My daughter recently started learning to knit and they’re having lots of fun with it. We don’t have the right sized needle for the yarn, and as with all first projects, things are a little wonky, and so I asked them, if I bought the correct needles, would they be up for restarting the project or allowing me to restart it and get it up to where they are at now. They said that if we had to restart, then they would prefer the latter. When I asked why, comparing it to drawing where they would often sketch and redraw to get something right, they said, “Mama, I’ve only just started learning how to knit. I need to know the satisfaction of completing a project first.”

What she said blew my mind, as it addresses the basic problem most people (writers!) have when it comes to starting something new—without having the experience (and satisfaction) of finishing a project, we tend not to understand how it feels to do so. That is why there are so many writers with a first novel… incomplete.

It’s worth stating that having completed a new thing does not mean that you’ll go off and do more of it. It just means that if you enjoyed it, you’ll be able to easily repeat the process and if you didn’t enjoy it, then you’re likely not to want to do it again.

Ab Terra 2024

Dawn and I celebrated the publication of our fifth anthology—Ab Terra 2024. As you can tell from the title, we are a bit behind! :) Massive thank you to Brain Mill Press for the continuous support since 2020(!) and to all the writers for always being so patient with us. We are super proud of this collection too—the stories are wonderful and we have a foreword from the amazing Tia Tashiro! You can find out more from Brain Mill Press’s announcement.

It has been the most incredible experience, thinking back to when we started, how much we learnt through each issue, and the amount of fun we had editing Ab Terra Flash Fiction online magazine through Covid. What still surprises us are all the lovely stories we hear from our writers about what they’ve gone on to write and do, knowing that we’ve had a part (however small) to play in their writing journey. This, I think is why both Dawn and I started on the Ab Terra journey and are persisting with it—to create more space for new, diverse voices!

We are currently open for submissions for Ab Terra 2025 (closes 28 February 2026). If you have a story written, or a story in mind, send it to us!

Imaginarium II

And on completing new things, a small group of us recently ran the second annual event for Imaginarium (online festival celebrating ESEA speculative fiction). It was a wonderful day that celebrated the coming together of wonderful ESEA creatives from different parts of the world, higlighted by the most inspiring keynote by Vandana Singh, which was for me the much needed antidote for all that’s been going on in our world today.

The event was so uplifting in the discussions that we were asked to open up ticketing to access the recordings, which we have done so with the continued support of the British Fantasy Society.

Access event

This decision was also supported by the fact that we felt that Vandana Singh’s keynote needs to be made available post event. The world needs to see it!!!

Bridging the Generations

And while we celebrate the incredible ESEA creative community, I need to share this video that my niece made for her school project. Many of us who are a part of the ESEA diaspora are constantly exploring the idea of our identities and how our various cultures come together to build this. Here, Annika looks at life as a first-generation teenage Australian, and I think she manages to do this in a wholesome (and quite professional) video. Thanks, Annika for letting your Ee-Ee share this. ❤️

Happy Holidays!

I think this will be the final post of the year from me. Happy holidays and hope you’ll have a restful break with your family and friends.

In the new year, you’ll be hearing from me about the Vector—Zoefuturism issues that I’m co-editing with Stephen Oram, Chapunk plans, Zen Parent: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Families publication, and more. If you’ve any thoughts on topics you might like to see here, do let me know in the comments!

Happy new year! See you all in 2026!

I am overwhelmed by the amount of content I receive daily, whether through email, here on Substack, on various socials, or even directly from friends and family. We seem to be constantly trying to get into each others’ lives, understandably, because we are social creatures. As such, it has also made me unsure about what I want to do here on my Substack. If you have any ideas of what you might like to see… let me know!

While I did disappear for a while (from here) to try and think things through, I’m no clearer as to where this Substack is going, so instead of hiding further, I thought I would pop back in and see where the words take me.

