Sketch: Literary and Design Journal

Sketch (editors: Christine de Saini and Nicole Tylor) is a new bi-annual journal committed to publishing creative, innovative and thought-provoking text and art. Each issue combines fiction, journalism, photography and design. Dedicated to encouraging and supporting emerging talent, Sketch profiles an up-and-coming writer or artist each issue, showcasing their work and delving into the inspiration behind it and discussing the creative process. The journal also prints news, reviews and interviews with industry professionals to keep you up to date with what's going on in the literary and art world. Sketch is published by Sketch Media House, a boutique design, public relations and publishing company based in Melbourne, Australia. The debut issue of Sketch was launched on Thursday 20 November 2008.

Nicole Tylor from Sketch had a conversation with Cha's co-editor Tammy Ho Lai-ming about the literary scene in Hong Kong in the section "Fully Booked: Travels Through Texts" (what an apt title!). Purchase Sketch to read the feature and more great treats. Also visit the Sketch website for more details.

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International Workshop on Diasporas: Cultural Transfer

"Diasporas: Cultural Transfer" is an international workshop organised by the Faculty of Arts at The University of Hong Kong in collaboration with the University of Nottingham. This is the second in a series of international workshops bringing together scholars from U21 universities who are currently working on various aspects of "Diaspora." The focus of the workshop will be cultural and historical. Each participant will present a short academic paper. The overarching focus of the workshop will be 'cultural transfer,' and a special strand will be organised dealing specifically with cultural transfer between 'Asia and the West'.

Cha contributors Shirley Geok-lin Lim and Ouyang Yu will present papers in the conference. Other speakers featured are: Ien Ang, Roger Bromley, Tim Bunnell, Malcolm Campbell, Leong Koon Chan, Pheng Cheah, Rey Chow, Hilary Chung, Andrew Cobbing, Cristina Demaria , Raymond Donovan, Siggy Frank, Paul Gladston, Zahera Harb, Elaine Yee-lin Ho, Kwai Cheung Lo, Bernard McGuirk, Yuriko Nagata, Nessa O'Mahony, Kazuo Oikawa, David M. Pomfret, Jean-Xavier Ridon, Shuang Shen, Sandhya Shukla, Judith Still, Divya P. Tolia-Kelly, Sau-ling Cynthia Wong, Michael J. Zambon, and Vladimir Zoric.

Date: 11-13 December 2008

Venue: MB150 / Convocation Room, Main Building, The University of Hong Kong

For more details or registration, please visit the conference website or send an email to Fiona Chung (fionachung@hku.hk).

• Shirley Geok-lin Lim's poetry was published in issue #3 of Cha.
• Ouyang Yu's poetry was published in issue #4 of Cha.

Poetry Chapbooks by Gillian Sze

This is the Colour I Love You Best (2007) and A Tender Invention (2008) are early poetry collections by Gillian Sze, both published by Withwords Press and beautifully illustrated by Rob Huynh. In these handmade chapbooks, Sze deals with themes of absence and growing up – in styles of free verse and a play on forms. Entwined with matters of love, each poem allows space for imagination, reflection, and invention.

Gillian Sze's poetry has been published in issue #5 of Cha.

Mani Rao in Holly Rose Review

Mani Rao's new poems "Something kids see in water" and "Sometimes a voice instead" are now published in the debut issue of Holly Rose Review. Do check out this interesting new literary publication.

Mani Rao's poetry was published in issue #1 of Cha.

Reid Mitchell in In Posse Review

Two new poems by Reid Mitchell, "Qing" and "Soot", are now published in the latest issue (issue #25) of In Posse Review.

Reid Mitchell's poetry has been published in issue #1 and issue #4 of Cha. He serves as the guest editor for issue#5 of the journal.

New Publications from Virtual Artists Collective Poetry

Three new publications from Virtual Artists Collective Poetry (co-founder: Steven Schroeder):

Two Southwests, a bilingual anthology of 27 poets from the southwests of China and the United States.

