A transnational literary organization based in New York City, Singapore Unbound envisions and works for a creative and fulfilling life for everyone through the arts and activism.

What’s On

 
View fullsize CELEBRATE PRIDE WITH US! Second Saturdays—Pride Reading Featuring: Andy Jiaming Tang, with Open-Mic Date and Time: Saturday, June 13, 3-5 PM Venue: Suite Bar (992 Amsterdam Avenue, NY, NY 10025) Free with cash bar. All are welcomed to read, si
View fullsize It's National Pet Month in May! Animals have inspired and accompanied writers through the ages. Here's a glimpse of the furry companions accompanying our Singapore Unbound team members during our day-to-day work championing powerful Asian voices. Pho
View fullsize Join us on May 16 for the launch of SUSPECT’s Archipelagic Entanglements Portfolio, with special features from memoirist Camille U. Adams and pannist Jahlani Andrew Roberts. Along the shoreline, rubber trees—or their remnants—brist
View fullsize 🎉We hosted not just one, but two exciting readings last weekend in Boston and New York in celebration of National Poetry Month! 🏠 In Boston, attendees enjoyed a delicious potluck and enlivening conversation, before poet Sandra Lim (@dearslim) capt

Op-Ed

Featured
Opinion: Remove the Residency Requirement for Overseas Voting

As Singapore headed to the polls on May 3, nearly a quarter million of its citizens were unable to vote, shut out by an outdated rule: the residency requirement for overseas voting.

Newsletter

Our weekly newsletter brings you opinions and news about human rights, books, and community events.

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SUSPECT

Suspect Blog
‘Tree’ and Other Poems
‘Tree’ and Other Poems

Cold rain, a kitchen cabinet, and the curl of a tongue: three poems by C. Aishwarya exploring migration and memory between New York and Singapore.

A language of our own: Patois in Désirée Reynolds’ Seduce (2013)
A language of our own: Patois in Désirée Reynolds’ Seduce (2013)

‘They made me sink fully into myself, feel everything that has been lost, every person—named and unnamed by the writers of history—whose life was violently discarded.’—Reading Désirée Reynold’s Seduce (2013), an essay by Olivia Simone.

Full of Small Mouths
Full of Small Mouths

‘The Tadjah does not disappear. It sediments, creating pores and possibilities of leakage: of values, practices, memories; across language, oceans, borders.’—procession, history and architecture kaleidoscope in Singapore’s Nagore Durgah, in this essay by Samira Hassan. 

“A Special Request for a Singer” and Other Poems
“A Special Request for a Singer” and Other Poems

Expressing a keen appreciation of the beauty and the damage to our homeland archipelago, Amilcar Peter Sanatan’s poems make us see and hear anew.

Editor’s Note for Archipelagic Entanglements
Editor’s Note for Archipelagic Entanglements

SUSPECT Editor-in-Chief Sharmini Aphrodite introduces ARCHIPELAGIC ENTANGLEMENTS, our latest portfolio putting Southeast Asia and the Caribbean in conversation.

.Neutralized.Iran.War.
.Neutralized.Iran.War.

‘If I offended you in any shape or form, I’m truly sorry. I didn’t mean to. But do not mistake my politeness and respectfulness for an apology.’—a war diary from Iran.

#YISHREADS April 2026
#YISHREADS April 2026

‘Something older, wilder, untainted by the contemporary world order’––dive into epic poetry from the Global South with Ng Yi-Sheng this May.

The Gospel of Disobedience
The Gospel of Disobedience

“We moved through the world translucent”. Two poems and an excerpt from Mark Dimaisip’s queer confessionals.

Journey West
Journey West

‘June fourth? I wasn’t anywhere. I was driving through the countryside, red dirt and blood in my mouth.’—a short story by Derick Chan.

The Darkness About Us: Seventeen Stories of Hybrid Otherworldliness
The Darkness About Us: Seventeen Stories of Hybrid Otherworldliness

‘Rich in otherworlds and forged in equatorial heatl’—a review of Signos: A Fiction Anthology of Filipino Supernatural (USA: Radix, 2025) by Marie La Viña.

Too Much Silt
Too Much Silt

In his review of Theophilus Kwek’s Commonwealth, Yap Hao Yang surveys the lay of the land in the poetry collection and finds it wanting.

End It
End It

“A moth wants a lamp without becoming it.” Two poems on redefining desire by Michelle Chen.

#YISHREADS March 2026
#YISHREADS March 2026

This March, Ng Yi-Sheng reviews tales from five trans writers of Asia.

Xiao Gou
Xiao Gou

“You are a waste of good fortune,” I spit in Mandarin. “Through no effort of your own, you are an American.”–a short story by Alice Stephens.

