Writing Roundtable

Speakers

We are pleased to confirm the following keynote speakers who will, we are sure, bring to Writing Roundtable both a wealth of expertise and experience.

Keynote Speakers

» Prof Winnie Cheng

Title: Empowering discipline teachers: How to improve university students' EAP competence (Abstract)

Prof Winnie Cheng is Associate Dean, Faculty of Humanities, Professor of English and Director of Research Centre for Professional Communication in English (RCPCE), Department of English, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She is a Founding Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities. Her research interests include ESP, writing across the curriculum, corpus linguistics, conversation analysis, critical discourse analysis, discourse intonation, intercultural pragmatics and communication, and professional and organizational communication. As Principal Investigator, she has recently completed an inter-faculty teaching development project and published a co-authored book entitled Enhancing students' professional competence and generic qualities through writing in English across the curriculum (2014). She is Co-Leader of a project entitled 'Data-driven learning in research publication for PhD students' (2015-17), funded by the UGC Language-related Collaborative Projects Initiative.

» Mr Justin Hill

Mr Justin Hill has lived and worked in China since 1992. His Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon - Green Legend will be published in March 2015. His novel The Drink and Dream Teahouse, a portrait of small-town China, won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and a Betty Trask Award and was banned within the People's Republic of China. It was also a Washington Post Book of the Year in 2001.

His translations of Chinese poetry have been published in Modern Poetry in Translation, Asian Literary Review and Asian Cha. His work on the poems of Tang Dynasty poetess Yu Xuanji led to her re-imagined life in the novel Passing Under Heaven, which was shortlisted for the Encore Award and awarded the 2006 Somerset Maugham Award.

The Independent on Sunday listed him as one of their Top Twenty Young British Writers. He currently lives in Hong Kong. He is Assistant Professor at City University of Hong Kong, where he teaches Creative Writing.

Invited Speakers

» Ms Sarah Brennan

Ms Sarah Brennan is the Hong Kong-based international author and publisher of the best-selling Chinese Calendar Tales (The Tale of Chester Choi, The Tale of Run Run Rat, The Tale of Oswald Ox, The Tale of Temujin, The Tale of Rhonda Rabbit, The Tale of Pin Yin Panda, The Tale of Sybil Snake, The Tale of a Dark Horse and her latest title The Tale of Rodney Ram to date) as well as the hugely popular Dirty Story series. A featured author in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing International Literary Festivals since 2004, Sarah conducts regular reading tours, workshops and weeks in residence in schools in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, Australia and the UK. Her books are now also distributed in the United States and Canada where she visits schools on Skype.

Sarah's particular mission is to bring Chinese culture, history and landscape to young English speakers everywhere through the medium of humour, verse and funny illustrations, while at the same time giving children living in East Asia stories that relate to their own heritage. She also believes passionately in rich vocabulary and intelligent text for primary school children: "dumbing down" is her particular bête noir! As a result, her books can be read on many levels and are popular among children aged as young as 5 and as old as 12.

The great Australian author Thomas Keneally (Schindler's List) has described Sarah's work as "a meeting between traditional Asian narratives and the universal taste of children for graphic stories. The tale-telling gifts shown in these books, along with the exuberance of the language and rhymes, make them unique in children's literature".

All of Sarah's books are wickedly illustrated by Hong Kong's much-loved cartoonist from the South China Morning Post, Harry Harrison. Sarah lives in Hong Kong with her French husband, two daughters and an opinionated cocker spaniel.

» Ms Kelly Falconer

Ms Kelly Falconer is the founder of the Asia Literary Agency, which represents Asian writers, experts on Asia and writers living in the region. She has contributed to the Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement and the Spectator magazine, and has worked as an editor in London for a variety of publishers including Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Granta magazine. In 2012, she was the literary editor of the Hong Kong-based Asia Literary Review.

» Mr Jason Ng

Born in Hong Kong, Jason Y. Ng is a globetrotter who spent his entire adult life in Italy, Canada and the United States before settling in his birthplace to rediscover his roots. He is a full-time lawyer and an adjunct lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Hong Kong. Ng is the bestselling author of HONG KONG State of Mind (2010) and No City for Slow Men (2013). His short stories have appeared in various anthologies. Ng is also a writer for the South China Morning Post, TimeOut HK and Manifesto magazine. His social commentary blog "As I See It" and lifestyle column "The Real Deal" have attracted a cult following on blogsphere. Ng speaks frequently at universities and cultural events, and appears from time to time on radio and television. For more, visit www.jasonyng.com.

» Ms Susan Ramsay

Susan Ramsay is a South African journalist who is the current editor of Hong Kong's most popular English newspaper for teenagers, Young Post. She has been in journalism for more than 20 years, the last 15 of which have been in Hong Kong.

In 2008 she took the reins of Young Post where one of her passions is nurturing young local writing talent through the Junior Reporters' Club. Since Susan has been at the Young Post it has won several international awards for its publication, including recently a silver award in the World Association of Newspaper's youth category for Press Freedom. The recent protests propelled the Young Post to international attention and it has received many accolades for its coverage of this event.

In her spare time Susan critiques books, writes stories for publication, enjoys horse riding and walking her new puppy.

» Mr Nury Vittachi

Mr Nury Vittachi has written many novels for major publishers distributed in multiple languages around the world. He is best known for The Feng Shui Detective series (St Martin's Press). He's been shortlisted for science fiction and crime-writing awards, and is chairman of Asia's biggest writers' association.