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LONTAR #10
LONTAR #10
This tenth and final double-sized issue of LONTAR presents speculative writing from and about Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Korea and Vietnam.
Inside these pages, you’ll find: sightings of a strange astronaut in an infinite library by Victor Fernando R. Ocampo, illustrated by Eisner winner Sonny Liew; the meeting between weretigers and Sang Nila Utama by Manish Melwani; the enlightenment of a politician’s wife by Cyril Wong; a Pygmalion-esque tragic romance by comic artist Drewscape; weaponised merlions in WWII-era Singapore by Kevin Martens Wong; an unexpected offer of omniscient immortality by Eliza Victoria; gods and mango tree spirits united in song by Vida Cruz; post-apocalyptic satay cookery in Marina Bay Sands by Wayne Rée; domestic strife and changeling tigers by Natalie Wang; the magic of folding origami cranes by Topaz Winters; a panadería that guarantees pregnancy by Gabriela Lee; surrogate speaking to the dead by Patricia Karunungan; a dating app for interdimensional monstrosities by Marylyn Tan & Graeme Ford; and speculative poetry by Kevin Minh Allen, Davian Aw, F. Jordan Carnice, Genevieve DeGuzman, May Chong, Lawdenmarc Decamora, Joses Ho, Judith Huang, Sithuraj Ponraj, Bronwyn Sharman, Lakan Umali and Natalie Wang.
Also included is a special supplement: the exciting conclusion of Dean Francis Alfar’s brilliant novel Salamanca, winner of the Palanca Award Grand Prize for the Novel and the Gintong Aklat Award for Literature.
LONTAR is the world’s only biannual literary journal focusing on Southeast Asian speculative fiction. Our many contributors have won major literary awards in Singapore, the USA, UK, Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines.
Inside these pages, you’ll find: sightings of a strange astronaut in an infinite library by Victor Fernando R. Ocampo, illustrated by Eisner winner Sonny Liew; the meeting between weretigers and Sang Nila Utama by Manish Melwani; the enlightenment of a politician’s wife by Cyril Wong; a Pygmalion-esque tragic romance by comic artist Drewscape; weaponised merlions in WWII-era Singapore by Kevin Martens Wong; an unexpected offer of omniscient immortality by Eliza Victoria; gods and mango tree spirits united in song by Vida Cruz; post-apocalyptic satay cookery in Marina Bay Sands by Wayne Rée; domestic strife and changeling tigers by Natalie Wang; the magic of folding origami cranes by Topaz Winters; a panadería that guarantees pregnancy by Gabriela Lee; surrogate speaking to the dead by Patricia Karunungan; a dating app for interdimensional monstrosities by Marylyn Tan & Graeme Ford; and speculative poetry by Kevin Minh Allen, Davian Aw, F. Jordan Carnice, Genevieve DeGuzman, May Chong, Lawdenmarc Decamora, Joses Ho, Judith Huang, Sithuraj Ponraj, Bronwyn Sharman, Lakan Umali and Natalie Wang.
Also included is a special supplement: the exciting conclusion of Dean Francis Alfar’s brilliant novel Salamanca, winner of the Palanca Award Grand Prize for the Novel and the Gintong Aklat Award for Literature.
LONTAR is the world’s only biannual literary journal focusing on Southeast Asian speculative fiction. Our many contributors have won major literary awards in Singapore, the USA, UK, Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines.
288 pages, ebook
First published May 1, 2018
2 people are currently reading
28 people want to read
About the author
Jason Erik Lundberg
68 books165 followersJason Erik Lundberg was born in Brooklyn, New York, grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, and has lived in Singapore since 2007. His latest publications are the novel A Fickle and Restless Weapon (2020), the related novella Diary of One Who Disappeared (2019, recipient of a Creation Grant from the National Arts Council of Singapore), and the "greatest hits" short fiction collection Most Excellent and Lamentable: Selected Stories (2019).
