Theresa Fuller's Blog
October 5, 2025
Deciphering Peranakan Poetry
When I was a child, I listened to folktales without realizing they carried centuries of memories inside them.
Today, as a researcher and an author, I feel a responsibility—and a joy—to bring those voices back into the present.
That’s why I’m so excited to invite you to join me for Deciphering Peranakan Poetry—a live, online cultural investigation into ancient verse.
This won’t be a quiet poetry reading. It’s more like detective work. Together, we’ll crack open lines of poetry to reveal how our ancestors thought, felt, and dreamed.
You’ll see for yourself how language shapes the way we imagine the world.
📅 When: October 31, 7:30 AEST 📍 Where: Online via Zoom
I would love for you to be part of this journey. Bring your curiosity, your questions, and your love of culture. Let’s rediscover what was almost lost—and breathe life into the words of our ancestors.
Register here
https://www.subscribepage.com/peranakan_poetry
Today, as a researcher and an author, I feel a responsibility—and a joy—to bring those voices back into the present.
That’s why I’m so excited to invite you to join me for Deciphering Peranakan Poetry—a live, online cultural investigation into ancient verse.
This won’t be a quiet poetry reading. It’s more like detective work. Together, we’ll crack open lines of poetry to reveal how our ancestors thought, felt, and dreamed.
You’ll see for yourself how language shapes the way we imagine the world.
📅 When: October 31, 7:30 AEST 📍 Where: Online via Zoom
I would love for you to be part of this journey. Bring your curiosity, your questions, and your love of culture. Let’s rediscover what was almost lost—and breathe life into the words of our ancestors.
Register here
https://www.subscribepage.com/peranakan_poetry
October 19, 2024
My new book on Folktales - Eating the Liver of the Earth!
I am so pleased to finally be able to announce my newest book on folktales!
Eating the Liver of the Earth will be published on the 25th of November, 2024.
This is the result of 3 years of effort.
My kun kun (grandfather) was the Penglipur Lara (Soother of Care i.e., the storyteller) in my family. At bedtime, grandfather (kun kun), would tell me story after story.
As his first-born grandchild, his chu chu, I held a special place in his heart. Sadly, he died young, and I miss him dreadfully to this day. Kun kun nourished my love of folktales, starting with Sang Kancil the mousedeer.
Hence, the mousedeer (chevrotain) holds a very special place in my heart.
After becoming a mother, I searched for the tales I had grown up with and loved. Sadly, I couldn’t find many. In fact, most people I asked could, on average, remember only two or three. This spurred me on to collecting all the folktales of the mousedeer that I could find. Each time I thought I was done, I found a few more.
I hope these precious folktales will never be forgotten, as they are a part of my heritage, indeed for everyone who has grown up in Southeast Asia. I found stories from as far away as ancient Ceylon, the Philippines, and even from the sea nomads known as the Moken.
I have always looked upon the folktales of Sang Kancil as pure childish fantasy, stories with morals, of an underdog defeating the villain, of good versus evil, and so I was shocked to discover that not all these folktales were innocent. Quite a few portrayed the mousedeer in rather an unfavourable light.
I have also learnt that folktales can be insidious and not the simple stories I had always presumed. However, what deeper political meaning these tales may originally have held has been lost through the years.
In some stories, I have played the role of the penglipur lara, telling the story in the oral tradition I hope the penglipur lara of old may have done with many repetitions of the same word or phrase or description.
The audience of old expected such a style. In some stories, I lead in with my thoughts. These are always in italics to differentiate between the start of the story proper.
In many stories, the spelling of the animals or certain words is different depending on where they originate e.g. raksa, raksasa etc. I have tried to retain this, which is why the spelling appears at times inconsistent.
I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I have enjoyed writing them.
Blurb:
Sang Kancil, the mousedeer: trickster, adventurer, king and sometimes villain and thief—the traditional folktales from South-East Asia about this diminutive hero have been told for centuries. He might be small, but through cunning and intelligence, he always prevails against powerful enemies while saving his friends from danger.
