George Town Literary Festival

Cynthia Miller

Cynthia is a Malaysian-American poet based in Edinburgh. Her debut collection Honorifics won an Eric Gregory and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. She also co-founded the award-winning Verve Poetry Festival. Her poems appear in MIT Technology Review, The Rialto, Ambit, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Butcher’s Dog, harana poetry, Under the Radar and The Best New British and Irish Poets. When not writing poetry, she is the Director of Innovation, web3 and Metaverse for Paris Hilton's global media company, 11:11 Media.

Qurratul 'Ain

Qurratul 'Ain writes essays and poems for newspapers and magazines. She is the author of a collection of prose, Dua Rahsia Berjabat (2020). Qurratul ‘Ain’s first poetry book, Momen (2020) was a finalist in the Kata-Pilar 2.0 Poetry Competition. She received a Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka's Hadiah Sastera Perdana Malaysia in the poetry category (2019/2020) and Selangor Literary Prize (2021). Her latest work is an art-poetry exhibition, Garis Puisi (A Poetic Stroke), an artist-poet collaboration, curated by Hom Art Trans, a Malaysian art gallery.

Nina Mingya Powles

Nina is a writer, zinemaker and librarian from Aotearoa New Zealand, of mixed Malaysian Chinese heritage. She is the author of several poetry pamphlets, zines and poetry books, most recently Magnolia 木蘭, Tiny Moons: A Year of Eating in Shanghai, and a collection of essays, Small Bodies of Water. She is a pamphlet selector for the Poetry Book Society, and writes an occasional e-newsletter about food and memory called Comfort Food. She lives in London. 

Kulleh Grasi

Kulleh is a poet, singer-songwriter and visual artist from Sarawak. His first full-length poetry collection, Tell Me, Kenyalang (Circumference Books, New York 2019), translated by Pauline Fan, was shortlisted for the 2020 National Translation Award in Poetry and longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award 2020 in America . Kulleh Grasi has been actively championing indigenous cultures on the global stage with his band Nading Rhapsody and featured at several international literary and music scenes since 2012.