Hazhibek Aidarhan, from the Kazakh ethnic group, was born in Xinjiang in 1979. He writes poetry and literary criticism in his Mother Tongue, Kazakh. In 2015, his poetry collection Yin Se Yang Guang won the inaugural Aksay Kazakh Literature Award for Emerging Writers by the Chinese Ethnic Minority Writers Association. In 2011, his poetry collection Ling Dong de Si Xu was honored with the title of “Outstanding Work of Youth Literature” by the Xinjiang Federation of Literary and Art Circles’ magazine Shuguang. The poem “Fei Xiang Tian Yu” was awarded the annual prize by Min Zu Wen Xue (Chinese category) in 2014, and the translated “Teng Tong de Shi Guang” received the annual award from Min Zu Wen Xue (Kazakh category) in 2016. The poetry collection Ye Kong Yao Hui Le Xing Chen was awarded the annual prize in Min Zu Wen Xue (Chinese category) in 2017 as well. In 2006, his literary criticism “Qing Chun Zhi Guang” received the “Flying Horse Award” at the 7th Xinjiang Kazakh-Kyrgyz Literature Conference. Many of his works have been published in Kazakhstan’s Literature Bulletin and World Literature magazine. (Occasionally he translates his own poems from Kazakh into Chinese.)
Al Lim is an anthropologist and poet, who is part-Singaporean and part-Thai. He writes primarily in English, strongly influenced by his other languages of Thai and Chinese. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student in the joint Anthropology and Environmental Studies program at Yale University. His literary works have appeared in over 20 outlets, such as OF ZOOS, STAPLE Magazine, and Twin Cities.
Chrystal Ho is a writer from Singapore. Fluent in both English and Mandarin, she works primarily with poetry and nonfiction in English. Her writing, often inspired by her linguistic heritage, has previously been published in The Tiger Moth Review and PR&TA Journal, amongst others. A former Global Writing & Speaking Fellow at NYU Shanghai, she was most recently a Creative Resident with the National Library of Singapore.