The author has researched many mousedeer stories and in this book, brings new insights into the age-old tales and by using her own modern adaptions combined with her lyrical prose, the mousedeer’s adventures will be sure to delight audiences hitherto unfamiliar with Sang Kancil. Here you will meet the cruel Crocodile, the rapacious Tiger, the avenging Ant King, the rampaging Elephant and the greedy, dishonest humans…
https://www.amazon.com.au/Eating-Live...
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/eati...
Theresa Fuller loved to listen to her grandfather telling her these stories when she was little and now she's brought together a wonderful collection from Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines - magical places of rainforests, tigers, leopards, pythons - with words that sound like the chiming and tinkling of music, or the whispering of wind in the bamboo.
Eating the Liver of the Earth opens up a whole world of unexpected treasure!
Dr Mark MacLeod
Professor - Charles Sturt University, Tasmania
Eating the Liver of the Earth will be published on the 25th of November, 2024.
This is the result of 3 years of effort.
My kun kun (grandfather) was the Penglipur Lara (Soother of Care i.e., the storyteller) in my family. At bedtime, grandfather (kun kun), would tell me story after story.
As his first-born grandchild, his chu chu, I held a special place in his heart. Sadly, he died young, and I miss him dreadfully to this day. Kun kun nourished my love of folktales, starting with Sang Kancil the mousedeer.
Hence, the mousedeer (chevrotain) holds a very special place in my heart.
After becoming a mother, I searched for the tales I had grown up with and loved. Sadly, I couldn’t find many. In fact, most people I asked could, on average, remember only two or three. This spurred me on to collecting all the folktales of the mousedeer that I could find. Each time I thought I was done, I found a few more.
I hope these precious folktales will never be forgotten, as they are a part of my heritage, indeed for everyone who has grown up in Southeast Asia. I found stories from as far away as ancient Ceylon, the Philippines, and even from the sea nomads known as the Moken.
I have always looked upon the folktales of Sang Kancil as pure childish fantasy, stories with morals, of an underdog defeating the villain, of good versus evil, and so I was shocked to discover that not all these folktales were innocent. Quite a few portrayed the mousedeer in rather an unfavourable light.
I have also learnt that folktales can be insidious and not the simple stories I had always presumed. However, what deeper political meaning these tales may originally have held has been lost through the years.
In some stories, I have played the role of the penglipur lara, telling the story in the oral tradition I hope the penglipur lara of old may have done with many repetitions of the same word or phrase or description.
The audience of old expected such a style. In some stories, I lead in with my thoughts. These are always in italics to differentiate between the start of the story proper.
In many stories, the spelling of the animals or certain words is different depending on where they originate e.g. raksa, raksasa etc. I have tried to retain this, which is why the spelling appears at times inconsistent.
I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I have enjoyed writing them.
Blurb:
Sang Kancil, the mousedeer: trickster, adventurer, king and sometimes villain and thief—the traditional folktales from South-East Asia about this diminutive hero have been told for centuries. He might be small, but through cunning and intelligence, he always prevails against powerful enemies while saving his friends from danger.
The author has researched many mousedeer stories and in this book, brings new insights into the age-old tales and by using her own modern adaptions combined with her lyrical prose, the mousedeer’s adventures will be sure to delight audiences hitherto unfamiliar with Sang Kancil. Here you will meet the cruel Crocodile, the rapacious Tiger, the avenging Ant King, the rampaging Elephant and the greedy, dishonest humans…
https://www.amazon.com.au/Eating-Live...
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/eati...
Theresa Fuller loved to listen to her grandfather telling her these stories when she was little and now she's brought together a wonderful collection from Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines - magical places of rainforests, tigers, leopards, pythons - with words that sound like the chiming and tinkling of music, or the whispering of wind in the bamboo.
Eating the Liver of the Earth opens up a whole world of unexpected treasure!
Dr Mark MacLeod
Professor - Charles Sturt University, Tasmania
October 27, 2021
Cover Reveal - THE GIRL SUDAN PAINTED LIKE A GOLD RING
I am so thrilled to finally be able to share the cover of my soon-to-be published book on folktales!
