hasan is the author of three novels—The Cosmopolitans (shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award),
Neti Neti (shortlisted for the Hindu Best Fiction Award) and Lunatic in My Head (shortlisted for the Crossword
Book Award)—as well as a book of short stories, Difficult Pleasures (shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award
and the Hindu Best Fiction Award), and a book of poems. She lives in Bangalore.

Leila was born in Lebanon, raised in several countries, and now lives in Singapore. It took her well over thirty years to figure out what she wanted to be when she grew up, but she did a whole bunch of things she loved on the way, including ballet and karate. When she’s not writing stories about ninjas, cupcakes, and pooping pigeons, you’ll find her on the floor somewhere reading stack after stack of picture books.
Barbara was born in Munich and raised in Sydney by super tough, adventurous parents who encouraged her to stay true to herself and forge her own path. She now happily calls Singapore home and finds joy in laughing kids, purring cats, sweet treats and art. When not gleefully illustrating picture books, you’ll probably find her in the playground practicising her skills.