About Us
Singapore beyond Singapore. Beyond territorial sovereignty and legal fictions. Beyond political controls and cultural straitjackets. Singapore Unbound is an invitation to dream new possibilities for the idea of Singapore.
Starting in the USA, Singapore Unbound builds people-to-people understanding by facilitating cultural exchange, publishing literary works of merit, and presenting insightful events. Our flagship activity is the biennial Singapore Literature Festival in New York. Started in 2014, the festival brings together Singaporean and American authors and audiences for in-depth conversations about literature and society. Between festivals, we extend the dialogue by running the Second Saturdays Reading Series, a regular platform for the reading of Singaporean and American literatures in various intimate venues around New York City. Our independent press, Gaudy Boy, brings powerful works of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction by authors of Asian heritage to an American and Singaporean audience. Finally, SUSPECT is our journal of writing and art, publishing original writings, book reviews, and artist interviews.
Our activities are guided by three core values. We aim to be independent, innovative, and inspiring. A staunch proponent of the freedom of expression, Singapore Unbound upholds the creative autonomy of the committed writer. We challenge censorship of the arts and support fair opportunities for all artists. Motivated by a spirit of innovation, we create opportunities and collaborations where none existed before. In our audience outreach, we seek always to inspire a love for literature. The arts, for us, are not a hobby or a tool, but a way of life.
Singaporeans and Americans have been living in one each other’s country for a long time. The history of this two-way expatriation is yet to be written. More recently, with the growth in arts education, creative industries, and academic ties between both countries, more writers and artists are making their homes abroad. Singapore Unbound is born of this movement of people and ideas. We invite you to dream with us and shape the course of this migration.
Jee Leong Koh
Founder & Organizer (Singapore Unbound)
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief (Gaudy Boy and SUSPECT)
Jee is a Singaporean author, editor, and publisher based in New York City. His book of poems Steep Tea (Carcanet) was named a Best Book of the Year by UK’s Financial Times.
Eunice Lau
Chief of Staff (Singapore Unbound)
A filmmaker based in New York City, Eunice draws on the power of the moving image to inspire transformative social change. A former journalist at Al Jazeera and The Straits Times, she has produced a body of work that is often focused on social justice, identity, and human rights.
Lily Philpott
Program Director (Singapore Unbound)
Born in Santiago, Chile, and raised in New England, Lily Philpott is an indigenous transracial adoptee. She worked for close to a decade in the arts and culture nonprofit sector in New York City, at PEN America, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Asian American Writers' Workshop. Currently, she is completing her MFA in Fiction at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA).
Alysha Chandra
Network Manager (NIMBUS)
Alysha Chandra works in marketing for the visual arts. She writes essays and plays, and she is part of the art-tech collective Feelers.
Sharmini Aphrodite
Fiction Editor (SUSPECT)
Sharmini was born in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, and raised between the cities of Singapore and Johor Bahru, where she still lives. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and placed on the Australian Book Review Jolley Prize and Singapore’s Golden Point Awards.
Maggie Wang
Poetry Review Editor (SUSPECT)
Maggie Wang is a Ledbury Emerging Poetry Critic and Barbican Young Poet. Her debut poetry pamphlet, on the theme of extinction, is forthcoming from Hazel Press.
Elise J. Choi
Fiction Review Editor
Elise (she/her) is an editor, translator, and cat mother based in Portland, Oregon. She's also been a writer, instructor, graduate student, and admin. Her literary interests include Asian/America, the diaspora, translation, comics, and genre fiction. You can send her a line at elise.j.choi@gmail.com.
Miki Wong
Art Director (SUSPECT)
Miki is a multidisciplinary designer currently working in branding and advertising. When she isn't in front of a screen, you can usually find her around the city practicing analogue photography, thrift shopping, or fuelling her expensive coffee habit in trendy cafes.
Candice Bressmer
Proofreader (SUSPECT)
Candice is Singaporean and lives in Zurich with her husband and three children. She loves reading and supporting writers on their manuscripts.
Tiffany Wu
Art Intern (SUSPECT)
Tiffany is a third-year student at Williams College, where she studies Art History and Environmental Studies. Her poems have appeared in The Offing, Pigeon Pages, and elsewhere.
Jack Xi
Poetry Editorial Intern (SUSPECT)
Jack Xi (they/he) is a queer Singaporean poet and member of the writing collective /Stop@BadEndRhymes (stylised /s@ber). They’ve appeared in several poetry journals and anthologies. Find out more at jackxisg.wordpress.com.
Kimberley Lim
Managing Editor (Gaudy Boy)
Kim is a freelance book editor as well as the managing editor of Gaudy Boy, an NYC-based indie press that publishes Asian voices. She also runs the online literary magazine www.ofzoos.com.
Judy Luo
Assistant Editor (Gaudy Boy)
Judy is a labor organizer based in NYC. With a background in abolitionist organizing, Judy is devoted to amplifying Asian literary voices that open radical political possibilities.
Jamie Uy
Assistant Editor (Gaudy Boy)
Jamie Uy is a MA English Literature student at Nanyang Technological University, researching environmental perspectives in Singapore science fiction. She graduated from New York University Abu Dhabi with double BA degrees in Literature and Film Studies.
Laetitia Keok
Assistant Editor (Gaudy Boy)
Laetitia Keok is a writer and editor based in Singapore. Her work has been published in Wildness, Hobart, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. You can find her at laetitia-k.com
Michel Ge
Assistant Editor (Gaudy Boy)
Michel is a barista at The Uncommons. He is working on a translation of an indigenous Taiwanese novel.
