Past Events
2018
Winner,Reportage, Fay Khoo Award for Food+Drink Writing (Malaysia), November
Workshop, Myth and Magic in Malaysian Fiction, GTLF, November 23
George Town Literary Festival, Georgetown, Malaysia, November 22-25
Workshop, Preparing Your Manuscript for Publication, Kulala Lumpur, Malaysia. (With Sharon Bakar). Nov 17-18
Tuesday Funk, Chicago, USA, October 2
Story Studio Writer's Festival, Chicago, USA, September 29-30
Sanskriti, Boston, June 23
Printers Row Literary Festival, #PRLF18, Chicago, June 9
ETHS Asian & Middle Eastern Student Summit, Evanston, April 12
Stockholm University, Sweden, February 20
Hearth Festival, United Kingdom, February 2-4
2017
Featured Reader, An Afternoon of Readings by English Writers & Pages Cafe, Amsterdam, November 12, 2017.
Neustadt International Literary Festival, Norman, OK, USA, Juror and Featured Writer, 7-11 November 2017
Panelist and Featured Writer, Singapore Writers Festival, Singapore, November 3-5, 2017.
Keynote Speech at Asia Pacific Writers and Translators Conference, Contests and Prizes: The Advantage of the (Global) Asian Writer, Bali, Indonesia, October 24, 2017.
Featured Writer, “Trafficking Asian children through international adoptions: a discussion on the making of Shambala Junction”, International Institute For Asian Studies, Leiden, Netherlands, September 21, 2017.
Featured Writer and Panelist. Reading and Signing, Dipika Mukherjee: Shambala Junction, American Writers Museum, Chicago, USA, August 1, 2017.
Featured Reader, Sunday Salon, Chicago, USA, July 30, 2017.
Reading at Calcutta Club, Boston, USA, July 28, 2017.
Panelist and Featured Writer, Book Launch and Discussion of Shambala Junction, organized by the Consulate General of India, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 13, 2017.
Chicago Quarterly Review Literary Reading: The South Asian American Issue, Evanston Literary Festival, Evanston, USA, May 2, 2017.
Chicago Quarterly Review Literary Reading: The South Asian American Issue, International House, University of Chicago, Chicago, USA, April 4, 2017.
Featured Poet at Inauguration: Affirmation, Empowerment & Resistance (as part of Writers Resist Chicago), Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, USA. January 15, 2017.
2016
Featured Writer at Richmond Literary Festival, Virginia Prize for Fiction, (Launch of Shambala Junction). London, UK, November 23, 2016.
Featured Poet at RHINO Writes! National Independent Bookstore Day at The Book, Winnetka, USA. April 30. 2016.
Featured Reader at Rhino Release Party, Evanston, USA.17 April, 2016.
Featured Writer at Readings at Seksan. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, February 28, 2016.
2015
Religious Identity and Language Variation in Malaysia: Case Studies from Migrant Communities. Talk at the Residence of the US Ambassador to Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, December 2, 2015.
Featured Writer & Panelist, Georgetown Literary Festival, Malaysia, November 27-29, 2015.
Featured Poet, Poetry Across Borders. Georgetown Literary Festival, Malaysia, November 28, 2015.
Featured Writer at Writers Talking, Singapore Management University, Singapore, October 27, 2015.
Featured Reader at The Marrow, Chicago, USA, September 20, 2015.
Interview, Radio Paani Poori, Chicago, USA, August, 2015.
Panelist, Between Worlds: Writing Across Borders. Northwestern University, Evanston, USA, May 19, 2015.
Featured Reader at Rhino Reads, Evanston, USA, April 24, 2015.
Curated “The Alphabet Distant Harbours”, featuring Toni Nealie, Zhou Sivan, and Angela Narciso Torres. An Asian/American Reading Series for Guild Literary Complex, Chicago, USA, April 6, 2015.