Zen and Zoefuturism

This year has seen me nested in Zen Buddhism and Zoefuturism—somewhat unexpected alliterations of the last letter in the modern English alphabet. Both have taught me so much and while my work and life remains the same on the surface (I’m still writing, researching, freelancing, mothering) I am living it differently, allowing the natural relationships in my life to teach, nurture, and grow me.

On Zen, I will have a new book out in February that looks at how we might practise Zen and be Zen while being a parent.

On Zoefuturism, I am guest co-editing two special issues of BSFA’s Vector Magazine with Stephen Oram, which are planned to be published in January and early summer 2026.

Imaginarium II

A lot sooner though, is Imaginarium II, an online-only East and South East Asian speculative fiction festival, happening on 30th November 2025. This will be the team’s second year running it, and we’re particularly proud of the line-up that celebrates all the wonderful creatives in our various communities. Vandana Singh, whose stories inspired me to start my PhD, will be delivering a keynote, while we will also see the first live panel discussion on Zoefuturism. There will be an incredible panel on diaspora heroes, an industry panel that highlights current and creative innovations in the industry, and a panel on opportunities! What’s great is that we’re not only sticking to traditional publishing conversations, we’ll also be diving into comic books and games, as well as art!

While the event timings might be UK-centric, all ticket holders will have access to the video recordings after the event. So, if anyone is unable to make the date, or might miss a few panels, there’s no need to worry, you’ll be able to access the event’s archive as long as you have a ticket!

Imaginarium II Event and Ticketing

Tales of Seikyu

I can’t believe it, but I’ve now been working for a year on this beautiful project! This game is still in Early Access on Steam and is set to be completed in spring 2026. As we start wrapping up the narrative on it… I’m taking time to reflect on how far we’ve come, both in the narrative development and in our team’s organisation and flow. There’s so much to be proud of here!

If you enjoy cosy games and would like to befriend or even romance fellow yokai, this game is for you.

Home is where my cats plants are

This summer, we said goodbye to our last cat Odin. His sister Freya had passed away two years before, and after eighteen years, our home feels incredibly quiet and still.

While we take out time before considering other pets, to quietly celebrate all the beautiful moments that they have brought us, I have started filling our home with more plants. And this little beauty of a spotted begonia was given to me by a friend.

There is something healing about filling the home with life, and something wonderfully wholesome about gifting a propogated cutting from your own plant.

Share

Thank you for sticking till the end. There shall be more ad hoc postings… but do let me know if you’ve any good ideas for what you’d like to see here.

There’s a bit of reorganisation going on here, so do bear with me. New things to come!

In the meantime, come chat and connect on Bluesky, Instagram, and/or LinkedIn. Thanks for your patience… more soon! ;)

Upcoming event: Saturday 12th July, 3pm-4pm, Chapunk Hour at Pulse & Pickle

Current game project: Tales of Seikyu (available in Early Access on Steam)

At a recent networking event, the discussion around what we are all doing now that Twitter is f***ed came up (again). Rightly so too, as there are so many of us—who had found meaningful connections and opportunities—at a lost of what to do or where to go. In an attempt to move on with our lives, many from Twitter migrated (some partially, others fully) to Bluesky, but it’s not the same.

Polymedia users

There is a good introduction to the theory of polymedia on the UCL website, so I won’t go too much into it, but I will highlight the following quote from it:

As the choice of medium acquires communicative intent, navigating the environment of polymedia becomes inextricably linked to the ways in which interpersonal relationships are experienced and managed. Polymedia is ultimately about a new relationship between the social and the technological, rather than merely a shift in the technology itself.

What we don’t delve much into when we choose/use a social media platform is our relationship with it. There is so much that goes on subconsciously that affects how we pick and use social media platforms. What’s our first impression of it. Do we like/enjoy the UI? What is the community like when we interact there? What do we think others’ perception of it is like? Even things like the branding, who introduced it to us, and so much more, comes into consideration.