If you like your fables with a dash of bloodshed, then The Girl Sudan Painted Like a Gold Ring is the anthology you have been waiting for. Author Theresa Fuller has collected a fascinating group of tales based on the oral storytelling history of the Sea Dyaks of Borneo.
The twist? The Dyaks were headhunters!
A TINY MOUSEDEER BATTLES A SPIRIT GIANT
A GIRL MUST SAVE HER VILLAGE FROM AN ARMY OF HEAD-HUNTERS
HOW A HEDGEHOG HELPS A BULLIED BOY BECOME A GOD
In this book you will find stories designed to entertain and teach, all from the point of view of a culture based in honor, courtesy, and war.
"https://www.theresafuller.com"
Coming January 2022
If you like your fables with a dash of bloodshed, then The Girl Sudan Painted Like a Gold Ring is the anthology you have been waiting for. Author Theresa Fuller has collected a fascinating group of tales based on the oral storytelling history of the Sea Dyaks of Borneo.
The twist? The Dyaks were headhunters!
A TINY MOUSEDEER BATTLES A SPIRIT GIANT
A GIRL MUST SAVE HER VILLAGE FROM AN ARMY OF HEAD-HUNTERS
HOW A HEDGEHOG HELPS A BULLIED BOY BECOME A GOD
In this book you will find stories designed to entertain and teach, all from the point of view of a culture based in honor, courtesy, and war.
"https://www.theresafuller.com"
Coming January 2022
July 18, 2021
Enter my Goodreads Giveaway!
Hey there!
I have a Goodreads giveaway for all my readers in Canada and the USA!
Fact: Ada Lovelace would have been the world’s first programmer if she hadn’t died young and in great pain, her fears ignored solely because she was a woman.
Seventeen-year-old suffragette Lady Elizabeth Ada Lovelace will do anything to ensure no more women suffer the indignities and anguish her grandmother underwent at the hands of her physician. She attempts to program the Ghost Engine, the 19th century equivalent of the computer, to use it as a tool to hasten research on the cancer that killed her grandmother. By taking on what is believed to be a man’s job – programming – she also hopes to prove that women are just as capable as men. She fixes the Ghost Engine and gets it running only to be sucked inside.
Elizabeth needs to escape before the engine shuts down, killing her, but she finds herself locked in what seem to be pointless games of logic. The games take on a sinister bent as the Ghost Engine learns via artificial intelligence to become sentient. It fashions a doppelganger in the image of its creator, initially appearing as a ghost. Soon Elizabeth can’t tell creator and creation apart. She is not the only one fighting for equality.
In her wildest dreams, Elizabeth never thought she'd end up falling in love with a hauntingly attractive ghost, the same seductive ghost who just might want her dead.
I was always told: write what you know.
With a degree in computing, I started working in the computer industry as an analyst/programmer. Later, I taught computer history and artificial intelligence at the high school level. So, it was a no brainer to write about the first woman programmer.
Technically, that person was Ada Lovelace, but the truth is that she died before the first computer was ever built. What I learnt about her demise shocked me. It did not matter that she was Lord Byron’s only child, or the wife of a peer. Or a brilliant mathematician. She was a woman. A ‘woman’ was how her physician saw her.
Ada never got a chance to program a computer as Charles Babbage never finished the Difference Engine. Soon Ada was dying of cancer. When she asked her physician if she could seek a second opinion, his reply was that if she did so, he would wash his hands of her.
Ada never received that second opinion.
All because she was a woman.
I wrote about Ada’ fictional granddaughter, who was determined to follow in her grandmother’s footsteps, and be the world’s first programmer!
In the end, it was Elizabeth as the Beauty, who saved Charles, the Beast.
My name is Theresa Fuller and I write about Women Who Win the World.
Enter my book giveaway on Goodreads for a chance to win a signed copy of THE GHOST ENGINE!
She thought she could change the world...
When Lady Elizabeth Ada Lovelace, a beautiful, arrogant suffragette, purchased the 19th-century Algorithmic Engine in order to become the world's first programmer, she planned to break the shackles of inequality for Victorian women.
