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Freddy
Au
Freddy Au Pok Shun is a postgraduate
student of Education at The University of Hong Kong. He has a BA
in English Studies and Translation. His interest in English began
when he was in secondary school, three years after the handover
of the sovereignty of Hong Kong. Comparing the English and Chinese
languages has made him appreciate the beauty of each, and he believes
Hong Kong is exactly the place where the best of both sides can
be found. Freddy is a Buddhist, enjoys meditation and considers
it necessary to live meaningfully. He would like to become an English
teacher after completing his diploma, to continue his bonding with
English. He enjoys writing fiction and feels his writing has a mixture
of realistic and romantic tones.
Victoria
Button
Victoria Button, 32, is an Australian
writer of fiction and poetry with a background in newspaper journalism.
Her short fiction has been published in Australia, the UK, Hong
Kong and Malaysia. Victoria won the 2003 South China Morning Post
Short Story Competition, and was a runner up the following year.
She recently relocated from Hong Kong, where she has lived for almost
five years, to Los Angeles.
Mimi
Chan
Mimi Chan received her early education
in New York and Hong Kong. She read English language and literature
at The University of Hong Kong and undertook research on Chaucer
in Hong Kong and on Shakespeare at University College, London University.
She taught English language and literature at The University of
Hong Kong for over thirty years, retiring as a Professor, and has
published extensively on Shakespeare, Chaucer, English-Chinese translation,
stylistics, lexical borrowing and bilingualism. She has also published
a book on the images of Chinese women in Anglo-American literature
and co-edited a volume of essays on Asian writers writing in English.
In 2000, she published her first work of historical fiction, All
the King’s Women. She is currently Hon. Professor and Senior
Consultant at HKU SPACE Community College. Mimi Chan is married
and has a son and a daughter.
Lavinia Chang
Lavinia Chang has a degree in business management
and was a marketing executive in Melbourne, Australia. She has been
doing freelance writing for the last seven years. Her articles deal
with issues relating to women at work and childrearing. She also
writes short stories and personal essays. Lavinia’s work has
been published in the UK, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Malaysia
and Thailand.
Karen
Chaulam Cheung
Karen Chaulam Cheung has just finished
a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East
Anglia, UK, and will be teaching creative writing at the same university
in September 2005. Her publications include an interview with Monica
Ali in the Asian Wall Street Journal and a play review in the BBC
Blast website, Norfolk. Her first novel, People Mountain People
Sea, is a detective fiction set in Hong Kong and Shanghai. She is
working on her second novel and a collection of short stories.
Aurora
Cheung
Aurora Cheung graduated from The University
of Hong Kong with a BA in 2005. Her majors were Translation and
English. She completed the one-year Creative Writing course taught
by Dr Page Richards of the English Department. Aurora is now a full-time
student of The University of Hong Kong’s Postgraduate Diploma
of Education (English).
Ralph
Chong
Ralph Chong graduated from The University
of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Arts in 2005, majoring in English
Studies. He currently works for the Hong Kong Police Force as a
Probationary Inspector. He is undergoing nine months of training
with the Police Training School before officially commencing his
duties and serving the community. During his final year of undergraduate
study at The University of Hong Kong, he took a Creative Writing
course taught by Dr Page Richards. On one hand, this course enhanced
his creative thinking and writing skills; on the other, it provided
him with the opportunity to complete his first piece of creative
work. It is published here in Hong Kong ID.
Andrew
Doig
Andrew Doig, as a fledgling author
in Hong Kong with far more ideas than time to write them, took part
in a writers’ group born out of a one-off workshop organized
by the Hong Kong Writers’ Circle. A group of participants
in this workshop went on to meet once every three months or so to
consummately rip apart, berate and praise each others’ writing,
an experience that Andrew found incredibly rewarding in the development
of his craft. “Star Travel” was given a serious battering
at one of these meetings, which helped to shape it into the story
that appears here. Inspired by the input from the writers’
group, Andrew has gone on to complete a Creative Writing Masters
at Glasgow University and is now seeking a publisher for his first
novel, Wee Davy.
Lawrence
Gray
Lawrence Gray is a British writer
who has lived in Hong Kong for fourteen years. He wrote TV scripts
for drama series in the UK and has been working on various Chinese
and Indian feature films. He is partners in a Hong Kong/Bollywood
production company developing features for the UK and India. He
was a founder and chairman of The Screenwriters’ Workshop,
Europe's largest screenwriters' organisation, and the founder and
chairman of The Hong Kong Writers' Circle. He has had articles and
stories published in Hong Kong’s newspapers; in Dimsum, Silver
Fish and The Wild East magazines; in The University of Hong Kong’s
City Voices; and in Haunting Tales.