Pluck a Lotus for Pleasure, a bilingual edition (co-published with Associated Stories of Macao) featuring new translations of women poets from the Song Dynasty

Boki, a new collection by Indian poet Nitoo Das.

Steven Schroeder's poetry has been published in issue #5 of Cha.

CHA Issue#5 Goes Live

THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY ISSUE OF CHA: AN ASIAN LITERARY JOURNAL IS NOW AVAILABLE

We are pleased to announce the publication of the fifth issue of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (November 2008). Poet, novelist and historian Reid Mitchell generously acted as guest editor and read the submissions with us. The new issue features poetry by former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins and new fiction by Nirmala Pillai. Other writers/artists featured in the issue include Sam Byfield, Grace V. S. Chin, Mike Farman, Tiziano Fratus, Daniel Hudon, Anne Levesque, Vikas Malhotra, Aya Padron, Yves Rubin, Steven Schroeder, Daren Shiau, Gillian Sze, Tai Dong Huai, Eddie Tay, Royston Tester, Toh Hsien Min, Sean Wiebe, Alison Wong, Bo Wong and Jennifer Wong. To read the issue, please visit our website at http://www.asiancha.com/.

We are currently accepting submissions for the sixth issue of Cha, which is scheduled for publication in February 2009. Deadline: 31 December 2008. Award-winning Hong Kong poet Arthur Leung will lend his expertise to us in the role of poetry guest editor. If you are interested in having your works considered for publication in Cha, please read our submission guidelines for details.

Tammy Ho & Jeff Zroback/ The Editors
Cha: An Asian Literary Journal/ http://www.asiancha.com/

ASIAN CHA Issue#5 Editorial

TIME AND DISTANCE

Recently my Hong Kong-born co-editor has developed a series of strange new habits, or, perhaps more accurately, several symptoms of the same habit. Her new quirks include buying instant noodles in bulk, lingering in front of dim sum restaurants and unconsciously slowing her gait to read the greetings on Chinese knickknacks. The onset of these symptoms coincided with our recent move from Hong Kong to London. (Rest assured that Cha will not be giving up jasmine for Earl Grey or 'yuan yang mgoi' for 'three sugars in mine, luv' and will strive to remain an Asian publication even if its editors have temporarily shifted house.) There is of course a sense of distance that comes from changing cities, a feeling of being separated both from where you were before and from where you are now. This sensation undoubtedly lies at the heart of my co-editor's recent attraction to everything Chinese. Homesickness makes nationalists of us all. There is, I think, quite an ordinary and inescapable truth in her situation. Even in a world of very regular regularly scheduled flights and infinite networks of fiber-optic cables, we cannot completely escape geography. Reading South China Morning Post online will never be the same thing as a morning spent in South China and that is all there is to it.

But I think that there was something more to this sense of distance than the isolation of a new life in a new town. We arrived in London at the climax of the economic crisis — a moment when one could have been forgiven for thinking that if the whole system had not quite been driven off a precipice, it was at least parked on the edge of an eroding cliff. It was impossible not to contrast this gloom to the buzz that had infused Hong Kong and China in 2008. In the months and weeks leading up to the Olympics, the country was overcome by an immense sense of national pride, which despite maxing out occasionally into disturbing hysteria, also provided a feeling of uplift to the entire nation. And lying behind this spike in Chinese self-esteem, there was also a kind of continental background enthusiasm pulsating from much of the region — a great anticipation for the future buoyed by double digit growth and predictions of an emerging Asian century.

These impressions, however, belong to a specific time and place, and you will find no grand theory about a dynamic East and a declining West here. What the mood is in Admiralty or on the Bund these days, I can only speculate. Somewhat less buoyant seems a safe bet considering the current economic climate, but from this remove, it is hard to know. It is also hard to recall exactly the excitement I have just described or the extent of Chinese emotional investment in the Olympics. Subsequent events and geography cannot help but mould our memories and point of view. If comedy comes from tragedy plus time, then perspective comes from distance plus time.