Guest of Honour Speech at “Trajectory of Indian Diaspora, Culture and Ethnicity”, Department of English and Modern European Languages, University of Lucknow, India. March 20, 2015.
Featured Poet at Atta Galatta, Bangalore, India, March 7, 2015.
Featured on Chicago Global Desi World and Women on WLUW, Loyola University Radio Station, Chicago, USA, January 27, 2015.
Featured Poet at Traveling Mollys Reading Series. Forest Park, Illinois, USA. January 12, 2015.
2014
Panelist and Featured Writer at Kriti Festival, South Asian and Diaspora Arts and Literature in Chicago. University of Illinois, Chicago, USA, September 25-28 2014.
Curated “I Come To Your Country, Name Me”, featuring Rachel DeWoskin, Mary Anne Mohanraj, and Deepak Unnikrishnaan. An Asian/American Reading Series for Guild Literary Complex, Chicago, USA, Sept 24, 2014.
Panelist and Featured Writer at Asia Pacific Writers and Translators Association, Singapore, 17-20 July 2014.
Panelist and Featured Writer, Literary Evening with Professor Dipika Mukherjee, at ICC Multipurpose Hall, organized by the Consulate General of India, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, July 15, 2014.
Religious Identity, Language Variation, and Minority Rights in Malaysia. Buffett Center, Northwestern University, USA. May 9, 2014.
Featured Reader, Chicago Quarterly Review 20th Anniversary Reading At The Cliff Dwellers, Chicago, USA, May 7, 2014.
Religious Identity and Language Variation in Malaysia: Language and Minority Rights. Symposium on Language and Equality, Language and the United Nations, New York, USA. April 29, 2014.
Featured Reader at Srijan Poetry. Kolkata, India, 8th of March, 2014
Featured Writer at Readings at Seksan: 10th Anniversary. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, February 22, 2014.
Panelist at Irrawaddy Literary Festival, Mandalay, Myanmar, February 14-16, 2014.
2013
The Indian Diaspora in Malaysia and Language Change: The Curious Case of Religious Identity. IIT Kanpur, India. November 8, 2013.
Writing Asia: Global Opportunities for Desi Writing. IIT Kanpur, India. November 7, 2013.
Featured Reader at Poetry Reading, “Inspired By: Through The Word-Camera”, at Woman Made Gallery Literary Series, Chicago, USA, September 15, 2013.
The Effects of Religious Identity on Language Variation: Case Studies from Malaysia. Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University, USA. September 13, 2013.
Featured Storyteller at Eye on India Chicago Festival. Chicago, USA, July 11, 2013.
Yet Do I Marvel: Black Iconic Poets of the Twentieth Century. Poetry Foundation, Chicago segment of the Poetry Society of America's 2013 national series. Chicago, USA, June 6, 2013.
Featured Reader, Merdekarya, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. Excerpt from Thunder Demons and recent Poetry. February 23, 2013.
Panelist, Delhi Literary Festival, India, 10 February, 2013.
Language Variation among the Indian Diaspora in Malaysia: The curious effect of Religious Identity, Special Lecture at Sconli (Seventh Students' Conference of Linguistics in India) at Aligarh Muslim University, February 8, 2013.
Featured Writer and Panelist, Hyderabad Literary Festival, India, Jan 18-20, 2013.
2012
Thunder Demons & Writing Asia. Fairview International School, Malaysia, November 23, 2012.
Writing in Asia Today. International Islamic University, Malaysia, November 20, 2012.
The Correlation Between English Learning Motivation And Achievement In Three Chinese Junior Middle Schools. ICERI 2012 - 5th International Conference of Education Research and Innovation, Madrid, Spain, November 19 - 21, 2012 (with Yang Yang).
Thunder Demons & Writing Asia. Universiti Pertanian, Malaysia, November 19, 2012.
Thunder Demons reading at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, November 12, 2012.
National Language Planning & Language Maintenance: The Case of Two Asian Cities. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, November 12, 2012.