Ken
Kamoche
Ken N. Kamoche was born and raised
in Kenya. He was educated at Nairobi University, and then earned
a Rhodes Scholarship to study management at Oxford. He has published
over thirty articles in academic journals and four books, including
Organizational Improvisation, a look at how managers can learn from
jazz improvisers as they navigate the business landscape. Ken has
lived in cities like Mogadishu, Kampala, Oxford, Birmingham, Gdansk,
Bangkok, Darwin, and is currently based in Hong Kong. When he can
spare time from a hectic academic career, he writes short stories
and the odd poem. One of his poems appeared in a BBC/Heinemann anthology,
The Fate of Vultures, following a contest. His short stories have
been published in Kunapipi (Australia), Wasafiri (UK), New York
Stories and Authorme.com (USA). Ken is also completing a novel.
Ilyas
Khan
Ilyas first visited Hong Kong in 1984.
Frequent visits in the next few years led eventually to being based
here permanently in 1989, and for the last 16 years Hong Kong has
been home. Ilyas works for a regional merchant bank.
Ilyas has written articles
for a variety of newspapers and magazines, and also had a regular
column in Asiaweek until that magazine closed down in 2003. In 2001,
his non-fiction book, Underdogs in Overdrive, was published by Wiley
and a small number of his short stories have been published in regional
papers in England. Ilyas, 43, is married to Mara Hotung and they
have a young son, Elijah Adam.
Winsome
Lane
Winsome Lane, who was born in South
Wales, came to Hong Kong after being thrown out of three countries
in the Caribbean because of stories she wrote for Reuters. The governments
of the newly independent countries did not like to read the truth
about themselves in the foreign press. In Jamaica, she was arrested
and kept for questioning for 24 hours and her life was threatened.
She was thrown out of Bermuda in the seventies because of a story
which was denied by the government, but which a year ago was revealed
to be the truth after the Foreign and Commonwealth Office made public
some previously secret files.
In Hong Kong, Winsome has
had a more or less peaceful life, writing social and fashion columns,
among other things, although there have been some contretemps, like
the time she offended Clement Freud and was highlighted in Nigel
Dempster’s column in the Mail. At that time, the late actor
Derek Nimmo described her publicly as “the most feared journalist
east of the Suez”. After ten years as a feature writer and
columnist with the South China Morning Post, and twelve more doing
much the same things for the Hong Kong Standard, she is now freelancing
and indulging her lifelong dream of writing fiction.
Queenie
Lau Kim Fun
Queenie Lau Kim Fun is a recent graduate,
with an English degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
She is now working as a teaching assistant in Baptist Lui Ming Choi
Secondary School and hopes to return to university next year to
study for a Master’s in English literature.
Belle
Ling Hoi Ching
Belle Ling Hoi Ching is a third-year undergraduate
completing a major in English Literature and a minor in Comparative
Literature at the University of Hong Kong. A poet as well as a writer,
she hopes that readers can trace the delicate constitutions of her
mind through her verse. She loves creative writing much more than
the critical study of literature. Through her writing, she shapes
external objects and inner feelings by using words to picture them
in a romantic, poetic way.
Yvonne
Lee Wing Chi
Yvonne Lee Wing Chi. is a postgraduate student
of Education at The University of Hong Kong and has a Bachelor’s
Degree in English from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. A hardcore
fan of rock bands, Yvonne has always wanted to write a story about
music. She has long been fascinated by the ways in which alienated
individuals, who think they can never be understood by others, can
relate to songs written even in a foreign language. In her story,
“The 2 of Them”, she wanted to get across the idea of
how music can tie two frustrated youngsters together. She also touches
on the clash between traditional Chinese values and Western values,
since the latter have been increasingly influencing the minds of
youngsters in Hong Kong. Yvonne began to love literature after becoming
an English major and particularly enjoys reading legal thrillers.
Ellen
McNally
Ellen McNally loves to write fiction and
is always amazed at how stories, once started, emerge from her mind
in surprising detail. Most of her writing, however, has been non-fiction.
She is the author of the book Shop in Shenzhen: An Insider’s
Guide, recently updated in 2005. She is currently at work on a shopping
guide to Hong Kong and hopes to release it in early 2006. Because
of the never-ending changes in the world of shopping, she updates
her Shenzhen book yearly and plans to do the same with her Hong
Kong shopping guide. She has lived in Hong Kong since 1989. Her
two children are teenagers: Daniel is at Reed College in the US,
while Kim has three more years to go at King George the Fifth School
in Homantin. Her husband, Andy Pleatman, runs a leather tannery
in China but is home on weekends. This leaves her plenty of time
to write, which she wants to do more of when her shopping-guide
days are over.