At the start of the year, it was easy to imagine, no — the media in fact openly encouraged us to imagine, that 2008 would be China's and Asia's moment. But I now suspect that despite Beijing's clock-work efficiency and knock-your-socks-off opening ceremonies, the games will leave a lasting mark only in China’s domestic psyche; internationally, however, they are likely to be remembered more as an also ran in 2008 rather than its defining moment. If the Beijing Olympics were supposed to be China’s 'coming out party' (I admit a slightly silly metaphor for a civilization of 5000 years), it was that reliable diva the United States who, for better and worse, once again stole the night.

Like all divas, America in 2008 has been temperamental and inspiring, and completely unignorable. The financial crisis had an undeniably hypnotic power (and perhaps for many, a kind of Schadenfreude in seeing Wall Street undo itself), but it was accompanied by a sinking feeling that toxic derivatives and bank failures meant trouble for us all. Terrible economic news in the U.S. is still, at the very least, bad news for everyone else. But, if the delirious international reception to Obama's victory is any indication, good news for America (or for the Democrats anyway) is also good news for everyone else. I am told by our guest editor, for example, that his election was celebrated by his university students in Wuxi China.

The election captured the world's attention for a number of reasons — its dramatic horse race, a desire to see the back of Bush — but there is no doubt that it was primarily because of the junior senator from Illinois. Obama had the right message (change, hope) and, crudely put, the right face for today's flat, multi-racial world. He certainly provides an appealing model for a new breed of international statesman. With his Indonesian childhood, he will also be seen as one of the most Asian of American presidents. (Those with long historical memories may correctly point out that he does not outshine William Howard Taft, onetime governor general of the Philippines in this regard, but I am not sure the youth of Manila or Jakarta would see it this way.) Once in office, time and political realities will likely dampen the world’s opinion of Obama. It is difficult to imagine how one person, even one with his preternatural gifts, can live up to the world's inflated expectations or tackle America's intractable domestic problems. But there was a long moment after his election, an instant stretched from Tuesday night across the international dateline into Wednesday, where the world's perspective shifted. You could see it everywhere: on the blogs, on the TV, in the newspapers. And I have to admit the whole thing brought a tear to my eye. Not primarily for the history of America's first black president or for the hope that things will get better, but for the joy of seeing such a diversity of people inspired by the same event. Barack Hussein Obama had made internationalists of us all.

As for my co-editor, time and distance will shift her perspective, too, and she will soon be seeing her homesickness from a remove. But for the time being, there is Chinatown and that excellent Sichuan place in Soho we went for her birthday, which now that I think of it, is just around the corner from a pub where Orwell used to drink and within walking distance of the West End, and that actually borders on …

We can't escape geography, so we might as well start embracing it.

Jeff Zroback / Co-editor
Cha
15 November, 2008

ASIAN CHA Issue#4 Editorial

THE FAMILY ALBUM

The cover of this issue features two family photos, one taken in Hong Kong, one in mainland China. There is a striking formality in these images, even by the standards of family portraiture. Of course, in days when film was expensive, the moments recorded by such photographs were expected to be taken seriously, especially since they often represented the definitive image of the family, a cherished memory to be carefully saved or prominently displayed. And for families without a written history or genealogy, such images may have also taken on the added importance of being the only real record of their lives and past.

