LONTAR #4

LONTAR #4

by Jason Erik Lundberg (Founding Editor), Kristine Ong Muslim (Poetry Editor), Paolo Bacigalupi (Contributor)

This fourth issue of LONTAR presents speculative writing from and about Singapore, the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand.

Inside these pages, you’ll find: the harsh realities of living as a refugee within a calorie-based economy by acclaimed award-winner Paolo Bacigalupi; the uneasy combination of domestic troubles and virtual reality from Palanca Prize winner Kate Osias; the unexpected and complete disappearance of Singapore itself from Singapore Literature Prize winner Ng Yi-Sheng; a surreal trip through alternate worlds from Philippines Free Press Literary Prize winner Eliza Victoria; an eerie meeting with chanteuse Faye Wong during a Malaysian holiday from Andrew Cheah; and speculative poetry from Michael Gray, Joses Ho, Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé, Cyril Wong and Jerrold Yam.

LONTAR is the world’s only biannual literary journal focusing on Southeast Asian speculative fiction. In this issue, seven contributors have won major literary awards in Singapore, USA, UK, Japan and the Philippines.

Genres: Fiction

112 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2015

About the author

Jason 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 his first novel (and 25th book), A Fickle and Restless Weapon (2020), a related novella, Diary of One Who Disappeared (2019, recipient of a 2013 Creation Grant from Singapore's National Arts Council), and a "greatest hits" short fiction collection, Most Excellent and Lamentable: Selected Stories (2019).

He is also the author of many 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 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, 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 also been shortlisted for the SLF Fountain Award, Brenda L. Smart Award for Short Fiction, SCBWI Crystal Kite Member Choice Award, and POPULAR Readers’ Choice Award; he was honourably mentioned twice in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.

Lundberg has been the fiction editor at Epigram Books since 2012, where he jump-started the publisher's fiction line; many of the books he's edited since have won multiple national awards, and made various year’s best lists. He has also served as a prose mentor with Singapore's Creative Arts Programme and Ceriph Mentorship Programme. In addition, he is the founding editor of LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction (2012–2018), series editor for the 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, and was a 2023 International Writer-in-Residence at the Toji Cultural Foundation Residency Program in South Korea.