The Art of Business and the Business of Art: Asian Writing Today at the Singapore Management University, Singapore, November 9, 2012.
Featured Writer, The Art of Business and the Business of Art: Asian Writers Marketing Creativity, a talk and literary reading, Singapore Management University, Singapore, November 8, 2012.
Thunder Demons reading, Singapore Management University, Singapore, November 8, 2012.
National Language Planning & Language Shifts in Malaysian Minority Communities. National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA), Language and Communication faculty, NIDA Academic Forum, Bangkok, Thailand, November 7, 2012.
Featured Poet, Women Writers in Asia – Writing our Own Path to the Future, Reaching the World, co-organised by Asia Pacific Writers & Translators (AP Writers), South East Asian Writers’ Award (S.E.A Write), & hosted by Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University. Bangkok, Thailand, November 7, 2012.
Thunder Demons reading at Authors Showcase, Reaching the World, co-organised by Asia Pacific Writers & Translators (AP Writers), South East Asian Writers’ Award (S.E.A Write), & hosted by Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, November 6, 2012.
Featured Writer, Language Transformation: How Society Impacts the ‘Word’ and How Creative Writing Impacts Society. A talk and literary reading in the series Focus On Language: Social And Creative Perspectives. The Humanities Speakers Series, West Virginia University at Parkersburg, USA, October 23, 2012.
Language Transformation: How Society Impacts the ‘Word’ and How Creative Writing Impacts Society” A talk and literary reading in the series Focus On Language: Social And Creative Perspectives. The Humanities Speakers Series and the Office for Global Initiatives, West Virginia University at Parkersburg, October 23, 2012.
Understanding of the Complementary Relationship between Putonghua the Shanghai Dialect: Dialect Maintenance in Shanghai. Urban Language Seminar 10 (ULS 10), Utrecht, the Netherlands, August 19, 2012 (with Gong Tongxi, Huang Chenyun & Lau Xueting).
Featured Writer, Writing the Truth, Fact Or Fiction? Writers Unlimited Tour KL/Makassar 2011, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, June 10-12, 2011.
Featured Writer and Panelist, Thunder Demons at the Shanghai Writers Association, organised by the Consulate General of India, Shanghai, China, May 19, 2012.
Book Reading from Thunder Demons at the University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China, April 20, 2012.
Language Variation in Asia: The Curious Case of Malaysia and Religious Identity. University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China, April 19, 2012.
Featured Poet, Multilingual Poetry Reading at United Verses, Shanghai, China (English-Chinese-Bengali; Mountain Echoes & Guan Yin). March 17, 2012.
Featured Writer/Academic. "Writing the Indian Short Story: The Diasporic and the Political". UGC sponsored National Seminar on At The Crossroads: TheShort Story in Indian Literatures, in collaboration with the Centre of Advanced Studies, Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University and Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandir, Belur Math, Kolkata, 13-14 Feb 2012.
2011 and earlier
Writing and Researching Present-Day Malaysia: The Perils and the Pitfalls. International Institute of Asian Studies. Leiden, Netherlands, November 16, 2011.
Book Reading from Thunder Demons at the Mezrab, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, November 12, 2011.
Book launch of “Thunder Demons” in four Indian cities (Delhi/Kolkata/Bangalore/Chennai), India, September 2011.
Short Story Reading at Borders (The Curve), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, June 25, 2011.
Thunder Demons (excerpt) reading at Times (Pavilion), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, June 19, 2011.
Short Story Reading at Kinokuniya (KLCC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, June 17, 2011.
Featured Poet, Poetry Out Loud! The Shanghai International Literary Festival, Shanghai, China, March 16, 2011.
Moderator for Deborah Baker’s session A Blue Hand: The Beats in India. The Shanghai International Literary Festival, Shanghai, China, March 4-19, 2011.
Featured Reader (First Chapter of “Finding Piya”) at Out Loud! Shanghai, China, November 14, 2010.