And yet like all portraits, this image is in many ways not a record of a real moment, but a construction: the studio background, the austere poses, the father's place at the centre of the picture. If these photos serve as a family record, they are an idealized and polished one—a marketable image the family can show itself, its descendents, its outsiders. Nor is this type of idealization limited to formal portraiture. There is artifice and convention throughout the family photo album. Flipping through family pictures reveals that from household to household which photos get taken, or at least which get shown, is remarkably consistent. Images of domestic harmony and happiness are in, those of pain and internal strife are out. Thus, weddings and holiday celebrations (redacted of the antics of embarrassing relatives) make the family album, but funerals and divorce proceedings do not. (When was the last time you saw Facebook albums with names such as: Uncle Jim's funeral 2007, Custody Hearings Aug. 2006?) A wide variety of childhood events are worthy of film, but there are also a number of situations too gruesome, depressing or distasteful for Father to shoot.

Likewise our photographs reveal that only a limited number of expressions and poses are acceptable for our family memories. Anguished faces are subjects for photojournalism, not domestic photography in which smiling visages dominate. And although the width of the frame is certainly partly responsible for dictating how we gather in group photos, it seems equally certain that these formations are also designed to stress unity and togetherness.

There is an irony that is difficult to ignore in the fact that all our family photographs are so much alike. If such images are intended to record the memories of individual families, why do they look exactly like those of all their neighbors? The conclusion that some theorists and critics have drawn from all this sameness is that our photographs demonstrate our conformity to generic conventions, as well as revealing the dominant social, familial and gender roles of our particular place and time. This is undoubtedly true. But for all its truth, there is something in this cold analysis which, apart from being slightly condescending, sits uneasily with our more romantic impulses. I suspect that it is because even if our family photos are generic constructs, they are constructs with real emotional weight. We may frame our memories in response to the dominant social structure, but when all is said and done they are still our memories.

A photograph, no matter how formal, evokes memory in a way no other art form does. A picture appears to be reality, unmediated. History sliced paper thin. There may have been framing and cropping, and a choice of which stock to print on, but who doubts, as we view photographs, that we see a representation closer to reality than most other media. When we look at an old picture, we can be at least fairly confident that at the moment, someone looked that way, wore that hat, stood that tall. Of course, in terms of recording the past, video is probably the superior medium. Yet the evocative stillness of photographs often reveals truths that the jittery flow of film cannot. Their suspended events invite mediation. Linger a moment on a family portrait and it will betray its family secrets. Why was he chosen to sit on his father's lap? What about her dirty socks and ill-fitting shoes?

While gazing on a photograph depicting a fondly remembered past event, we often experience a powerful emotional reaction. There is of course a reason that everybody takes pictures of holidays, birthdays and vacations, besides blind adherence to social norms: they are the good times we want to remember. The similarity of our photo albums surely says as much about the universality of human experience as it does about photographic conventions. But family photographs have a power beyond reminding us of our dearest recollections. They capture a past which occurred before our birth or that we cannot remember. And in this, they contain an especially potent emotional force. To see yourself when you were young, to see your grandmother when she was still beautiful, to see an ancestor on whose life your very existence depended, is an experience that is full of pathos and wonder. For me, there is no picture which encapsulates this feeling more forcefully than one of my father and I sitting in the forest, taken when I was a baby. Of the day, I have absolutely no memory; my only memory is the image itself. And yet the picture has become an emotionally charged part of my life. That I was once so small and wearing that jacket remains to this day a slightly surreal experience. But it is my father's appearance that represents the real source of the picture's power. There is something about him which is both familiar and strangely alien—an ambiguity which is simultaneously unsettling and deeply comforting.

I suspect it was just this ambiguity that Roland Barthes had in mind when he wrote "There is a kind of stupefaction in seeing a familiar being dressed differently." And I suspect that despite their formality and conventional framing, it is something like stupefaction that my co-editor feels when she looks at the pictures in the masthead. Was her mother ever so young? Was her father ever so small?

