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 rights holders 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

Editor-in-Chief and Reviews 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 and 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. 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]

Founding Co-Editor Originally from Canada, Jeff Zroback has an MA in History. He is an editor by trade and has previously worked in Canada, Korea, Hong Kong and the UK. He is the Co-editor of the short fiction collection Love & Lust (with Tammy Lai-Ming Ho) and has published fiction and poetry. He writes many of the early Cha editorials. Contact: jeffzroback@asiancha.com [profile]

Reviews Editor Eddie Tay wrote four poetry collections, Remnants (Ethos Books, 2001), A Lover’s Soliloquy (Sixth Finger Press, 2005), The Mental Life of Cities (Chameleon Press, winner of the 2012 Singapore Literature Prize) and Dreaming Cities (Math Paper Press, 2016) He has been invited to various international literary festivals. Originally from Singapore, he is an Associate Professor of literature at the Department of English, Chinese University of Hong Kong. His latest publication is Anything You Can Get Away With: Creative Practices (Delere Press, 2018). Contact: eddie@asiancha.com [profile | website]

Translation Editor Lucas Klein is a father, writer, translator, and an Associate Professor in the School of International Letters and Cultures at Arizona State University. His translation Notes on the Mosquito: Selected Poems of Xi Chuan (New Directions) won the 2013 Lucien Stryk Prize. Other publications include October Dedications (Zephyr Press and Chinese University Press, 2018), his translations of the poetry of Mang Ke, and contributions to Li Shangyin (New York Review Books, 2018), as well as the monograph The Organization of Distance: Poetry, Translation, Chineseness (Brill, 2018). His latest publication is Words as Grain (Yale University Press, 2021), an authoritative new collection by Duo Duo, one of China’s most lauded poets, and a winner of a PEN/Heim Translation Fund. (Photograph of Lucas by Zhai Yongming.) Contact: lucasklein@asiancha.com  [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 is a native of Hong Kong, and is Lecturer in Japanese Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, with previous academic experiences in Newcastle University, the University of Warwick, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His interests lie in East Asian literatures and popular cultures, as well as postcolonial and world literatures at large. He is the co-editor of Murakami Haruki and Our Years of Pilgrimage (Routledge, 2021). He writes stories and poems in his spare time, and is always interested in languages, literatures and cultures. In April 2012, Michael joined Cha’s editorial team as Staff Reviewer. He is a founding co-editor of the academic journal, Hong Kong Studies (Chinese University Press). [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. All new content is currently added to Cha Journal Blog until further notice.

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.

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