Until her world became that of the machine...
Instead she learns the true meaning of equality when she ends up trapped, brought down to the level of the machine. Inside the double-crossing computer, Elizabeth must match wits with a stubbornly idealistic ghost and a chillingly handsome doppelganger in the computer's endless series of mind games. But as the machine learns to become a sentient being, time is ticking away. Elizabeth finds herself falling in love with the ghost trapped in the machine. Together they are pitted in a race against the machine to escape before the Algorithmic Engine shuts down – killing them all.
Now all their worlds hang in the balance. The Ghost Engine
I have a Goodreads giveaway for all my readers in Canada and the USA!
Fact: Ada Lovelace would have been the world’s first programmer if she hadn’t died young and in great pain, her fears ignored solely because she was a woman.
Seventeen-year-old suffragette Lady Elizabeth Ada Lovelace will do anything to ensure no more women suffer the indignities and anguish her grandmother underwent at the hands of her physician. She attempts to program the Ghost Engine, the 19th century equivalent of the computer, to use it as a tool to hasten research on the cancer that killed her grandmother. By taking on what is believed to be a man’s job – programming – she also hopes to prove that women are just as capable as men. She fixes the Ghost Engine and gets it running only to be sucked inside.
Elizabeth needs to escape before the engine shuts down, killing her, but she finds herself locked in what seem to be pointless games of logic. The games take on a sinister bent as the Ghost Engine learns via artificial intelligence to become sentient. It fashions a doppelganger in the image of its creator, initially appearing as a ghost. Soon Elizabeth can’t tell creator and creation apart. She is not the only one fighting for equality.
In her wildest dreams, Elizabeth never thought she'd end up falling in love with a hauntingly attractive ghost, the same seductive ghost who just might want her dead.
I was always told: write what you know.
With a degree in computing, I started working in the computer industry as an analyst/programmer. Later, I taught computer history and artificial intelligence at the high school level. So, it was a no brainer to write about the first woman programmer.
Technically, that person was Ada Lovelace, but the truth is that she died before the first computer was ever built. What I learnt about her demise shocked me. It did not matter that she was Lord Byron’s only child, or the wife of a peer. Or a brilliant mathematician. She was a woman. A ‘woman’ was how her physician saw her.
Ada never got a chance to program a computer as Charles Babbage never finished the Difference Engine. Soon Ada was dying of cancer. When she asked her physician if she could seek a second opinion, his reply was that if she did so, he would wash his hands of her.
Ada never received that second opinion.
All because she was a woman.
I wrote about Ada’ fictional granddaughter, who was determined to follow in her grandmother’s footsteps, and be the world’s first programmer!
In the end, it was Elizabeth as the Beauty, who saved Charles, the Beast.
My name is Theresa Fuller and I write about Women Who Win the World.
Enter my book giveaway on Goodreads for a chance to win a signed copy of THE GHOST ENGINE!
She thought she could change the world...
When Lady Elizabeth Ada Lovelace, a beautiful, arrogant suffragette, purchased the 19th-century Algorithmic Engine in order to become the world's first programmer, she planned to break the shackles of inequality for Victorian women.
Until her world became that of the machine...
Instead she learns the true meaning of equality when she ends up trapped, brought down to the level of the machine. Inside the double-crossing computer, Elizabeth must match wits with a stubbornly idealistic ghost and a chillingly handsome doppelganger in the computer's endless series of mind games. But as the machine learns to become a sentient being, time is ticking away. Elizabeth finds herself falling in love with the ghost trapped in the machine. Together they are pitted in a race against the machine to escape before the Algorithmic Engine shuts down – killing them all.
Now all their worlds hang in the balance. The Ghost Engine
September 28, 2019
Interview with Jessica Tay
I was excited when Jessica Tay approached me regarding an interview of THE GIRL WHO BECAME A GODDESS,
Jessica is from Malaysia, and even better, she is from Malacca.