Jeff Zroback / Co-editor
Cha
6 August, 2008

ASIAN CHA Issue#3 Editorial

CHA: SOME THOUGHTS ON A NAME

In the first major treatise on the subject of tea Chajing (The Classic of Tea) (8th century), Lu Yu categorized the different varieties of the drink by name: When tea has a sweet flavor, it may be called chia. If it is less than sweet and of a bitter or strong taste, it is called ch'uan. If it is bitter of strong when sipped, but sweet when swallowed, it is called ch'a. Since the Tang Dynasty, the nomenclature of tea has simplified somewhat. Although the Chinese still recognize many different types of tea, the general term for the character 茶 in Mandarin and Cantonese, give or take a few tones, has settled on the last of Lu Yu's terms, ch'a, or cha. Today similar words for tea can be seen throughout much of Asia. For those familiar with Japanese or Korean, cha should be easily identifiable as the transliteration of tea. Similarly, ch'a is not hard to see in the Hindi chai, the Tagalog (Pilipino) tsaa or the Nepali (chiya).

The similarity of these names for tea is of course no etymological accident, and their close variations reveal the drink's Chinese roots. Tea was first consumed in Southern China, probably in Yunnan. Exactly how and when people began to boil its leaves with hot water remains mysterious, a fact reflected by the numerous myths surroundings its discovery. If tea's ancient culinary past is cloudy, its early linguistic history is only slightly better understood. The word ch'a likely derives from the Chinese character 荼 (tú), which is nearly identical to that for tea 茶 except for one stroke. Tú signified various things, including a type of bitter herb, but at some point may have come to represent tea. How the character and name for the drink ultimately made the jump from t'u to ch’a is not entirely understood, although neither seems a great leap. Whatever the arcane verbal transformations that eventually led to the use of ch'a and its cognates, however, it was surely these words that spread along with the drink to much of the continent.

It should be noted that not all Asian languages use a variation of cha to signify tea. There is another branch of words for the plant, which can be seen in the Javenese teh, Sinhalese thé and the words used in most European languages, including English. (One notable exception is in Portuguese, which adopted the word chá from Cantonese speakers in Macau). Once again, however, the taproot of this linguistic tree is probably tú. Its origin is clearly seen in tê, the pronunciation of the character for tea used in Amoy Min Nan, a Chinese dialect of Fujian province. It was this name that Dutch sailors, trading with Fujianese merchants, likely picked up along with the drink and took back to Europe. That these merchants were the source of much of the early tea brought to England is probably the reason that English now uses the word tea, not a variation of cha, as might have been expected considering British involvement in Canton and Hong Kong.

And yet even in English, cha has made its appearances. For example, the English merchant R. L. Wickham wrote in 1615 "I pray you buy for me a pot of the best chaw." Likewise, cha appears in char, an old British slang word for tea probably picked from either Cantonese or Mandarin. More recently, cha has reentered the English language, this time as chai, a kind of spiced Indian tea. That this Hindi word has been spread by Starbucks and its clones speaks to the fact that tea has become a thoroughly globalized drink. Today its consumption easily equals that of all other manufactured beverages combined, including coffee, soda and alcohol. This international popularity, however, is nothing new. Tea has been at the centre of the global economy since the colonial era. The terms Ceylon Tea and The Boston Tea Party are enough to remind us of the leaf's central role in the British Empire and how far and wide it spread along its trade routes.

Ultimately, however, these routes almost always led back to Asia. And when all is said and done, tea remains a quintessentially Asian drink. Its near ubiquity on much of the continent certainly speaks to its fundamental position in the region's social and cultural life. (It surely also goes a long way to explaining tea's preeminence in the world's beverage market.) Some writers, eager to stress tea's Chinese heritage, have seen this popularity as representative of the Middle Kingdom's cultural influence throughout Asia. Others, writing in a much similar vein, have sought to stress its fundamentally Chinese character. Although it is certainly impossible to deny cha's Chinese roots or its role in the country's culture, one does not need to spend much time on the continent to see that such arguments, apart from having a slightly bitter taste of Han superiority, are wanting. Cha has clearly become a unique element of many Asian cultures. On this matter, there is no more eloquent source than Okakura Kakuzō's classic commentary on the central role of tea in Japanese life The Book of Tea (1906). Describing the effect that the culture of tea, or Teaism, had come to play in his country, Kakuzō wrote that "Our home and habits, costume and cuisine, porcelain, lacquer, painting — our very literature — all have been subject to its influence. No student of Japanese culture could ever ignore its presence. It has permeated the elegance of noble boudoirs, and entered the abode of the humble."

