Cha: An Asian Literary Journal is the first Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

-based online English literary journal. It was founded in 2007, a decade after the handover, by Tammy Ho Lai-Ming and Jeff Zroback. The editorial team also includes Reviews Editor Eddie Tay.

The journal publishes poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, book reviews, and photography & art from and about Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

. Although Cha is primarily interested in Asia-related creative works and works by Asian writers and artists, it also publishes works by writers and artists from all over the world. In its first anniversary issue (November 2008), for example, former Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins

Billy Collins

Billy Collins is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute, Florida...

 contributed four Asian-themed poems. Other writers previously published in the journal include Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist, active in sculpture, installation, architecture, curating, photography, film, and social, political and cultural criticism. Ai collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008...

, Louie Crew

Louie Crew

Erman Louie Crew, Jr. is an American professor emeritus of English at Rutgers University in Newark. He is best known for his long and increasingly successful campaign for the acceptance of gay and lesbian people by Christians in general, and the Episcopal Church in particular...

, Ma. Luisa Aguilar Igloria

Ma. Luisa Aguilar Igloria

Luisa Aguilar Igloria is a Filipina American poet and author of various award-winning collections.-Education:She received her undergraduate degree from the University of the Philippines, Baguio in 1980 , and the M.A...

, Alan Jefferies

Alan Jefferies

Alan Jefferies is an Australian poet and children's author currently living in Brisbane.He grew up in Cleveland on the Queensland coast. He published his first poems in 1976 and since then his work has appeared in magazines and newspapers in Australia and overseas...

, Sushma Joshi

Sushma Joshi

Sushma Joshi is a Nepali writer and filmmaker based in Kathmandu, Nepal.End of the World, her book of short stories, was long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award in 2009...

, Christopher Kelen

Christopher Kelen

Christopher Kelen is an Australian writer and artist currently residing in Macao, China. Kelen is the author of nine volumes of poetry and two novels...

, Shirley Lim, Lyn Lifshin

Lyn Lifshin

-Life:Born in Barre, VT, she was raised in Middlebury, VT. She earned a bachelor's degree in English from Syracuse University and a master's degree in English from the University of Vermont...

, Alvin Pang

Alvin Pang

Alvin Pang was named 2005 Young Artist of the Year by the National Arts Council Singapore. He holds a First Class Honours degree in English Literature from the University of York and an Honorary Fellowship in Writing from the University of Iowa's International Writing Program...

, Todd Swift

Todd Swift

Todd Swift is a Canadian poet, editor, cultural activist and university lecturer based in the United Kingdom.Swift was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and raised in Saint-Lambert, Quebec. He received a B.A. in English from Concordia University and an M.A...

, Amy Uyematsu

Amy Uyematsu

-Biography:Growing up in Southern California, Uyematsu was torn between the Japanese culture of her family and the American culture of her environment, a conflict which has deeply influenced her poetry. She is also a high school math teacher and many of her poems reflect elements of math and quote...

, Alison Wong

Alison Wong

Alison Wong is a New Zealand poet of Chinese heritage. Her background in mathematics comes across in her poetry, not as a subject, but in the careful formulation of words to white space and precision...

, Cyril Wong

Cyril Wong

Cyril Wong is the author of nine volumes of poetry and one collection of prose.- Biography:Born in 1977, Cyril Wong attended Saint Patrick's School, Singapore and Temasek Junior College, before pursuing a doctoral degree in English literature from the National University of Singapore...

, Bryan Thao Worra

Bryan Thao Worra

Bryan Thao Worra is a Laotian American writer. His books include On The Other Side Of The Eye, Touching Detonations, Winter Ink, Barrow and The Tuk Tuk Diaries: My Dinner With Cluster Bombs. He is the first Laotian American to receive a Fellowship in Literature from the United States government's...

, Xu Xi

Xu Xi

Xu Xi, Xu Xi, Xu Xi, (originally named Xu Su Xi(许素细) (born 1954) is an English language novelist from Hong Kong.She is also the Hong Kong regional editor of Routledge's Encyclopedia of Post-colonial Literature (second edition, 2005) and the editor or co-editor of the following anthologies of Hong...

 and Ouyang Yu

Ouyang Yu

Ouyang Yu is a contemporary Chinese-Australian author, translator and academic.Ouyang Yu was born in the People's Republic of China, arriving in Australia in 1991 to study for a Ph. D. at La Trobe University which he completed in 1995. Since then his literary output has been prodigious...

.

Cha was named Best New Online Magazine of 2008 by storySouth

StorySouth

storySouth is an online quarterly literary magazine that publishes fiction, poetry, criticism, essays, and visual artwork, with a focus on the Southern United States. The journal also runs the annual Million Writers Award to select the best short stories published each year in online magazines or...

's Million Writers Award and was selected as The Gatekeeper's Site of the Week (Wednesday 1 July 2009), on Meet at the Gate, the website of Scottish publisher Canongate

Canongate

The Canongate is a small district at the heart of Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland.The name derives from the main street running through the area: called Canongate without the definite article, "the". Canongate forms the lower, eastern half of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh's historic Old Town....

. Work published in Cha has been selected for publication in Best of the Web and Best of the Net anthologies (2009). The journal regularly comments on published work in its column "A Cup of Fine Tea".

Cha is currently catalogued in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Library, among others.

External Links

• Cha Official Site