Mani
Rao
Mani Rao was born in India in 1965 and immigrated
to Hong Kong in 1993. She moved to New Zealand in 1995 and returned
the same year to Hong Kong, preferring it. She has published six
books of poetry, of which two are bilingual with Chinese translations.
Of the latest title, Echolocation (Chameleon Press, 2003), novelist
Allan Sealy says, “You go to it for debriefing, for the jolt
you expect from good writing.” Her poetry has been translated
into five languages and published worldwide. Publications in 2005
include essays and poetry in Dimsum (Hong Kong), Meanjin (Australia),
WestCoastLine (Canada), as well as Hong Kong ID (Haven Books, Hong
Kong). Mani has participated and performed at The Age Melbourne
Writers Festival, Vancouver Asian Heritage Month and The Man Hong
Kong Literary Festival, and several other events. She co-founded
the OutLoud readings in Hong Kong and co-edited the OutLoud anthology.
She taught at The University of Hong Kong’s Moving Poetry
project for three years. She was a Visiting Fellow of the Iowa International
Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 2005. She is temporarily
liberated from having to work for a livelihood after twenty years
of hard labour in advertising and television media. Mani now presents
a weekly poetry segment on Radio 4, RTHK, and writes occasional
reviews and interviews. She is seeking a home for a poetry manuscript
and is pregnant with a book of fiction. See www.manirao.net for
her performance and multi-media work.
Roseanne
Thong
Roseanne Thong was born in southern California
but has lived in Asia for more than fifteen years. She has worked
as a journalist and a freelance writer, and has taught English at
the primary, secondary and university levels in Guatemala, Hong
Kong, Taiwan and the US.
Roseanne’s stories, essays
and poems have appeared in the American Studies Journal, Asian Pacific
American Journal, Dalhousie Review, Dimsum, Fiction International,
Haunted Hong Kong Stories, Poetry LA, The Louisville Review, Lullwater
Review, Northwoods Journal, New Ways, Potato Eyes and Timber Creek
Review. Her short story, “Year of the Pig”, was nominated
for the Pushcart Prize in 2000.
She has also written several
children’s picture books, including Round is a Mooncake, Red
is a Dragon, One is a Drummer and The Wishing Tree. Three new books
– Tummy Girl, Gai See: Chinese Market and Carnival –
are scheduled for 2006. Roseanne is currently working on a collection
of short stories about Asia.
Ronnie
Tsui Min Ming
Ronnie Tsui Min Ming entered The University
of Hong Kong as a music specialist in 2002. Unexpectedly, she became
a creative writer instead of a composer. All wonderful experiences,
Ronnie believes, come from God; God is Love; Love leads to creation;
creations lead to words; and words lead to feeling. Her short story,
My Tin, is her experiment in fun. She would like to dedicate the
story to her family and friends, with special attention to her beloved,
Yuen (a.k.a. Maru), who is her real-life Tin.
Xu Xi
Xu Xi is the author of six books of fiction and essays, most recently a collection, Overleaf Hong Kong: Stories and Essays of the Chinese, Overseas, and the novel The Unwalled City. She also co-edited City Stage and City Voices, the first comprehensive anthologies of Hong Kong literature in English. Her essay collection Evanescent Isles: From My City Village will be published in 2008.
Her fiction and essays are published in numerous anthologies, literary journals and magazines worldwide. New work appears or is forthcoming in Silk Road, Manhattan Noir, Muse, N Exposant Nouvelle, Ploughshares, The Writer’s Chronicle, Asian Literary Review, Carve Magazine, Time Asia, Imagining Globalization, Now Write!, Saying the Unsayable. Literary awards and honors include the shortlist of the inaugural Man Asian Literary Award, an O. Henry Prize Story, a South China Morning Post Story Contest winner, a New York Arts Foundation fiction fellowship, among several others, and residencies at the Chateau de Lavigny in Switzerland, the Jack Kerouac Project of Florida, Kulturhuset USF in Bergen. In 2008, she was named the first English language Writer-In-Residence at Lingnan University, and will be the 2009 Bedell Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program.
The author is on the faculty at the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing, and holds a MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She teaches writing internationally, as a visiting lecturer at several universities, and also lectures and writes regularly on globalized culture. A Chinese-Indonesian native of Hong Kong, she left an eighteen-year international marketing and management career in favor of the writing life. She now splits her time between New York, Hong Kong and the South Island of New Zealand. Visit www.xuxiwriter.com.
CNN featured Xu Xi in 2007 in an article reflecting on the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/06/26/hk.artists/index.html.
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