Featured Poet, International Room & Main Stage, Het Huis Van Poesie, Poetry Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands, January 28, 2010.
Poetry Reading at Waterstones, (Book Launch of Palimpsest of Exile) Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 4, 2009.
Featured Poet, The Open Stanza, The Sugar Factory, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, March 8, 2007.
Poetry Reading at Iowa Summer Writing Festival, Iowa City, The University of Iowa, USA, July 28, 2004.
Religious Affiliation and Language Shift: The Case of Indian Communities in Malaysia. ESP in Asia Conference, University of Nottingham, Ningbo China, November 11-13, 2010.
Featured Poet, Favorite Poem Project, Hyde Park, Chicago, July 22, 2010.
National Language Planning & Language Shifts in Malaysian Minority Communities: Speaking in Many Tongues. Shanghai International Studies University, China, April 29, 2010.
Why Writing Groups Matter and How To Create a Successful Writing Community. Center for Studies in Foreign Literature, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, April 6, 2010.
Featured Poet at the Hideout, Austin, Texas, Dec 21, 2009.
Featured Poet, Lahani's, Port Townsend, U.S.A, December 4, 2009.
Featured Poet, Readings at Seksan, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, July 28, 2009.
Women’s Voices In The Diaspora: Is “Multi” Something To Be Celebrated? Third Annual Conference of the South Asian Studies Association, University of Central Florida, Orlando, April 3-5, 2009.
Bideshi And Bicultural: Language Maintenance In Two Diasporic Indian Communities In Malaysia and The Netherlands. Kern Institute, Leiden, The Netherlands, March 20, 2009.
Language Attitude and Language Shift among Surinamese-Hindustani Women: Focus on a Bollywood Dance Class in Amsterdam. International Institute of Asian Studies Fellows Symposium, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, February 25, 2009.
Loving Bollywood and Being Dutch: Multilingual code- switching and Identity issues among Surinamese-Indian women in Amsterdam. Panel on (2008) Multilingual identities: new global perspectives on immigrant discourse. AILA (Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée: 15th World Congress for Applied Linguistics), Essen, Germany, 24-29 August, 2008.
What decides Relevance and Accuracy? The Perils of Language Education in the Workplace. Talking Across the World Conference 2008, Bangalore, India, 25 - 26 April, 2008.
Its really nice...you can see in the movies: The landscape of loss in the language of Surinamese-Hindustani women in the Netherlands. Center for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore, India. April 24, 2008.
Discussant for “MABBIM and the Development of Malay: Minimizing Geopolitical Divergences,” at Malay/Indonesian as a Language of Knowledge and Practical Communication, IIAS Roundatable Meeting, Leiden, The Netherlands. 26th March, 2008.
I Want Them Also Proud To Be A Hindustani: Surinamese-Indian Women and Bollywood Dancing. Babylon, Centre for the Study of Multicultural Society, at Tilburg University, December 10, 2007.
Language Choice of the Minority Indian Communities in Malaysia. 5th Urban Language Seminar, Leiden University, Netherlands, 9-11 July 2007.
Adaptation or Integration? Language Choice in Malaysian Indian Communities. Panel on Language Policy And Language Reality, Croatian Applied Linguistics Society – 21st International Conference, Split, Croatia, 24th-26th May 2007 (with Maya Khemlani David).
On-Line Courses and Teaching English Writing: A Comparative Study of West Virginia and Singapore. West Virginia Association of College English Teachers (WVACET) Spring Meeting, Charleston, West Virginia, March 10-11, 2006.
Reconciling Matriarchy and Islam: Fictional voices of Malaysian women. Women’s Centre, Bowling Green State University April 20, 2005.
Everyone is Dada and Didi and Boudi and whathaveyou: Kinship Terms and Language Maintenance in the Bengali Community in Malaysia. Panel Presentation in Dimensions of Desi Diaspora, South Asian Language Analysis (SALA) 24, State University of New York, Stony Brook, USA, November 19-21, 2004.
