Category: Press

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Last month my dog got published. This month it’s the turn of my 14 year old nephew Kaz! His photograph Hong Kong Storm has been chosen by Proverse Publishing and Chinese University Press as the book cover of Mingled Voices 7: the International Proverse Poetry Prize Anthology 2023! The anthology launches at the Proverse Spring Reception at the Helena May April 27! My poems Imagine Nation and Tidal Slave are among the poems that won places and I’ll be reading Tidal Slave at the event. Needless to say, this is causing a lot less excitement in my family.

https://proversepublishing.com/kasra-shroff-photography/

https://proversepublishing.com/mingled-voices-7/

https://www.amazon.com/Mingled-Voices-International-Anthology-Anthologies/dp/9888833383/

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125166248-mingled-voices-7

https://cup.cuhk.edu.hk/Proversehk?product_id=4518

‘Hong Kong Storm’

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Fresh from launching A Book of Changes at the 2023 Hong Kong International Literary Festival, the Hong Kong Writers Circle opened submissions for its new quarterly online magazine Apostrophe – on APRIL 1st – no joke! The name is derived from the irony that a bunch of so-called writers omitted the apostrophe when registering the Society. Technically, we should be the Hong Kong Writers’ Circle, but we are not. We are the Hong Kong Writers Circle. This grammatical faux pas has split the Circle into two feuding semicircles: those of us who know what an apostrophe is and how to use one and those of us who do’nt.

I am apparently Art Director because nobody trusts me with an apostrophe. Unlike the writers who are required to be either residents or former residents of Hong Kong to submit, artists can submit from anywhere in the world and are not limited to only submitting one piece. Submissions for the first edition close April 30!

https://hkwcmagazine.substack.com/p/submissions

You can also email your art to sadie@mentalideas.org

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Mojo likes books. He likes the smell, he likes the pictures, he likes the shape of the words, but most of all, he likes to eat them. Mojo eats books. You know that phrase ‘everyone has at least one book in them’? Well, Mojo has at least three. The last book he ate was The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Where’s Wally? He’s lodged inside Mojo’s digestive tract. Mojo treats Bookazine like a buffet. His greatest literary ambition is to finish off War and Peace. He may have bookworms. Books are not the most exotic meal Mojo has ever had. He spent the morning eating magnetic fridge letters. The next poo he does could spell ‘disaster’.

Congratulations to Mojo! The Home Kong Kitchen mascot had his short tail published in the Women in Publishing Society‘s anthology Imprint 21. Despite being male. And a dog. And a poodle. His story is a restaurant review called The Foodie Poo. The anthology launched March 9 at the 2023 Hong Kong International Literary Festival and can be bought from Bookazine, Kidnapped, Vibe, the Lion Rock Press and the Foreign Correspondents Club, which hosted the event. Mojo is now toying with the idea of setting up the Poodles in Publishing Society (PiPS), a literary dining society for poodles who enjoy a good book as much as he does.

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Another chance to catch up with my humour column for RTHK Radio 3 on VYP! This one walks funny, talks funny and is called Penguins…

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Thank you to editor Carol Dyer and the Women in Publishing Society for inviting me to read Bake Fail at the 2023 Hong Kong International Literary Festival launch of Imprint 21! It was the first time I had performed it in front of a live audience and I had a blast!

Bake Fail was published as A Piece of Cake by the South China Morning Post in 2022, which meant it couldn’t be included in the anthology, but you will find two of my other humorous short stories tucked inside; Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow from Sharp Pains, which broadcasted on RTHK, and another by my poodle, Mojo, which I helpfully translated.

Imprint 21 is available from bookstores Bookazine, Kidnapped, the Lion Rock Press and Vibe. You can also pick up a copy from the FCC, where the event was held. Congrats to the Women with WiPS for putting on a cracking event and to the HKILF for curating such a literary feast! 

https://www.hkwips.com/imprint/imprint-21-at-a-glance/

https://www.hkwips.com/2023/imprint-comes-of-age-at-the-fcc/

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Thank you to the lovely people who run the Webby Awards for encouraging me (quite persistently, as the first couple of times they contacted me I just assumed it was a joke) to enter Bake Fail for their 2023 awards and offering me a scholarship to do so! I am sure I have no chance but imagining them listening to one of my obscure little podcasts was reward enough!

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Catch me performing Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow from Sharp Pains live at the Hong Kong Int Lit Fest launch of Imprint 21 at the FCC March 9! Thanks to editor Carol Dyer for inviting me to fill a bald spot. Join me and the women with WiPS from 7-10pm for an evening of laughter and frivolity!

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow on RTHK Radio 3
Imprint 21 At a Glance

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SAVE THE DATE: A Book of Changes will launch on the closing night of the 2023 Hong Kong International Lit Fest March 12 upstairs at the Fringe! I will be reading an extract from my short story Toot, a chocolate horror. Join me and the Hong Kong Writers Circle for a hotpot of short stories, poetry and debauchery from 7pm! You can get tickets here!

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Catch me on Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Skyler Jett‘s Music for Global Change broadcast later this year! God only knows what the lead vocalist of the legendary Commodores wants with me (unless it’s Bake Fail tips?) but I’m excited to be a guest on his broadcast! Plus, once he has interviewed me, he has agreed to let me interview him on one of my podcasts. In case you are interested, our conversation went like this: “Hello? Is it me you’re looking for? Or have you made some catastrophic error?”

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Excited to find out the 21st Women in Publishing Society anthology Imprint 21 will launch on International Women’s Day (March 9) at the FCC as part of the 2023 Hong Kong International Literary Festival! Two of my humorous short stories are among the contributions and I am excited to have been invited to read Bake Fail at the event! Bake Fail broadcasted as an episode of Sharp Pains on RTHK Radio 3 and was published by the South China Morning Post as A Piece of Cake in 2022.

Bake Fail was nominated for Moment of Comedy Gold by the 2022 International Women’s Podcast Awards and an Official Select of the 2022 On Air Fest in Brooklyn. Sharp Pains was also shortlisted for Best Comedy Program by the 2022 New York Festivals Radio Awards and some of the stories long-listed by the 2022-2023 Comedy Women in Print Prize. More festival updates soon!