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Gaudy Boy

Gaudy Boy
Horizon Hong Kong
Horizon Hong Kong

by Xu Xi 許素細
ISBN: 978-1-958652-25-1
eISBN: 978-1-958652-26-8
$22 / Paperback / 5.5” x 8.5” / 288
Gaudy Boy, July 2026
N. America: Asterism / Bookshop.org/ Amazon
Distributed by Asterism & Ingram

Heaven Has Eyes
Heaven Has Eyes

by Philip Holden
ISBN: 978-1-958652-22-0
eISBN: 978-1-958652-23-7
$19 / Paperback / 5.5” x 8.5” / 288
Gaudy Boy, January 2026
N. America: Asterism / Bookshop.org / Amazon
Distributed by Asterism & Ingram

The Unrepentant
The Unrepentant

by Sharmini Aphrodite
ISBN: 978-1-958652-20-6
eISBN: 978-1-958652-21-3
$19 / Paperback / 5.5" x 8.5" / 196 pages
November 2025
N. America: Asterism / Bookshop.org / Amazon
Singapore: Word Image
Distributed by Asteirsm & Ingram

Fablemaker
Fablemaker

by Mandy Moe Pwint Tu
978-1-958652-18-3
$16.00 / Paperback / 6” x 9” / 122 pages
Gaudy Boy, September 2025
N. America: Asterism / Bookshop / Amazon
Distributed by Asterism & Ingram

Eke: Poems
Eke: Poems

by Wahidah Tambee
ISBN: 978-1-958652-17-6
$16.00 / Paperback / 6” x 9” / 106 pages
Gaudy Boy, July 2025
N. America: Asterism /Bookshop / Amazon
Singapore: Word Image
Distributed by Asterism & Ingram

Memorial Club
Memorial Club

by Mozid Mahmud
ISBN: 978-1-958652-16-9
eISBN: 978-1-958652-15-2
$19.00 / Paperback / 5.5” x 8.5” / 138 pages
Gaudy Boy, January 2025
N. America: Asterism /Bookshop / Amazon
Singapore: Word Image
Distributed by Asterism & Ingram

The Way You Want to Be Loved
The Way You Want to Be Loved

by Aruni Kashyap
ISBN: 978-1-958652-08-4
eISBN: 978-1-958652-09-1
$19.00 / Paperback / 5.5” x 8.5" / 256 pages
Gaudy Boy, October 2024
N. America: Bookshop / Amazon
Singapore: Word Image
Distributed by Asterism & Ingram

Interrogation Records
Interrogation Records

by Jeddie Sophronius
ISBN: 978-1-958652-07-7
$16.00 / Paperback / 5.5” x 8.5" / 120 pages
Gaudy Boy, April 2024
N. America: Amazon / Bookshop
Singapore: Word Image
Distributed by Ingram

LL square cover blue.png
Lovelier, Lonelier

by Daryl Qilin Yam
ISBN: 978-1-958652-04-6
eISBN: 978-1-958652-05-3
$24.00 / Paperback / 6” x 9" / 424 pages
Gaudy Boy, February 2024
N. America: Bookshop / Amazon
Distributed by Ingram

Bengal Hound
Bengal Hound

by Rahad Abir
9781958652022
$19.00 / Paperback / 5.5” x 8.5" / 228 pages
Gaudy Boy, October 1, 2023
N. America: Bookshop / Amazon
Singapore: Word Image
Distributed by Ingram

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Submissions

Opportunities
The 12th SUSPECT Poetry Contest
The 12th SUSPECT Poetry Contest

Deadline: June 30th, 2026
Awards: USD300, 200, and 100
No entry fee

In conjunction with Gaudy Boy’s September 2026 publication of Mark Kyungsoo Bias’s MINOR DESTRUCTIONS (winner of the Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize), SUSPECT calls for poems that use BOTH words “minor” AND “destructions” or their variants in an imaginative fashion, together or separately. We want micro-stories of huge losses and macro-stories of tiny wreckages. We want deconstructed lyrics and lyrical deconstructions. We want the irreparable, except, perhaps, by art.

2026 Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize
2026 Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize

Deadline: June 1, 2026
Award: USD1,500 + Publication in US and SG
Entry Fee: USD10

The Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize is awarded annually to an unpublished manuscript of original Anglophone poetry by an author of Asian heritage residing anywhere in the world. The winner receives book publication and USD1,500.00.

Enter

"It is difficult to overstate the importance of literary organizations like Singapore Unbound. The healthy mind is curious about the imagined worlds in which SU traffics. SU brings us literature of profound interest, lively debate, and beautiful sound."

—Harold Augenbraum, honorary advisor and Former Executive Director, National Book Foundation