But in the end, one need not scour high-minded philosophical tracks to understand tea's central position in Asia — a few minutes spent on the ground on the continent would suffice. Try taking a train ride in India without a hawker offering you a cup of chai or visiting a Korean household without being offered some cha, hot or cold. Cha may have Chinese roots, but in myriad local variations, it has gone well beyond this heritage. It is a taste of these variations that we hope to capture in our journal.

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming & Jeff Zroback / The Editors

Cha

7 May, 2008

ASIAN CHA Issue#1 Editorial

WHY START AN ONLINE JOURNAL?

Why start an internet journal? Why add another voice to the cluttered and overexposed world of creative writing online? We believe that these are questions that must be considered by anyone who wants to publish literature on the web. After all, there are already thousands of online journals, blogs and websites with literary aspirations. Most of them (this website is no exception) are devoted to the commendable goal of "publishing quality literary work". But can there really be enough good writing out there to fill thousands of empty web pages? Depends who you ask. There are many curmudgeonly internet cynics (journalists, academics, editors) who would say "No", explaining the web is a wasteland of mediocrity, in which the cult of the amateur is destroying professionalism and quality. From the internet’s supporters (the electronic gurus, 2.0 geeks and blogists), however, we are likely to hear an enthusiastic: "Yes! Yes!" According to them, the internet is unleashing the creativity of the many and freeing us from the narrow monopoly of the professional media.

That you are reading this editorial in an online journal should tell you where our sympathies lie in this debate. We feel that there is a comfortable space for our endeavour on the internet, especially as the number of resources for writers in Asia is quite limited. Unlike the crowded marketplace of online publishing in other countries, English internet publishing in Asia remains underdeveloped. For us, this offers the great opportunity of entering a market, not nearly as cluttered with journals as in North America or in the United Kingdom. Indeed, currently there are only a handful of Asian online journals. We do not expect (nor hope) that this will continue. As Asia expands its economic and cultural influence, we are certain that interest in English Asian literature will increase. In fact, it already has.

Yes, it is true that there are a limited number of English writers in Asia, but certainly not nearly as few as the more cynical commentators suggest. And the real problem with Asian writing in English is not the limited number of its writers, but the limited number of its writers that are published. This sad state of affairs is largely the result of the economic realities of English print publishing on the continent. English publishers in Asia face similar constraints to their western counterparts, only much tighter ones. Think it is difficult to sell poetry in the United States? Try selling it to a handful of English readers in Asia. It is also true that in some cases local publishers in Asia face a certain conservatism of taste—in which the reading public prefers recognisable forms and topics. This conservatism limits a publisher's options and further compounds the difficulties of selling literature to a limited audience. The upshot of all this is that it is only financially feasible for local English publishers to support a small number of writers.

At Cha, our goal is to bring together Asia's underpublished writers and established ones. As an online journal, we do not face the same economic constraints as local print publishers. Indeed, with almost no operating cost, we are free to take a chance on unknown or less commercial writers, which is exactly what we intend to do. We also hope to use Cha as a forum for Asia's aspiring writers—to be one of the places where they can go to be read and to develop. Finally, we also intend to support more established authors. Within the Asian context, even the most celebrated English writers may only have a limited readership. We hope that, in our small way, we can help bring their work to a larger audience.

In the future, we can imagine an online creative writing community in Asia just as overexposed and cluttered as those in other parts of the world. We are certainly going to do our best to make it that way.

