Cha: An Asian Literary Journal

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:

Named Best New Online Magazine of 2008 by storySouth's Million Writers Award
Named Best Online Publication of 2011 by storySouth's Million Writers Award
Selected as The Gatekeeper's Site of the Week (Wednesday 1 July 2009), on Meet at the Gate, the website of Scottish publisher Canongate
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), 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
A poem, first featured here, went on to win the International Grand Prix for Poetry (2009)
After reading an unpublished book chapter here, a publisher asked the author for the manuscript and eventually decided to publish the book (2010)
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

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):

Cha International Poetry Prize 2017 (December 2018)
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 thireteenth issue is available in a booklet.

Cha is also a drink popular throughout Asia and beyond.

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