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As part of the release of LONTAR #1, I’ve been interviewed at the BooksActually blog:


Jason Erik Lundberg was born in Brooklyn and has lived in Singapore since 2007. He is the author of nearly a dozen books, including the new collection Strange Mammals; he is also the series editor of The Epigram Books Collection of Best New Singaporean Short Stories, editor of Fish Eats Lion (2012), and co-editor of A Field Guide to Surreal Botany (2008) and Scattered, Covered, Smothered (2004).

Q: What was the inspiration behind Lontar?

LONTAR continues a project begun with my collection Red Dot Irreal (2011) and continued with my edited anthology Fish Eats Lion (2012), both also published by Math Paper Press: to increase awareness and celebrate the creation of the speculative fiction being written in [and about] Southeast Asia in English. On the world stage of speculative fiction, Southeast Asia is still largely underrepresented, both as a setting, and in terms of writers in the region. LONTAR is my attempt to shine a spotlight and bring more attention to this type of writing, and to do it in a regular periodic fashion.

Q: Why speculative fiction and what do you hope to do with that?

SF is my chosen genre, and is the only method of prose writing that allows for the literalization of metaphor in order to go beyond mere facts and examine issues at the level of truth. The fantastical tradition is the oldest storytelling convention there is, way on back to myth-making and god-creation used to explain the world, and it is as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago.

Q:  What can we expect from following issues of Lontar?

Issue #2 contains stories that take place in the DMZ between North and South Korea, in the elevated educational society of a far-future Singapore, at a magical floating market accessible only from a village river in Vietnam, and in a mansion apartment in New York City gained by a homicidal monk and a Bangkok madam. Plus an all-Singapore contingent of poets exploring aspects of the strange in verse. Our authors will include emerging writers, a winner of the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, and a bestselling British crime novelist.

Q: As an American living in Singapore, and as the literary fiction editor at Epigram Books, what are some of the key themes you have observed in Singapore writing which differs from American publications?

I’m not sure that it necessarily differs from American writing, but one trend I’ve seen in recent years in Singaporean prose writing is the focus on loss. As a country, Singapore continues to do well in terms of economic stability and providing a fairly comfortable existence for many of the people living and working here, but in exchange, the cost seems to have been something profound, something deep in the collective soul of the nation. There is a melancholy tone that pervades much Singaporean fiction right now, a period of recovery from that lost thing, a time of healing and reflection.

Q:  What next? What can we expect to see from you in the near future?

My Babette’s Feast chapbook, Embracing the Strange, should be out sometime later in September from Math Paper Press. In October, my new collection, Strange Mammals, will be out both in paperback and as an ebook from my UK publisher, Infinity Plus Books; ∞+ is also releasing The Alchemy of Happiness and the expanded edition of Red Dot Irreal in paperback editions, after publishing them last year as ebooks. And at the Singapore Writers Festival, I’ll be launching my new anthology, The Epigram Books Collection of Best New Singaporean Short Stories: Volume One, as well as two other books that I edited for Epigram Books—Cyril Wong’s first novel, The Last Lesson of Mrs de Souza, and Amanda Lee Koe’s debut collection, Ministry of Moral Panic.

I’m currently at work desperately trying to finish revising my novel, A Fickle and Restless Weapon, which takes place in a fictional alternate-universe version of Singapore. If you want to get a more regular dose of my fiction, I have pieces accepted for the first twelve issues of the Math Paper Press journal of flash fiction, Twenty-Four Flavours, and have made it a goal to write stories for the remaining twelve. Just recently, I received a 2013 Creation Grant from the National Arts Council to write a steampunk novella, The Diary of a Man Who Disappeared, which shares the world of my novel, and which I’ll start writing next year. LONTAR #1 is out at last!

I want to thank my contributors—Kate Osias, Zen Cho, Paolo Chikiamco, Chris Mooney-Singh, Ang Si Min, Bryan Thao Worra, Elka Ray Nguyen and Paolo Bacigalupi—for being part of the inaugural issue of what I consider a very important literary endeavor; without their amazing writing, there simply would be no journal.

I also need to thank Kristine Ong Muslim for her keen poetic eye, and for being a wonderful sounding board during this entire process. In addition, thanks to Kenny, Renée, Jocelyn, and everyone at Math Paper Press for believing in the journal enough to help me bring it into being, and to Sarah & Schooling for making it such an unbelievably gorgeous physical product.

I am working to get the ebook bundle (PDF/ePub/Mobi) done by the end of the month, but it may be sometime in October before it’s ready.

We will be having a launch in mid-October at BooksActually; details coming soon.

If you’re in Singapore, you can pick up LONTAR at BooksActually; if you’re outside of Singapore, please buy it at the BooksActually Web Store.

Onward! To issue #2! Courtesy of the über-awesome design studio of Sarah and Schooling.

Issue #1 is now being finalized and is on schedule to be released later in August. Huzzah!


Since submissions were opened in June, I’ve been gratified at the interest LONTAR has received thus far, and am very happy to announce that the first issue is “in the can”. It will be released in March May 2013 by Math Paper Press; we had hoped to launch it by November 2012, but financial and editorial issues led to the slight delay.

I can’t wait to show it to you all.

Issue #1 Contents
01. Etching the Lontar | Jason Erik Lundberg (Editorial)
02. Departures | Kate Osias (Fiction)
03. Love in the Time of Utopia | Zen Cho (Fiction)
04. Philippine Magic: A Course Catalogue | Paolo Chikiamco (Non-Fiction)
05. Jayawarman 9th Remembers the Dragon Archipelago | Chris Mooney-Singh (Poetry)
06. The Immortal Pharmacist | Ang Si Min (Poetry)
07. Stainless Steel Nak | Bryan Thao Worra (Poetry)
08. The Yellow River | Elka Ray Nguyen (Fiction)
09. The Gambler | Paolo Bacigalupi (Fiction Reprint)

Please note: we’re now looking for fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and sequential art for issue #2; our submissions work on a rolling basis, so we will consider them all year long. If you think you might have a piece that would fit our journal, submit that sucker to us!