My social media experience

I would consider myself to be a moderate/competent social media user—mostly using it to stay in touch with friends and maintain my communities and networks. I’m terrible at using it to market or promote myself mostly because I do not have the stamina to drive the frequency that algorithms require. I also do not like plastering the same posts on platforms just to get reach.

Considering this, I’m finding it hard to use both Bluesky and Twitter concurrently because I will not post the exact same texts on different platforms. I tried this in the past when I used to schedule posts for all platforms and I hated it. However, I’ve still not grasped what my Bluesky persona and relationships are to find my voice on it. At the same time, because some of my Twitter network is still around, tweets are still welcomed, but there is also so much more unwanted noise there that I hardly check in on it anymore.

I think the limited licenses available from Bluesky during its early days affected its membership recruitment. In trying to maintain integrity, which is not something to scoff at, its selectiveness inadvertently made it a privileged platform. It lacked the open (free?) space that made social media platforms a natural networking space. Whether this would change now that it is an open platform, time will only tell.

No birds, no sky

As I write this post, I can see two crows viciously attacking a magpie (who had somehow ended on on its back) in the garden across the road. I wonder if that’s an omen! And for those of you who are curious about what happened next, a third crow joined in, but thankfully, after a couple of minutes, the magpie managed to get away.

I live mostly on YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn at the moment, but I’m finding that none of these platforms generate or promote the same kind of thoughtful engagement that Twitter used to. Discord servers are a good alternative, but they’re a bit more work since every server’s purpose is so specialised.

Where do you live in the digital socialsphere? What are your relationships like with the bird and the sky? I would love to know.

🌸 As I go into a new phase in my life having just finished my postgraduate degree, I will be thinking about how to reframe this newsletter so that I am able to publish more consistently. If you have any requests or thoughts on what you would like to read from me, I am all ears! 🌽

ALL MY LINKS

If I close my eyes, today’s muggy heat could very easily be a cool day in Malaysia. I want to say that London’s summers are changing… but the truth is, I don’t really remember how they were.

I’ve missed you… I hope the first half of the year was awesome for you! I wasn’t hiding away on purpose, just been quietly busy. The biggest news is that I recently passed my PhD viva with minor corrections (yay!). It was such a brilliant experience! I will share more details in a separate post later, so do let me know if there’s anything you’d like me touch upon, anything you’re curious about the whole PhD process or my research.

For this post, though, I have to tell you about the 82nd Worldcon—Glasgow 2024! Though I won’t be there in person, I will be attending online and have quite a busy schedule! If you are attending (online or in-person), do say hi!

Thursday 8th August
2.30pm: Magic as Art vs Magic as Science (Online)

Friday 9th August
2.30pm: Table Talk with me!

Saturday 10th August
4.00pm: Hopepunk: Dystopia or Utopia?
7.00pm: Decolonising Games

Sunday 11th August
10.00am: Unpacking Chinese Female SF
4.00pm: Climate Fiction: Despair or Hope? (Online)

You’ll want to bookmark the full programme, which is also searchable.

Very excitingly, the incredible fanzine, Journey Planet is on the ballot again this year for the Hugo Awards. It is the home to the most diverse collection of science fiction discussions and engagement I’ve ever come across, and I’m very lucky to have been a small part of it, working on the two ‘Chinese Science Fiction and Space’ issues (see image above). Massive thanks to Arthur Liu for the print copies, and for bringing a copy all the way to London en route to Glasgow! Though it feels like such a long time ago now, I am forever grateful to Regina Wang, Arthur Liu, James Bacon, and Chris Garcia for having me on board.

By the way, I’ll be heading to Sheffield to watch Ancestral Futures - Street Procession & Performance by Eelyn Lee & Collaborators, which I am really looking forward to. Eelyn’s work resonates with Sino-diasporic and mixed-ethnicity experiences, speaking directly and powerfully to the questions of heritage, identity, and growth. Let me know if you’ll be there too… and what you’re up to this summer. I’ll be writing more soon!