Our final panel is one that explores mixed heritages. Many of us who identify ESEA straddle east and west. Chaired by Mina Ikemoto Ghosh, Everything Everywhere All At Once explores being multi-ethnic, writing through a mixed-heritage lens, and how to market yourself as someone of more than two heritage.
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The festival’s official bookseller is the award-winning Children’s Bookshop in Muswell Hill.
Meet our organisers Candy Gourlay was born in the Philippines, grew up under a dictatorship and met her husband during a revolution. Her novels have been shortlisted for many prizes including the Waterstones, the Blue Peter, the Guardian Children’s Book Award, the Costa and the Carnegie. Her latest novel for young adults Wild Song transports its characters to the 1904 World Fair in America. It was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize and the inaugural Nero Book Award.
Eva Wong Nava is a child of the diaspora. She was born in Singapura, a tropical island where a merlion protects its inhabitants from marauding pirates. Eva lives between two worlds, and multiple universes. She is a sixth generation Peranakan-Chinese, a person of Nusantara, who exists in two cultures, heritages, and languages. Eva combines degrees in English and Art History, and writes for children across age ranges and genres, in the English language. She is the author of Scholastic’s middle-grade classic
ESEA Authors Festival 2023.
I am the first British East and Southeast Asian author in the UK to write a nested narrative of this ancient annual lunar new year festival, and it became a bestseller...
collection, East Asian Folktales, Myths and Legends, and the best-selling picture book I Love Chinese New Year.
Tania Tay’s debut adult novel The Other Woman won Headline’s inaugural Modern Stories Open Submissions Initiative, and is published by Headline Accent. Her writing often explores female friendship and motherhood. She’s also the author of Spellcasters, a magical middle grade series under pen name, Crystal Sung.
Lui Sit was born in Hong Kong, raised in Australia and now lives in London. She writes children’s middle grade books, adult short fiction, and nonfiction. She won the 2022 FAB Prize and is an alumnus of the London Writers Award, Penguin WriteNow & Harper Collins Author Academy schemes. Her stories are published in anthologies including Mainstream, Superlative, Short Good Things, Fudoki, City of Stories, Willesden Herald New Short Stories, Meniscus, Wensum and Out of The Box. She has a couple of undergraduate degrees in humanities and social sciences and a MA in Dance Anthropology. Her debut children’s middle grade book, Land of the Last Wildcat will be published in May 2025 and her lower middle grade project with Storymix in June 2025.
Natelle Quek is a Malaysian-born illustrator who grew up in New Zealand, and now lives in leafy Southeast England with her husband and their rescue cat, Patch. Natelle currently works with a growing list of clients, focusing on children’s illustration, in particular picture books and young fiction. Natelle
loves to use bold colours and cinematic perspectives to draw audiences into her worlds. Working digitally, her illustrations often revolve around real life themes commingled with fantastical adventures.
Anne Chen is British-Chinese and lives in London with her husband and two children. She studied Physics at UCL and the University of Surrey and worked in research on Ion Beam Analysis. She has a post graduate diploma in Actuarial Science. Anne has written for Oxford University Press and is currently writing MG and YA Chinese fantasy with magical martial arts, secret societies and sentient swords. Anne is an alumna of the London Writers Awards (2018) and the HarperCollins Author Academy programme (2022). She participates in the MG writing group with the Megaphone Writers Community, which amplifies children’s writers of colour.
Lucy Tandon Copp is a Malaysian- Chinese English children’s author and award-winning journalist; her debut picture book is due to publish in August 2024 as the first in a two-book deal. In 2022, Lucy was selected to join Penguin UK’s WriteNow Editorial Programme, which champions authors from underrepresented backgrounds.
The ESEA @SOAS Lit Fest is asking for your help. We are running an Indiegogo fundraiser. To help make this lit fest sustainable, the organisers are asking for your kind support and donation.
l To find out more about the festival or make a donation visit:
www.eseaauthors.co.uk
Autumn-Winter 2024
PEN&INC. 29
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