PANEL | Writing the Body: Examining Women’s Interior Stories

Speaker: Ysabelle Cheung, Kaitlin Chan and Karen Cheung

Date: March 8, Sun

Time: 3:00pm - 4:15pm

Venue: Fringe Club - Fringe Dairy

Address: Fringe Club, 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, Hong Kong

Price: HKD198

Language: English

Format: Panel

Description:

This intimate conversation brings together three Hong Kong–based authors—Ysabelle Cheung, Kaitlin Chan, and Karen Cheung to explore their creative practices and storytelling approaches. Focusing on character interiority, the discussion examines how inner lives are shaped, revealed, and challenged on the page. The authors also reflect on how the female body appears in their work: as site, symbol, and lived experience. Through close attention to voice, perspective, and embodiment, this talk offers insight into how contemporary fiction engages with identity, intimacy, and the complexities of writing women’s stories in and from Hong Kong.

About the Speaker:

Ysabelle Cheung

Ysabelle Cheung is a writer and art critic based in Hong Kong. Her fiction writing has appeared in Granta, Catapult, Slate, and The Rumpus. Her short story Please, Get Out and Dance, was nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize. She was awarded the 2023 Diverse Writers Grant by Speculative Literature Foundation, the 2023 Aspen Words fellowship, and the 2021 Nebula Awards SFWA conference scholarship. She is an alumni of Tin House Workshop and was in residence at the Jan Michalski Foundation in 2024. Her essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Artforum, and more.

Kaitlin Chan

Kaitlin Chan is a cartoonist and gallery director in Hong Kong. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Economist, Catapult, Astra Magazine, Oprah Daily, The Margins, The Offing, Popula, and elsewhere. In 2021, she was shortlisted for the Cartoonist Studio Prize in Webcomics. She self-published her first graphic novel, Eric’s Sister, a 2024 finalist for the Cartoonist Studio Prize. She is working on a second book about desire, womanhood and feeling abject.

Karen Cheung

Karen Cheung is a writer from Hong Kong. She is the author of The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir, which was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Nonfiction and named one of the best books of the year by Washington Post and The Economist. She's written for The New York Times, Foreign Policy, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She was previously a senior reporter at Hong Kong Free Press and Associate Editor at Asia Art Archive. She teaches creative writing at Hong Kong Baptist University and Chinese University of Hong Kong.

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ABOUT HKILF

The Hong Kong International Literary Festival (HKILF) inspires the joy of reading by bringing the world’s writers and stories to Hong Kong’s diverse communities. A dynamic year-round programme and an annual festival offer dialogue, entertainment and perspective, while the Young Readers Festival (YRF) motivates students to engage with all aspects of the written word, improving communication skills, while nurturing the art of writing and storytelling.

The annual festival features established and emerging writers from around the world, alongside local literary talents, in a programme that includes panel discussions, book talks, readings, workshops, walks, school programmes, performances, and more.

We are a registered charity non-profit organisation dedicated to bringing the best in the literary arts to Hong Kong. To find more, please visit our official website: https://www.festival.org.hk.

Please note that:

*We are unable to process refunds, please consider your ticket purchase a donation to the festival.

*Photos and videos of participants may be taken during the activities,which may be used by the organiser and the major sponsor for educational and promotional purposes in any way deemed appropriate, including disseminationthrough printed and online channels. Participation in the programme will constitute the participants’ consent to the above arrangement.

*The views and opinions expressed by the speakers do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Hong Kong International Literary Festival. HKILF disclaims any responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the information shared by the speakers.

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