I’m in a list-y mood. This is what happens when I’m juggling too many serious tasks. My brain skives off to play with things that are ordered and contained.
Hence this:
Online Writing: Diasporic Asian publications
Oz-based
Hong Kong-based
Canada-based
USA-based
- Asian American Literary Review
- Giant Robot (GR is a whole entity unto itself these days + a megastore; still, it was the first diasporic Asian publication that got me excited about the possibilities, and continues to be a very influential mag)
- Audrey: Asian American Women’s Lifestyle Magazine (glossy +…a lifestyle magazine; props for being an Asian American woman-focused mag, tho)
There’s also Asia Literary Review, which features diasporic writers but doesn’t necessarily focus on them in its remit.
This list is by no means exhaustive. These are just the publications I know about, and (semi-)regularly read. Feel free to tout others in the comments. I know I’ve mixed up ‘literary’ with pop.cultural publications. So be it.
Australia also used to have Faan (glossy, youth-oriented, hard-copy Asian Australian lifestyle mag), but it lived a short life. Publications like Faan and Audrey beg the question of whether a niche-ethnicity glossy can compete against ostensibly ‘non-ethnic’ magazines. I get antsy and annoyed when a magazine is clumsily trying to compete for my ‘ethnic’ dollar; if they do it well and savvily, however, I’d subscribe and spruik them endlessly.
Doing some googling for this entry, I found Asiance Magazine – “Connecting Asian American Women to the World” – and have to say that it got me antsy and annoyed. Perhaps it was the concept of peddling ‘asiance’ (“Modern America with an Asian Twist!”) that did me in. Its aspirational statements are commendable on some levels, but the reality of the marketing and ethnic ‘pitching’ just sits uneasily with me. Never mind, I’m out of their demographic age-range anyway!
Dr Tseen Khoo 