She is one of the people whom I had hoped would love my collection of folktales, and not only did she love the collection, she also requested an interview.
If you want to read my interview with Jessica, take a look:
https://jessicabooksblog.wordpress.co...
Jessica is from Malaysia, and even better, she is from Malacca.
She is one of the people whom I had hoped would love my collection of folktales, and not only did she love the collection, she also requested an interview.
If you want to read my interview with Jessica, take a look:
https://jessicabooksblog.wordpress.co...
June 23, 2019
Interview by Elle
Hey there!
I love teachers. And it isn't because I happen to be one myself. But I love teachers because they are so kind and generous.
This month, I was approached by another teacher, Gabrielle Estel, who happens to teach in Taiwan. Gabriele had just read THE GIRL WHO BECAME A GODDESS and wanted to interview me.
She sent me the questions which I answered and sent back. While I was so touched by her gesture, what touched me even more was the fact that Gabrielle personalised the review by adding her own childhood memories. Then she told her own students my stories.
What made me warm inside was to learn that I had lit a spark inside Gabrielle. I had piqued her interest enough so that she now wanted to research the folktales!
Wow!
Thank you so much Gabrielle! You have made this teacher enormously happy!
https://elle-reads.weebly.com/
https://www.instagram.com/elle_reads/...
I love teachers. And it isn't because I happen to be one myself. But I love teachers because they are so kind and generous.
This month, I was approached by another teacher, Gabrielle Estel, who happens to teach in Taiwan. Gabriele had just read THE GIRL WHO BECAME A GODDESS and wanted to interview me.
She sent me the questions which I answered and sent back. While I was so touched by her gesture, what touched me even more was the fact that Gabrielle personalised the review by adding her own childhood memories. Then she told her own students my stories.
What made me warm inside was to learn that I had lit a spark inside Gabrielle. I had piqued her interest enough so that she now wanted to research the folktales!
Wow!
Thank you so much Gabrielle! You have made this teacher enormously happy!
https://elle-reads.weebly.com/
https://www.instagram.com/elle_reads/...
June 7, 2019
Turn Broccoli into a feast!
Hey there wonderful peeps!
Join me on Leslie Sartor's blog as I turn broccoli into a feast!
https://anindieadventure.blogspot.com...
Join me on Leslie Sartor's blog as I turn broccoli into a feast!
https://anindieadventure.blogspot.com...
May 28, 2019
The Girl Who Became a Goddess
Hey there!
I just wanted to share the news that my latest book is out!
The Girl Who Became a Goddess is a collection of folktales from Singapore, Malaysia and China.
Murder, betrayal, sacrifice...
Discover what life was like growing up in the rain forests of Singapore and Malaysia.
The Girl who became a Goddess: Folktales from Singapore, Malaysia and China
I just wanted to share the news that my latest book is out!
The Girl Who Became a Goddess is a collection of folktales from Singapore, Malaysia and China.
Murder, betrayal, sacrifice...
Discover what life was like growing up in the rain forests of Singapore and Malaysia.
The Girl who became a Goddess: Folktales from Singapore, Malaysia and China
November 3, 2018
HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE AND STEAMPUNK
When a young milliner named Sophie encounters the wizard Howl, her life is changed.
Howl’s previous lady love—the Witch of the Waste—jealous of the young girl, turns her into a 90-year old woman. But Sophie is undaunted. Setting off to break the curse, she ends up at Howl’s Moving Castle—a quaint contraption of a house on spindly legs. Here Sophie meets and gets to know Markl, Howl’s young apprentice, as well as the fire-demon Calcifer.
Sophie takes on the role of cleaning woman in more ways than one, not just clearing the cobwebs out of the antiquated castle, but also out of Howl. When the King summons Howl to fight in the war, it is she who leads the way, venturing first into the castle, followed soon after by Howl, who gains courage through her bravery.
In the end, Sophie discovers how to break not just her curse, but also Howl’s, and all through her never-ending acts of compassion. She cares for everyone whom she meets, including the Witch of the Waste who turned her into a geriatric.
I loved this movie from the first time I saw it. And I truly believed then that it was steampunk.