Isabel Drake
Assistant Publicity Director (Gaudy Boy)
Isabel is a senior at Vassar College, where she studies English literature and film. Born in Singapore and now living in New York, she loves crosswords and recently made a short documentary about cycling.
Emily von Borstel
Website/Social Media Manager (Singapore Unbound and Gaudy Boy)
Emily is a graduate of New York University where she studied Media, Culture & Communication, and Art History. Currently, she works at a consumer services startup in NYC. In her free time, she enjoys working with textiles and learning about fiber arts, coding, and internet culture.
Ally Chua
Public and Media Specialist (Singapore Unbound and Gaudy Boy)
Ally has over ten years of experience in public relations. In her spare time, Ally is a Singaporean poet. She was the 2019 Singapore Unbound Fellow for New York City and a member of Singaporean writing collective /s@ber.
Foo Lixin
Marketing Associate (Gaudy Boy)
Lixin works in Marcomms at a tech company. She co-founded and held the position of Design Director at PLAYSET! literary magazine during her university years at the National University of Singapore, from which she graduated with a Psychology degree with honors.
Savannah Brantley
Program Assistant (Singapore Unbound)
Savannah is a junior majoring in Creative Writing at Ohio Wesleyan University. She has come to New York in order to get connected with other creatives. She spends her energy writing experimental essays and work in non-fiction.
Editorial Board
The role of Singapore Unbound’s Editorial Board is to provide readers with a thoughtful and independent perspective on issues that resonate with our organization’s values. These values are expressed in our Five-Point Compass. The Board also seeks to engage readers in a critical dialogue about important social questions by providing them with the information to make decisions and take actions for the common good.
The Editorial Board develops its positions on a variety of issues, but the views expressed are independent of the rest of the organization. Editorials are unsigned to reflect the fact that they represent the collective views of the Board instead of any individual member.
Braema Mathi is a Singaporean researcher and activist. She believes in justice and tries her darnest to apply human rights to all that she gets involved in. She is the founder of NGOs Transient Workers Count Too and MARUAH (Singapore Working Group for ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism). Previously, Mathi was a Member of Parliament, a two-term President of the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), and the Vice-President of Action for AIDS. She has published book chapters and articles, for both academic and non-academic audiences, and she has written reports for organizations that included think-tanks in Southeast Asia and to the United Nations. She is also an award-winning journalist, who worked for the national newspaper for almost 8 years. A sought-after public speaker, she draws from her research and activism in education, journalism, healthcare, gender equality, migrant worker rights, civil-society structures, and refugees. She is currently a tutor in a tertiary institution based in Singapore.
Salil Tripathi is a writer based in Brooklyn, NY. Born in Bombay, India, he lived in Singapore from 1991-1999, and had a stint at Business Times, before moving to Asia, Inc., and later Far Eastern Economic Review, where he reported on the Asian economic crisis and Suharto's fall in Indonesia. He then moved to London, where he lived 20 years, before moving again, to New York, in 2019. He has studied at the University of Bombay and later at the Tuck Business School at Dartmouth College in the United States, and has reported extensively out of Southeast Asia, South Asia, and written about Africa and Europe. He is the author of three works of non-fiction: Offence: The Hindu Case (about Hindu nationalism and freedom of expression), The Colonel Who Would Not Repent (about the Bangladesh War of Liberation), and Detours: Songs of the Open Road, a collection of travel essays. With the artist Shilpa Gupta, he co-edited For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit, an anthology of writings from prison. His journalism has won awards in the US, Hong Kong, and India. His next book, on the Gujaratis, will be published in 2024. He is on the board of PEN International and was the chair of its Writers in Prison Committee, 2015-2021. More about him: saliltripathi.
A Singaporean filmmaker based in New York City, Eunice Lau draws on the power of the moving image to inspire transformative social change. Her feature documentary Accept The Call, set in Minnesota’s Somali community explores the impact of injustice and intergenerational trauma. Her films have appeared on Discovery Channel and PBS, and won support from eminent arts and media organizations such as Jerome Foundation, Tribeca Film Institute, Woodstock Film Festival, Chicken & Egg Pictures, and YouTube Impact Lab. She has been featured in many publications, including The New York Times, Variety, and Filmmaker Magazine. A former journalist at The Straits Times, and Al Jazeera, Lau produced a body of journalism that is often focused on social justice and human rights, including “The Lost Tribe: Secret Army of the CIA,” with Al Jazeera correspondent Tony Birtley, which was awarded “Best International Television” at the 2008 Amnesty International Media Awards.
Jee Leong Koh is a Singaporean writer, editor, publisher, and activist based in New York City. A democratic socialist, Koh works for economic transformation, social justice, intercultural understanding, and open borders. As the founder and organizer of the socially conscious literary organization Singapore Unbound, Koh started the biennial Singapore Literature Festival in NYC, the monthly Second Saturdays Reading Series, the literary press Gaudy Boy, and the journal of Asian writing and art SUSPECT. The festival has featured Gina Apostol, Cherian George, PJ Thum, and Jackie Wang, among others. Koh’s books of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction have been published in Japan, Singapore, the UK, and the US, and they have won the Singapore Literature Prize, been named a Financial Times’ Best Book of the Year, and been shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Awards in the US.
Honorary Advisors
Alfian Sa’at
Balli Kaur Jaswal
Dan Feng Tan
Gina Apostol
Harold Augenbraum
Hong-Ling Wee
Noorlinah Mohamed