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.

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View fullsize Opinion: Remove the Residency Requirement for Overseas Voting May 27, 2025 – As Singapore headed to the polls on May 3, nearly a quarter million of its citizens were unable to vote, shut out by an outdated rule: the residency requirement for o
View fullsize Join us for Singapore Unbound's Pride Reading, Followed by Guy and Jee’s Celebration of 15 Years Together! Open Mic and Special Music Artist Debbie Chou Saturday, June 7, 2.30-5.00 pm, at Berlin (25 Avenue A, East Village, door on 2nd Street,
View fullsize Join us on Saturday, May 10th, at 3.00-4.15 PM for our 2025 Rainbow Book Fair Panel; Asian Love Stories: Romance, Resistance, and Revolution at the LGBT Community Center (208 W 13th Street, New York, NY 10011). What are the resources in traditional
View fullsize Join us on Saturday, May 17 at 7 pm for our May Second Saturdays Reading Series! Venue: Private home in the Village, NY, NY Features: Benjamin Swett and Shou Jie Eng RSVP Jee at jkoh@singaporeunbound.org for directions Benjamin Swett is a writer an

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Singapore headed to the polls on May 3, nearly a quarter million of its citizens were unable to vote, shut out by an outdated rule: the residency requirement for overseas voting.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

SUSPECT

Suspect Blog
Tiangguis
Tiangguis

A constructed homeland falls apart and is pieced together again in a story by Jack Wolflink.

#YISHREADS May 2025
#YISHREADS May 2025

Plunge into poetry this May with as Ng Yi-Sheng reviews five collections from Asian writers.

Kiaoah
Kiaoah

A short story by Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray that bubbles with kaypoh aunties and the persistence of being kiasi.

Acts of Rebellion
Acts of Rebellion

From Northern Ireland to Pakistan to Cambridge, Ali Abbas weaves a love story that pierces through time.

Notes to My Sister: On Language and Belonging
Notes to My Sister: On Language and Belonging

Voice, longing, language, and sisterhood collide in an essay by Shumin Tan.

That Longing to Belong
That Longing to Belong

Anna Tan reviews the fantasy novel These Deathless Shores by P.H. Low.

The Unbearable Lightness of Sinigang
The Unbearable Lightness of Sinigang

What do you do with a debt that takes lifetimes to repay? A short story by E. P. Tuazon.

A River of Moons
A River of Moons

Thea Liu brings us on a moonlit journey in this short story that weaves between the lyric and the lucid.

“Cup of Water” and Other Poems
“Cup of Water” and Other Poems

A Chinese phone, a cup of water, and the future’s “incisor”: Abdulbasit Oluwanishola presents us with the ways grief is felt, then held.

#YISHREADS April 2025
#YISHREADS April 2025

Amidst a season of renewal this April, Ng Yi-Sheng takes us on a journey through the literature of mainland Southeast Asia.

“Accidents” and Other Poems
“Accidents” and Other Poems

“This is not a disease/ you isolate yourself to fix.” Three poems by Ryan Yeo on how to keep going.

The View of Mukja: The Invisible Voices of Hwang Jungeun’s dd’s Umbrella
The View of Mukja: The Invisible Voices of Hwang Jungeun’s dd’s Umbrella

Taylor Taeyeon Song reviews Hwang Jungeun's dd's Umbrella.

“Ode to Watching My Sister Eat Lychees” and Other Poems
“Ode to Watching My Sister Eat Lychees” and Other Poems

Good food-based advice for Poetry Month: find it in yourself to love flies, but don’t leave them any lychee pieces… and don’t talk to bears about mahua. Three poems from Kunjana Parashar.

“Bloodline” and Other Poems
“Bloodline” and Other Poems

When trees join root systems or a grandmother gifts a child knowledge, “who adopts whom?” Three poems by Kinjal Sethia.

Gaudy Boy

Gaudy Boy
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
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
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: Forthcoming
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

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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

Waking Up to the Pattern Left by a Snail Overnight
Waking Up to the Pattern Left by a Snail Overnight

by Jim Pascual Agustin
978-1-958652-00-8
$16.00 / Paperback / 5.5” x 8.5" / 94 pages
Gaudy Boy, April 1, 2023
N. America: Bookshop / Amazon
Distributed by Ingram

SUSPECT: VOLUME 1, YEAR 1
SUSPECT: VOLUME 1, YEAR 1

978-1-958652-01-5
$16.00 / Paperback / 8.5" x 11" / 164 pages
February 22, 2022
N. America: Bookshop / Amazon
Distributed by Ingram

New Singapore Poetries
New Singapore Poetries

edited by Marylyn Tan and Jee Leong Koh
978-0-9994514-9-6
$22.00 / Paperback / 6" x 9" / 320 pages
Gaudy Boy, December 1, 2022
N. America: Bookshop / Amazon
Singapore: Word Image
Distributed by Ingram

Amanat: Women's Writing from Kazakhstan
Amanat: Women's Writing from Kazakhstan

edited by Zaure Batayeva and Shelley Fairweather-Vega
978-0-9994514-8-9
$22.00 / Paperback / 5.5" x 8.5" / 296 pages
Gaudy Boy, July 1, 2022
N. America: Bookshop / Amazon
S.E. Asia: In the best bookstores
Distributed by Ingram

Submissions

Opportunities
Call for “OF THE SEA” Portfolio
Call for “OF THE SEA” Portfolio

Submission period: 15 April - 15 June
Payment: USD100
Submit to Sharmini Aphrodite at suspect@singaporeunbound.org

2025 Gaudy Boy Open Call for Novel Manuscripts
2025 Gaudy Boy Open Call for Novel Manuscripts

Deadline: July 31, 2025
Award: $1,500 advance + publication in US and SG

Gaudy Boy, a New York City -based independent press that publishes poetry, fiction, and non-fiction by extraordinary Asian voices, is open to submissions of unpublished adult novels by authors of Asian heritage residing anywhere in the world.

2025 Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize
2025 Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize

Deadline: May 19, 2025
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 11th SUSPECT Poetry Contest
The 11th SUSPECT Poetry Contest

Deadline: May 15th, 2025
Awards: USD300, 200, and 100
No entry fee

In conjunction with Gaudy Boy’s April 2025 publication of Mandy Moe Pwint Tu’s FABLEMAKER (winner of the Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize), SUSPECT calls for poems that use the word “fable” or its variants in an imaginative fashion. We want fables and anti-fables, we want fable-adjacent poems, we want fabulous conceptions and language.

"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