For evidence, there was:
1. the Victorianesque world in which the movie was set
2. Howl’s Moving Castle – a large machine with interlocking gears
3. Occult features – the witchcraft practiced by Howl, the Witch of the Waste and Madame Sulliman
4. And lastly, a created being. Here the Witch of the Waste obliged by providing many examples of ghoulish-looking henchmen.
I still love Howl’s Moving Castle, but I am not sure now if it is steampunk. But I am prepared to be proven wrong. That’s how much I love this movie!
The teeny little fact that makes me doubt, is the castle itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howl%27...
Howl’s previous lady love—the Witch of the Waste—jealous of the young girl, turns her into a 90-year old woman. But Sophie is undaunted. Setting off to break the curse, she ends up at Howl’s Moving Castle—a quaint contraption of a house on spindly legs. Here Sophie meets and gets to know Markl, Howl’s young apprentice, as well as the fire-demon Calcifer.
Sophie takes on the role of cleaning woman in more ways than one, not just clearing the cobwebs out of the antiquated castle, but also out of Howl. When the King summons Howl to fight in the war, it is she who leads the way, venturing first into the castle, followed soon after by Howl, who gains courage through her bravery.
In the end, Sophie discovers how to break not just her curse, but also Howl’s, and all through her never-ending acts of compassion. She cares for everyone whom she meets, including the Witch of the Waste who turned her into a geriatric.
I loved this movie from the first time I saw it. And I truly believed then that it was steampunk.
For evidence, there was:
1. the Victorianesque world in which the movie was set
2. Howl’s Moving Castle – a large machine with interlocking gears
3. Occult features – the witchcraft practiced by Howl, the Witch of the Waste and Madame Sulliman
4. And lastly, a created being. Here the Witch of the Waste obliged by providing many examples of ghoulish-looking henchmen.
I still love Howl’s Moving Castle, but I am not sure now if it is steampunk. But I am prepared to be proven wrong. That’s how much I love this movie!
The teeny little fact that makes me doubt, is the castle itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howl%27...
October 26, 2018
The 'Punk' in Steampunk
So far, we have worked out that the ‘steam’ in steampunk refers to the industrial or the inventor era. And the biggest example of that is the Industrial Revolution, which is why steampunks are generally set in the Victorian era or at least in a Victorianesque setting.
So, what then does the ‘punk’ in steampunk refer to?
As you have probably guessed, the ‘punk’ refers to the anti-establishment, the superimposition of the new onto the old.
“Punk as a philosophy is all about turning expectations and power structures on their respective ears. Punk is not conforming.”
- Author Camryn Rhys –
I take it to mean change or rebellion.
And not just against science, though that seemed to be the way it all started.
Punk is about the liberation of the individual in an anti-establishment sense. This explains why steampunk is so popular.
But while steampunk is generally set in the Victorian period which was a great example of change, in reality there was little change in some quarters e.g. in women’s rights.
Steampunk rectified this with alternate history.
Thus, steampunk allows us to view the world in a new light. What would the world have been like if this had happened etc. is pretty a common element in steampunk.
So back to the question that I asked in the beginning,
is the movie HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE steampunk?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0347149/
So, what then does the ‘punk’ in steampunk refer to?
As you have probably guessed, the ‘punk’ refers to the anti-establishment, the superimposition of the new onto the old.
“Punk as a philosophy is all about turning expectations and power structures on their respective ears. Punk is not conforming.”
- Author Camryn Rhys –
I take it to mean change or rebellion.
And not just against science, though that seemed to be the way it all started.
Punk is about the liberation of the individual in an anti-establishment sense. This explains why steampunk is so popular.
But while steampunk is generally set in the Victorian period which was a great example of change, in reality there was little change in some quarters e.g. in women’s rights.
Steampunk rectified this with alternate history.
Thus, steampunk allows us to view the world in a new light. What would the world have been like if this had happened etc. is pretty a common element in steampunk.
So back to the question that I asked in the beginning,
is the movie HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE steampunk?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0347149/