Also presented at the Bowling Green State University ESL Workshop/Internship session on November 5th, 2004.
"Technical Communication in Singapore: Profession, Prospects and Pay". Information Design in the Electronic Age (I.D.E.A.) 2002. Co hosted by Ngee Ann Polytechnic and Society for Technical Communication (Singapore Chapter) and supported by A*STAR, and Science 02. Ngee Ann Polytechnic, September 4, 2002.
Creating an Online Technical Writing Course for Corporate Clients: Challenges and Tribulations, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, June 17-19, 2002.
Session Chair: Online Learning, June 19, 2002. Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning (ASAHIL 2002), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, June 17-19 2002.
Linguistic Insecurity, Collaborative Learning and an Online Technical Writing Course: What Happens Next? International Conference on Computers and Advanced Technology in Education (CATE2002), Cancun, Mexico, May 20-22, 2002.
Session Chair: Collaborative Systems, Projects, and Web-based Learning II, May 22, 2002. International Conference on Computers and Advanced Technology in Education (IASTED), May 20-22, 2002 Cancun, Mexico.
"Our Students are so Kiasu?" Encouraging Active Student's Participation in edveNTUre. 2002 Teacher of the Year Awards Ceremony. Nanyang Technological University, April 20, 2002.
“The Next Wave of e-Learning: Demonstration of Best Practices in edveNTUre. NTU-NIE Staff Development Programme 2001. Nanyang Technological University, July 4, 2001.
Do students actually learn online? International Conference on Computers and Advanced Technology in Education (CATE2001), Banff, Canada, June 27-29, 2001.
“On Line Assessments.” Press Conference for the launch of edveNTUre. Nanyang Technological University, April 10, 2001.
“e-Teaching Writing Courses: Collaborative Knowledge Sharing.” Nanyang Technological University May 8, 2001
On-Line Teaching Technologies And Their Implications For Learning, Teaching And The Future Of Tertiary Education: An NTU Perspective, 9th Asia Regional Association for Career Development (ARACD) Conference, Singapore, March 11-13, 2001 (with Daniel Lwin & Daniel Tan).
Accuracy, Recall and Motivation: The Quest for a Link in Web-based Learning, Research and Practice in Professional Discourse, City University of Hong Kong, November 15-19, 2000.
Reading between the lines: Discourse Structures and the Computer Engineering Student, Georgetown University Round table on Languages and Linguistics (GURT) 2000, Georgetown University, Washington D.C, May 4-6, 2000, (with Stephen McDonnell).
Jostling for Space; English, Malay and Bengali in an Immigrant Community, International Conference on 3rd Language Acquisition and Trilingualism, Innsbruck, Austria, Sep 16-18, 1999.
Arranged Marriages and Foreign Brides: Language Maintenance in the Malaysian-Bengali Community, Sixth New Zealand Language and Society Conference, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, June 29, 1998.
Politics And Power: Language Use By Women In The Malaysian-Bengali Community, Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (SEALS VII) Meeting, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A, May 9, 1997.
Survival of the Fittest: Ethnic Identity and Language Use by Women in the Immigrant Malaysian-Bengali Community, The Linguistic Construction of Social and Personal Identity, Universidade de Evora, Portugal, March 25-29, 1996.
Bahasa/Bhasha: Ethnic Identity and language diversity among immigrant Malaysian-Bengali women, Linguistics Association of the Southwest (LASSO) Conference, Houston, United States of America, October 23, 1994.
Ethnic Identity and language use by women in the immigrant Malaysian-Bengali Community, Sociolinguistics Symposium 10, Lancaster University, United Kingdom, March 24, 1994.
Collaborative Writing, Linguistic Insecurity and the International Classroom, Towards More Effective Learning and Teaching of English, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 24-27, 1993.
Frozen forms in Incipient Bilingualism, TAMU Colloquium, College Station, Texas, October 9, 1992.
