Beyond Skin Deep: Deconstructing Race and Identity

Jess Row is the author of two novels, The New Earth and Your Face in Mine, an essay collection, White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination, and three collections of short stories, most recently Storyknife. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Paris Review, n+1, The New York Times, Kyoto Review, and many other publications in the US and overseas. He began his teaching career at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the 1990s and now teaches creative writing at New York University.

Max Pasakorn is an award-winning, published author of creative nonfiction chapbook A Study in Our Selves (Neon Hemlock Press, 2023) and a Thai cultural translator with an average of 2 million monthly views on TikTok and Instagram. Max’s writing and social content explores the multiplicity of his identities as a Thai-born queer person who grew up with English as his primary language in Singapore. From young, he’s been writing poetry and creative nonfiction about his identity. Recently, he’s started unleashing those thoughts via video content on social media. Max has previously spoken at the Singapore Writers’ Festival and the Singapore Book Council. He’s currently the NAC-NLB Writers’ Lab Writer-in-Residence, where he’s working on his full-length debut memoir about growing up as a Thai third-culture kid in Singapore.

Mysara Aljaru is a writer and artist with a background in journalism and documentary production. Her work, which has been showcased across Singapore and Indonesia, delves into state-constructed narratives that intersect race, gender, and class. She is also the co-editor of Brown Is Redacted (2022), an anthology exploring minority experiences in Singapore. Her projects include Objectifs: Women in Film - Remedy for Rage (2019), Taragak at the Singapore Writers Festival (2020), Brown is Haram at The Substation (2020 & 2021), and Dari Kesaharian Untuk Hal Lainnya in Jakarta (2023). Mysara has contributed to panels and programmes such as Reframe or Be Framed: Countering Dominant Narratives (2020), Doing & Being: The Intersections of Community Organising (2022), and Privileges and Burdens of Representation at the Singapore Writers Festival (2024). Her writings have been published in Growing Up Perempuan (2018), Budi Kritik (2018), and Why Not? Thinking About Singapore’s Tomorrow (2024).

Kristian (he/him) is an activist and writer. He is the co-editor of Brown is Redacted: Reflecting on Race in Singapore(2022), an anthology on minority race narratives in Singapore. He has written for Channel News Asia, Jom, and Mekong Review and was a contributing author to We Are Not The Enemy: The Practice of Advocacy in Singapore (2024). Kristian is also a Learning & Development professional, facilitating intergroup dialogues and partnering with various organisations to run community discussions on masculinity and male allyship.

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