He is also the author of many other books for adults—including Red Dot Irreal (2011), The Alchemy of Happiness (2012), Strange Mammals (2013), and Embracing the Strange (2013); books for children—the bestselling six-book Bo Bo and Cha Cha picture book series (2012–2015) and Carol the Coral (2016); and more than a hundred short stories, articles, and book reviews. His writing has been translated into half a dozen languages, and seen publication in venues such as Mānoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing, the Raleigh News & Observer, Farrago’s Wainscot, Hot Metal Bridge, Strange Horizons, Subterranean Magazine, The Third Alternative, Electric Velocipede, and many other places. His work has won the POPULAR Readers’ Choice Award, has been shortlisted for the SLF Fountain Award, Brenda L. Smart Award for Short Fiction and SCBWI Crystal Kite Member Choice Award, and was honourably mentioned twice in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.
For nearly twelve years, Lundberg was the fiction editor at Epigram Books, where he jump-started the Singaporean publisher's fiction line; many of the over 90 titles he edited there won multiple national awards, and made various year’s best lists. His authors include Boey Kim Cheng, Meihan Boey, Balli Kaur Jaswal, Amanda Lee Koe, Ng Yi-Sheng, Nuraliah Norasid, O Thiam Chin, Jeremy Tiang, Cyril Wong and Daryl Qilin Yam.
In addition, he is the founding editor of LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction (2012–2018), series editor for the award-winning biennial Best New Singaporean Short Stories anthology series (est. 2013), editor of Fish Eats Lion Redux (2022) and Fish Eats Lion (2012), and co-editor of A Field Guide to Surreal Botany (2008) and Scattered, Covered, Smothered (2004). From 2005–2008, he facilitated an occasional podcast called Lies and Little Deaths: A Virtual Anthology.
An active member in PEN America and a 2002 graduate of the prestigious Clarion Writers Workshop, Lundberg holds a Master's degree in creative writing from North Carolina State University. Furthermore, he was a 2025 Visiting Writer at the Asia Creative Writing Programme, and a 2023 International Writer-in-Residence at the Toji Cultural Foundation Residency Program in South Korea. He has served as a prose mentor with the Creative Arts Programme and Ceriph Mentorship Programme, and he currently lectures on contemporary publishing, editorial theory & practice, and creative writing at Nanyang Technological University.
He is also the author of many other books for adults—including Red Dot Irreal (2011), The Alchemy of Happiness (2012), Strange Mammals (2013), and Embracing the Strange (2013); books for children—the bestselling six-book Bo Bo and Cha Cha picture book series (2012–2015) and Carol the Coral (2016); and more than a hundred short stories, articles, and book reviews. His writing has been translated into half a dozen languages, and seen publication in venues such as Mānoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing, the Raleigh News & Observer, Farrago’s Wainscot, Hot Metal Bridge, Strange Horizons, Subterranean Magazine, The Third Alternative, Electric Velocipede, and many other places. His work has won the POPULAR Readers’ Choice Award, has been shortlisted for the SLF Fountain Award, Brenda L. Smart Award for Short Fiction and SCBWI Crystal Kite Member Choice Award, and was honourably mentioned twice in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.
For nearly twelve years, Lundberg was the fiction editor at Epigram Books, where he jump-started the Singaporean publisher's fiction line; many of the over 90 titles he edited there won multiple national awards, and made various year’s best lists. His authors include Boey Kim Cheng, Meihan Boey, Balli Kaur Jaswal, Amanda Lee Koe, Ng Yi-Sheng, Nuraliah Norasid, O Thiam Chin, Jeremy Tiang, Cyril Wong and Daryl Qilin Yam.
In addition, he is the founding editor of LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction (2012–2018), series editor for the award-winning biennial Best New Singaporean Short Stories anthology series (est. 2013), editor of Fish Eats Lion Redux (2022) and Fish Eats Lion (2012), and co-editor of A Field Guide to Surreal Botany (2008) and Scattered, Covered, Smothered (2004). From 2005–2008, he facilitated an occasional podcast called Lies and Little Deaths: A Virtual Anthology.
An active member in PEN America and a 2002 graduate of the prestigious Clarion Writers Workshop, Lundberg holds a Master's degree in creative writing from North Carolina State University. Furthermore, he was a 2025 Visiting Writer at the Asia Creative Writing Programme, and a 2023 International Writer-in-Residence at the Toji Cultural Foundation Residency Program in South Korea. He has served as a prose mentor with the Creative Arts Programme and Ceriph Mentorship Programme, and he currently lectures on contemporary publishing, editorial theory & practice, and creative writing at Nanyang Technological University.
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May 22, 2018
Many wonderful stories in this final issue of Lontar.
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