Anees Ayesha

Anees Ayesha, 75, has taught Urdu language and literature in Hyderabad for over 50 years and is an avid promoter of the learning of Urdu among the new generations. She works closely with the Mehfil-i-Khawateen (A women writer’s collective) and Dabistan-i-Jaleeli (Set up to celebrate the works of Ali Ahmed Jaleeli), two organisations that are deeply involved in promoting the Urdu language and appreciation of its contribution to literature and culture in the sub continent.

Anu Kumar

Anu Kumar is a novelist and writer who lives in Maryland, US. She is presently studying creative writing at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She also has post-graduate degrees in management (human resources, XLRI) and history (Delhi University).  She has lived in various cities in India and also in Singapore and has written several books for younger as well as older readers published by Penguin and Hachette.  She has worked previously as a management consultant and also for the Economic and Political Weekly as its assistant editor.  Anu Kumar’s stories have been twice short-listed by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association and also by The Little Magazine (TLM). Her stories have appeared in anthologies published by OUP, London and Brass Monkey Books, Australia. They have also appeared in magazines such as The Little Magazine, Reading Hour, Platform and others.  Her first collection of short stories was titled, In Search of a Raja and other Stories ( Writers’ Workshop, 2002).

Abha Iyengar

Abha Iyengar is an award-winning, internationally published poet, author, essayist and a British Council certified creative writing mentor. Her work has appeared in Muse India, The Four Quarters Magazine, Kritya, Reading Hour, Bewildering Stories, Arabesques Review and others. She is a Kota Press Poetry Anthology Contest winner. Her haiku won her the second Prize in Life Positive. Her story, The High Stool, was nominated for the Story South Million Writers Award. Her poem-film, Parwaaz, has won a Special Jury prize in Patras, Greece. Her stories have been selected for A Rainbow Feast: New Asian Short Stories, The Asian Writer, Crime Scene Asia Vol.1 and The Unisun-Reliance Time Outanthologies. She has received the Lavanya Sankaran Writing Fellowship for 2009-2010. She also received the Mariner Award 2010. She was Featured Poet at Poetry with Prakriti, 2010. She has been honoured with the BTB Literary Award 2012 for Best Fiction in a New Genre. Her poems have recently appeared in The Anthology of Contemporary Indian Poetry. Her poem was long-listed in the RaedLeaf Poetry Contest 2013. Her micro-fiction has won several contests. She was among the top 15 finalists at Flash Mob 2013, an international flash fiction event. Her published works include Yearnings (poetry collection), Flash Bites (flash fiction), and Shrayan (fantasy novel). She dabbles in street photography, digital art and writes poems in Hindustani as well. Her website: www.abhaiyengar.com She blogs at www.abhaencounter.blogspot.in and ankahi-abha.blogspot.in.

Isa Kamari

Isa has written nine novels in Malay: Satu Bumi, Kiswah, Tawassul, Menara, Atas Nama Cinta, Memeluk Gerhana, Rawa, Duka Tuan Bertakhta and Selendang Sukma. Seven were translated into English: One Earth (Satu Bumi), Intercession (Tawassul), Nadra (Atas Nama Cinta), Rawa (Rawa), A Song of the Wind (Memeluk Gerhana), 1819 (Duka Tuan Bertakhta) and The Tower (Menara). He has also published two collections of poems, Sumur Usia and Munajat Sukma, a collection of short stories, Sketsa Minda and a collection of theatre scripts, Pintu. Isa was conferred the S.E.A. Write Award (2006), the Cultural Medallion (2007), and the Anugerah Tun Seri Lanang (2009). Kitaab will be publishing three of Isa’s work in 2016.

Jayanthi Sankar

Born and brought up in India, Jayanthi Sankar has been living in Singapore since 1990. She has been creatively active for the past twenty years in short stories, novels, transcreations and essays. Her short story ‘Read Singapore’ was widely recognized in the literary circles. She is writing more in English in the recent years. Having written primarily in Tamil, her short story collections have been short-listed three times for Singapore Literature Prize.

Monideepa Sahu

Monideepa Sahuis a former banker, who had a wonderful time writing her fantasy adventure novel for young people, Riddle of the Seventh Stone. She has also authored Rabindranath Tagore: The Renaissance Man. Her short fiction has been widely anthologized in India and abroad. She writes opinion pieces and feature stories on literature, art and culture forDeccan Herald and other reputed publications. She lives in Bangalore, India, with her extended family of people, a vintage PC, and countless arthropods. Connect with her at www.monideepa.blogspot.in.

Rheea Mukherjee

Rheea Mukherjee received her MFA in creative writing from California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Her work has been published in Scroll.in, Southern Humanities Review, Cleaver Magazine, CHA: An Asian Literary Magazine, QLRS, The Bombay Literary  Magazine, A Gathering of Tribes, Everyday Fiction, Bengal Lights, and Out Of Print Magazine. Her collection of short stories, Transit for Beginners is her first book published by Kitaab International . She co-founded Bangalore Writers Workshop in 2012 and presently co-runs Write Leela Write, a Design and Content Laboratory in Bangalore.

Sunita Lad Bhamray

Sunita Lad Bhamray is an author and educator based in Singapore. After a long rewarding career in teaching, she now enjoys her time devoted to writing. Ganga Jamuna is Sunita’s third book. Her first book, Triumphs on the Turf, was about horse racing in India. It was followed by Grandma Lim’s Persimmons, a storybook for children.

Syed Sarwar Hussain

Syed Sarwar Hussain teaches English at the College of Languages and Translation, King Saud University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He has also published four books that include ‘Ideology and the Poetry of Stephen Spender’ (1988), ‘Despairing Voices’ (2011), ‘Ashes in the Fire’ (2012), and ‘The Eastern Brew’ (2013).

T.A. Morton

T.A. Morton has worked as journalist and editor for Longman Pearson in Hong Kong. Returning to Europe she now resides in Copenhagen where she works as a freelance editor. She lives with her husband and daughter and is the proud godmother to a commercial ship, Tracey Kosan. Currently she is working towards her masters in Literature, and also on her third novel.

Dr. Usha Bande

Dr. Usha Bande retired as Principal of a college and was a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, a premier institute of higher learning. She was also a visiting faculty at Vishwabharati University, Shanti Niketan, West Bengal. Dr. Bande was on the faculty of English and during her Fellowship period she studied the novels of Indian women writers examining the strain of resistance in women’s writing. Her book Writing Resistance: A Comparative Study of Women Novelists has been published by the IIAS.  She is a regular contributor to The Tribune, Alive, Women’s Era, Times of India, Indian Express and many other newspapers and magazines.

Usha Nagasamy

Usha Nagasamy, a Further Education college lecturer, has been doing a lot of interpreting and translating for the local Tamil community over the past decade. In 2009, she began translating the Tamil short stories of her elder sister who is a renowned Tamil writer from Singapore. She lives in Greater London.

Zafar Anjum

Zafar Anjum is a writer and journalist and his most recent works include a work of non-fiction, The Resurgence of Satyam (Random House India, 2012), and a collection of short stories, The Singapore Decalogue: Episodes in the Life of a Foreign Talent (Red Wheelbarrow Books, Singapore, 2012).