Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, founded in 2007, a decade after the handover, is the first Hong Kong-based international English-language free-access online literary journal; it is dedicated to publishing quality poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, reviews and photography & art. Cha has a strong focus on Asian-themed creative work and work done by Asian writers/artists. It publishes established and emerging writers/artists from around the world.
The journal had a launch in Beijing on 31 August 2009 by Royston Tester. The March 2013 issue was launched on 7 March by guest editors Kaitlin Solimine (prose) and Marc Vincenz (poetry). The event was co-hosted by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University.
In 2017, to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the journal, we launched the Cha Reading Series and the Cha Writing Workshop Series.
Cha is catalogued in the libraries of the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Shue Yan University, Lingnan University, Hong Kong Baptist University, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Harvard University, Stanford University, McGill University, Imperial College London, Trinity College Dublin, among many others. It is also promoted on EBSCOhost.
The rightsholders of Cha grant Hong Kong Baptist University Library non-exclusive right to archive and distribute content from the journal on its Institutional Repository, a non-commercial platform maintained by BePress.
More about Cha:
-
- A poem by Jeffrey B. Javier, first published in the July 2018 issue of Cha, won the Second Place in the 2019 Hawker Prize
- Four pieces by Alvin Pang (October 2018 issue), Sigrid Marianne Gayangos (July 2018 issue), Jam Pascual (July 2018 issue), and Yoko Tawada, translated by Susan Bernofsky (April 2018 issue), first published in Cha, were selected for inclusion in The Best Small Fictions Anthology (2019), published by Sonder Press. Cha is one of the five journals chosen to be spotlight journals in the volume [More information]
- An essay by Paul French, first published in the September 2016 issue of Cha, was expanded and adapted into a four part story-of-the-week of RTHK3 in April/May 2019
- Works published in Cha have been included in Best of the Web (2009), selected as a winner and finalists of Best of the Net (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2018), selected as a winner and a semifinalist of The Best Small Fictions (2018) and named storySouth‘s Million Writers Award Notable Stories (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014)
- Several pieces published in the journal were noticed by other editors and translated into languages such as Chinese, Japanese, French and Swedish
- Time Out Hong Kong (October 2009), South China Morning Post (April 2010), The China Daily (November 2010) and India’s Sunday Guardian (February 2013) have run feature articles on Cha; the journal is mentioned in the CNN article “The Evolution of English Literature in Hong Kong” (2010), the Hindu article “Virtual Bookshelf” (2010), the journal The Year’s Work in English Studies (2010), Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies (2010), King’s College London’s In Touch (2011), Hong Kong’s City Magazine (2014), Los Angeles Review of Books (2016), and most recently, Ming Pao (2017), Apple Daily (2017), and Philippines Graphic (2018), among other places
- After reading an unpublished book chapter by Donna Miscolta in the May 2010 issue of Cha, Signal 8 Press asked the author for the manuscript and eventually decided to publish the book (2010)
- A poem by Martin Alexander, first featured in the May 2008 issue of Cha, went on to win the International Grand Prix for Poetry (2009)
- Selected as The Gatekeeper’s Site of the Week (Wednesday 1 July 2009), on Meet at the Gate, the website of Scottish publisher Canongate
- Named Best Online Publication of 2011 by storySouth’s Million Writers Award
- Named Best New Online Magazine of 2008 by storySouth’s Million Writers Award
Every now and then, we comment on published pieces in the critique column, A Cup of Fine Tea: ‘If something is good enough to be published in Cha, then it is good enough to receive critical attention’ (qtd. from an interview here).
We have also run the following contests (and you can find our special features here):
-
-
- Auditory Cortex (April 2018)
- Addiction (September 2016)
- Distance (June 2016)
- Hong Kong (December 2015)
- The Other Side (March 2015)
- Reconciliation (December 2014)
- Void (March 2014)
- Betrayal (March 2013)
- Misinterpretation (November 2012)
- The Past (September 2012)
- Encountering (March 2012)
-
In the future, Cha will be developed into both an online journal and a print anthology. The eighth issue of Cha can be downloaded as a PDF here and the poetry in the thirteenth issue is available in a booklet.
Cha is also a drink popular throughout Asia and beyond.
EDITORS
General contact: editors@asiancha.com
Founding Co-Editor Tammy Lai-Ming Ho is a proud native of Hong Kong. She is the English Editor of Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine and a Co-editor of the academic journal Hong Kong Studies. An Associate Professor at the Department of English, Hong Kong Baptist University, she sometimes translates literature and writes poetry & fiction. Her first poetry collection is Hula Hooping (Chameleon Press, 2015), for which she was awarded the Young Artist Award (Literary Arts) by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council in 2016. Her other publications are Too Too Too Too (Math Paper Press, 2018), Her Name Upon the Strand (Delere Press, 2018), An Extraterrestrial in Hong Kong (Musical Stone, 2018) and Neo-Victorian Cannibalism (Palgrave, 2019). Tammy is currently the President of PEN Hong Kong. Contact: t@asiancha.com [profile | website]



Consulting Editor
Reid Mitchell, a New Orleanian, is teaching at Tsinghua Daxue. He has an MFA from Warren Wilson College and completed a post-MFA poetry course through the City University of Hong Kong. He has published a number of literary dialogues with Tammy Ho and his novel A Man Under Authority was published by Turtle Point Press in 1997. His first poetry collection is Sell Your Bones (PalmArtPress, 2019) and his memoir of teaching in China is Scoundrel (2019). [profile]
Associate Editors
Arthur Leung holds an MFA in creative writing (with distinction) from the University of Hong Kong and is on the international editorial board of Yuan Yang. He was a winner of the 2008 Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition. In 2009, Leung was commended by the Home Affairs Bureau of the Hong Kong SAR government for his outstanding artistic accomplishments. [profile]
Royston Tester has been jury member for the Commonwealth Fiction Prize and first reader for the Writers’ Union of Canada‘s Short Prose Competition for Developing Writers. He is a professor of creative writing at Mohawk College and is a regular writer-in-residence with Beijing’s Red Gate Gallery. His second collection of stories, Fatty Goes To China (Tightrope Books) will be published in 2012. [profile]
Staff Reviewer
Michael Tsang received his BA and MPhil from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is now reading for a PhD degree at the University of Warwick, specializing in postcolonial English literature in Hong Kong. [profile]
Public Relations Manager
Janet Lau is a native Hongkonger. She received her BA and BED from Hong Kong Baptist University.
Guest Editors and Contest Judges
Guest editors read the submissions with Tammy Ho and Jeff Zroback; they are carefully selected from our past contributors.
#52, September 2019 – “Writing Vietnam”: Nhã Thuyên and Kaitlin Rees
#51, June 2021
#48, September 2020 – “Writing India”: Mani Rao
#47, June 2020 – “Writing Malaysia”: Bernice Chauly
#46, March/April 2020 – Twelfth Anniversary Issue: Arthur Leung and Royston Tester
#45, January 2020 – Jason S Polley and Sreedhevi Iyer
#44, June 2019 – The “Auditory Cortex” Feature (Lian-Hee Wee) and The “Tiananmen Thirty Years On” Feature (Lucas Klein)
#37, October 2017 Jenna Le and Lo Mei Wa
#15, November 2011 – Fourth Anniversary Issue: Robert E. Wood and Royston Tester
Tea Tasters
Tea Tasters comment on works published in Cha on A Cup of Fine Tea; they are: Tammy Ho, Jeff Zroback, Bob Bradshaw [profile] and some guests.