Tune in live on YouTube on Sunday 19 July (1pm NZ / 11am SYD / 9am HK & SGP / 2am UK / 9pm NYC (Sat)) to hear from authors Thammika Songkaeo and Joseph Trinidad, two SE Asian authors you need to add to your TBR right now! They’ll discuss their lives, work, and ways in which their culture informs both.

Can’t tune in live? Full recording will be available to catch up on YouTube later. Make sure you’ve subscribed so you don’t miss a thing!

THAMMIKA SONGKAEO

Thammika Songkaeo is the author of Stamford Hospital, a debut novel selected as a must-read for International Women’s Day alongside The Handmaid’s Tale and The Second Sex. Set over a single weekend, the novel follows a woman who hospitalizes her barely ill child—not out of neglect, but sheer exhaustion—using the institution as a temporary refuge from a life she had not expected: one defined by full-time motherhood and a sexless marriage in Singapore, a place she never agreed to be.

Praised by Elle Singapore for “dissecting motherhood, marriage, and the cost of selfhood with razor-sharp precision," the book has sparked wide discussion on maternal ambivalence, sexual desire, and the limits placed on women's choices.

Thammika was the instructor behind the sold-out masterclass Writing Fear, Anger, and Sadness at the Auckland Writers Festival, and she advocates for greater global literary equality for authors worldwide.

Website: https://www.thammikasongkaeo.com
Instagram: @thammikas

JOSEPH TRINIDAD

Joseph Trinidad is a Filipino writer who lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. His work has been featured in Landfall, North & South, Te Papa, The Spinoff, Turbine | Kapohau and with Migrant Zine Collective. He was the winner of the 2023 Adam Foundation Prize from the International Institute of Modern Letters and the 2023 Asian Ink from Playmarket. His debut essay collection, Lucky Creatures (THWUP Books, 2026), was awarded the inaugural Sarabande Prize in the Essay.

Instagram: @trinidadandtobajoe