Shelly Bryant

Shelly Bryant divides her year between Shanghai and Singapore, working as a writer, researcher, and translator. She is the author of eleven volumes of poetry, Cyborg Chimera, Under the Ash, Voices of the Elders, Harps Upon Willows, The Lined Palm, Pine the Passing, Numina, Nymph, Mulciber, Mortals, andUnnatural Selection, a short story collection entitled Launch Pad, and two travel guides, one to the city of Suzhou entitled Suzhou Basics, and another co-authored with Nick Land and Lily Sun, entitled Open Door Guide to Shanghai. Her The Classical Gardens of Shanghai is a part of the RAS Monograph Series, published by Hong Kong University Press.

Shelly has translated Sheng Keyi’s novels Northern Girls, Fields of White, and Wild Fruit for Penguin Books, and Death Fugue for Giramondo Press, Chew Kok Chang’s short story collection Other Cities, Other Lives and You Jin’s A Life in Words, Mum is Where the Heart is, and In Time, Out of Place for Epigram Books, Fan Wen’s Land of Mercy for Rinchen Books, Li Xinfeng’s China in Africa for HSRC, Zhang Ling’s A Single Swallow for Amazon Crossing, and Li Na’s memoir, My Life, for Penguin Books. Her translations of Khoo Seok Wan’s poetry were featured in the exhibition A Life in Poems by the National Library Board in Singapore.

Shelly has also edited a collection of speculative poetry, A Demon in My View (Alban Lake), and a haiku anthology, Equatorial Calm (Celestial Books). Her poetry has appeared in journals, magazines, and websites around the world, as well as in several art exhibitions, including dark ’til dawn, Things Disappear, and Studio White • Exhibition 2011.

Shelly’s translation of Sheng Keyi’s Northern Girls was long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012, and her translation of You Jin’s In Time, Out of Place was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2016. She was awarded a Distinguished Alumni award from Oklahoma Christian University in 2017.

In the Spotlight

When Two Worlds Collide: Poetry and the Visual Arts

The history of the interaction between poetry and the visual arts is both long and broad, stretching not only far back into history, but also to all parts of the globe we inhabit. In almost every culture, poetry has reacted to the visual arts, and...

In the Spotlight

I. M. Pei and the New Suzhou Museum

I. M. Pei has an impressive resumé. His work on the Pyramids of the Louvre in Paris have garnered much attention. But equally impressive is his work on the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH, and the Museum of Islamic Arts in Doha, Qatar....

In the Spotlight

The Five Elements in Chinese Thought and Culture

The five elements (五行）in Chinese thought are fire (火）, earth（土）, metal（金）, water（水）, and wood （木）.  Rather than viewing the five elements as separate or competing systems, they should be seen as five phases in a...

In the Spotlight

Tomorrow Square, Shanghai

A few years ago, I saw a quietly spectacular scene when I was walking about at People's Square in Shanghai. The sun was setting behind some of the towering buildings downtown, casting an odd sort of lighting over the whole place. I pulled out my...

In the Spotlight

Edwin Morgan

Edwin Morgan occupies a rather elite spot on my list of favourites. He is one of my 3 favourite poets of all time, alongside John Donne and W. H. Auden. While each of the three is quite different, they have in common two things. First, they use...

In the Spotlight

Hakka Tulou in Fujian Province, China

The Hakka Tulou villages peppering the landscape in southern Fujian province offer an interesting insight into a particular subculture in China.  The Hakka (Kejia) people are Han Chinese, though some mistake them for a minority group, due to the...

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  Fiction

  Interview: Tanya Hanson, Romance Writer

  3 years ago

  Interview for Tanya Hanson SB: When was your first novel published? Was it a work of Christian fiction? If not, when did you get your start in the field of Christian fiction writing, and what made you make that leap? TH: From 2002-2009, I...

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  16
  History of Poetry

  When Two Worlds Collide: Poetry and the Visual Arts

  3 years ago

  The history of the interaction between poetry and the visual arts is both long and broad, stretching not only far back into history, but also to all parts of the globe we inhabit. In almost every culture, poetry has reacted to the visual arts, and...

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  4
  People's Republic of China

  Tomorrow Square, Shanghai

  3 years ago

  A few years ago, I saw a quietly spectacular scene when I was walking about at People's Square in Shanghai. The sun was setting behind some of the towering buildings downtown, casting an odd sort of lighting over the whole place. I pulled out my...

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  2
  Religion, Culture & Society

  William Tyndale and the Tyndale Bible

  3 years ago

  William Tyndale (c.1494-1536) was one of England's early church reformers.  The repercussions of his translation work in 1525-26 were long-lasting in England, stretching across at least a century, stirred on further by the religious intolerance of...

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  6
  Religion, Culture & Society

  John Wycliffe and the Wycliffe Translation of the Bible

  3 years ago

  Dr. John Wycliffe lived in the 1300s, and was one of the men responsible for helping to bring the Dark Ages to an end in England. Despite serious opposition from the Catholic church, Wycliffe fought tirelessly and fearlessly for the right to...

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  2
  Poems & Poetry

  Finding Your Niche as a Poet: How to Locate Markets for Your Poetry

  3 years ago

  Getting poems into print is hard work. There is a lot of competition in the field. There is a lot of really bad poetry being written and submitted for publication. There's even a fair amount of bad poetry being published. So, how does the...

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  Poems & Poetry

  Cyborg Chimera (a Poetry Collection)

  3 years ago

  Cyborg Chimera, released in October 2009, is Bryant's first poetry collection. It centers on ideas of hybridity, the subconscious, dreams, programming, reality, and illusion. It contains 42 poems, some of which have appeared in magazines,...

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  Arts and Design

  dark 'til dawn

  3 years ago

  The dark ‘til dawn series was conceived as a meeting point for the art of American poet Shelly Bryant and Chinese artist Peter Zhou (周宇). By bringing together two distinctive art forms from two different cultures, a unique new work has been...

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  Fiction

  Joseph Girzone

  3 years ago

  In 1995, Joseph Girzone left the world of the formal priesthood within the Catholic church and became a full time writer. His most famous fictional pieces center around the life of Joshua, a modern day incarnation of Jesus in our world. He faces the...