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming & Jeff Zroback / The Editors
Cha
4 November, 2007

Art Matters by Sushma Joshi

Sushma Joshi's Art Matters, a book of art reviews about Kathmandu, has been published with support from the Alliance Francaise of Nepal. The book is now available at major Kathmandu bookstores.

Sushma Joshi's fiction has been published in issue #3 of Cha.

November Poetry At Nthposition

The November 2008 issue of Nthposition is now live. Read a very fine selection of poetry here, selected by Todd Swift.

Todd Swift's poetry has been published in issue #2 and issue #3 of Cha.

Reid Mitchell in Poetrysky

Reid Mitchell's poem "Bride" is now published in the Winter 2008 issue of Poetrysky Quarterly.
Reid Mitchell's poetry has been published in issue #1 and issue #4 of Cha. He will serve as the guest editor for issue#5 of the journal.

the next trio from ml press

New chapbooks from ml press are ready for pre-order.

Blake Butler:
In the Rape Year of the Ghetto Toddler the Houses will Awaken

Brandi Wells
Patiece

Nick Antosca:
Rat Beast

This new trio will ship beginning Nov. 15th &, as always, will be $2 each (includes shipping in the u.s. ) & will be printed in a very limited run of 25-50 copies only.

ml press have officially added more authors: Sam Pink, James Chapman, Michael Kimball, & Norman Lock.

www.mudlusciouspress.blogspot.com
www.aboutjatyler.blogspot.com

ml press is run by J. A. Tyler.

J. A. Tyler's fiction was published in issue #1 of Cha.

CHA Issue #5 expected on/before 15 November

Lee Herrick Reads in Fullerton, CA

Lee Herrick is reading in Fullerton, CA on Tuesday4 November 2008. (See details in poster).

Lee Herrick's poetry was published in issue #4 of Cha.

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Launch of Todd Swift's Seaway: New and Selected Poems

Todd Swift & Fellow Salmon Poets celebrate the launch and signing of Swift's Seaway: New and Selected Poems. Featuring guest readers include Patrick Chapman, Susan Millar DuMars, Kevin Higgins, Jessie Lendennie, and Pete Mullineaux. Admission free.

Date: Tuesday, 4 November, 2008
Start Time: 7 pm
Venue: Oxfam Books & Music, 91 Marylebone High Street, London
To reserve a place: Call Martin on 0207 487 3570

Todd Swift's poetry has been published in issue #2 and issue #3 of Cha.

Concelebratory Shoehorn Review 23

Issue #23 of Concelebratory Shoehorn Review (editor: Maurice Oliver) is now online. Read poetry by Ariel Gordon, Trevor Joyce, Deborah Vacther, Scott Glassman, Letitia Trent, Paula Hackett, Gunter Quinte, and Pat Paulk. Also included in this issue is photography of Sigfrid Lopez and art of Karen Hollingsworth.

Maurice Oliver's poetry has been published in issue #3 of Cha.

Michelle Cahill and Isabela Banzon in QLRS

Michelle Cahill's "Hanuman" and "After the Headlines"; and Isabela Banzon's "Seven" are now published in the October 2008 issue of Quarterly Literary Singapore Review.

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• Michelle Cahill's poetry was published in issue #2 of Cha.
• Isabela Banzon's poetry was published in issue #4 of Cha.

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Mascara Poetry #4

Mascara #4 (editors: Boey Kim Cheng and Michelle Cahill) is now live with poetry by Peter Boyle, Tenzin Tsundue, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Sean Singer, Francesca Haig, Indran Amirthanayagam, Kylie Rose, Jessika Tong, Michael Sharkey, Jal Nicholl, Liam Ferney, Debbie Lim, Ashley Capes, Jane Kim, Ouyang Yu, Peter Davis and more. Visit the new issue of Mascara here.

• Michelle Cahill's poetry was published in issue #2 of Cha.
• Shirley Geok-lin Lim's poetry was published in issue #3 of Cha.
• Ouyang Yu's poetry was published in issue #4 of Cha.