JUDITH HUANG

IS A MULTIMEDIA CREATOR,

ARTIST,

AUTHOR, EDITOR, TRANSLATOR,

SINGER-SONGWRITER,

EDUCATOR and TECHNOLOGIST

Her first novel, Sofia and the Utopia Machine, is about a young girl who feels abandoned by everyone – from her father who disappeared when she was 7, to her controlling but neglectful mother who wants her to be what she is not. She creates her own world in VR, but when this leads to a big bang in an actual universe in the Utopia Machine, which opens portals to other realms in the multiverse, in her mother’s secret government lab, she loses everything – her city, her country, her world and her illusions about society, and must go on the run with only her wits and her online friend, the mysterious “Isaac”, to help her. Will she be able to save her world as well as herself? The novel was shortlisted for the Epigram Book Fiction Prize 2017 and the Singapore Book Awards 2019.

Judith has always been interested in creating poetic, aesthetic experiences that use all the senses. She has been tinkering on the internet since 1997, when she first started building a html virtual reality called pseudoReality. When she was 17 she launched one of the first online retailers, Rachel and Judith, selling and marketing handmade jewelry in Singapore with clients abroad and at home, and had to ask her teenaged business partner’s mother for her credit card so she could use Paypal as one of its first vendors. She is now a multimedia artist working on actually building the Utopia Machine.

A three-time winner of the British Poetry Society’s Foyle Young Poet of the Year Award, Judith graduated from Harvard University with an A.B. in English and American Literature and Language on a Loke Cheng Kim Foundation Scholarship. She has taught creative and academic writing at the Harvard Writing Center and Yale-NUS College. This is the best thing she learned at Harvard:

As a literary and SFF translator, she translated the four-volume box set collected of Cultural Medallion winner Yeng Pway Ngon, as well as short stories and poetry for Future SF Magazine, Asymptote, the Singapore National Library Board, The LA Review of Books, China Daily, Spittoon Collective and LoReLi. She has published original work in Prairie Schooner, Asia Literary Review, The South China Morning Post, The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, QLRS and Cha.

As an arts collective organizer, she was a founding member and translator for the Spittoon Collective wechat channels and magazines and reading/music/collaboration series in China, which currently has branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Xi’an, Dali, Tucson (AZ, USA) and Gothenburg (Sweden). You can read an interview done by Loreli of her in China here (scroll to the bottom). She started the longest-running performance poetry competition in Singapore, YAWP! in 2003, which is still running today, as well as Specfic FTW! (SG), a science fiction collective. She also created postcards for QSPACE, a feminist makerspace in Beijing. In Perth, she is the co-founder of Chilli Jam Open Mic, an open mic in Fremantle for poetry, music and stories that centres diverse voices. See @chillijamopenmic on Instagram.

She teaches creative writing workshops with Singlit Station in Singapore and Heartplace in Fremantle.

She was the recipient of an All Write Hot Desk Fellowship from the Centre for Stories in Perth in 2024 and a micro-residency at the Perth Poetry Festival 2024, where she performed in the Finale and at Poetry Mosaic. She was also shortlisted for the Pearl Prize 2025 for her creative non-fiction piece, “Download Girlfriend”.

She is currently based between Singapore and Australia and counts fiber arts, bunny tending, designing and writing knitting patterns, permaculture gardening and learning Arduino as her hobbies.

Instagram: @judtheobscure (current main showcase of workflow)

Email: contactATjudithhuangDOTcom (most reliable)

Resume

Education

Harvard College, A.B. cum laude in English and American Literature and Language, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Loke Cheng Kim Foundation Scholarship (Singapore)
Harvard College Scholar 2005/06
Hwa Chong Junior College, Humanities Scholarship Program, Singapore.
Raffles Girls’ School (Secondary), Singapore

Awards, Grants & Fellowships

Shortlisted for The Pearl Prize 2025, Osbourne and Fawkner
All Write Hot Desk Fellowship at Centre for Stories, Perth 2024
Music of the City Micro-Residency at Perth Poetry Festival 2024
XR:WA/PICA Bootcamp and Hackathon selected artist 2022
Rosetta Award for SFF translation winner – short form 2021
Singapore Book Award Shortlist (Singapore ) 2019
Epigram Books Fiction Prize Shortlist (Singapore) 2017
Asian Cha “Encountering Poetry” Contest Top 20 Long List (Hong Kong) 2012
LeBaron Russell Briggs Traveling Prize (USA) 2010
Sydney M. Williams Grant for the Visual Arts (USA) 2008
Alexander Booth Foundation Traveling Fellowship (USA) 2008
Signet Society of Arts and Letters (USA) 2007
Alice Mary Longfellow Fellowship (USA) 2006
Harvard College Research Project Grant (USA) 2005
F. Stanton Deland, Jr Endowment for Undergraduate Research Grant (USA) 2005/6
Foyle Young Poet of the Year (UK) 2004
Foyle Young Poet of the Year (UK) 2003
Simon Elvin Young Poet of the Year (UK) 2001
National Arts Council-Rotary Club Arts Grant (Singapore) 2005
Creative Arts Program Mentorship (Singapore) 2000, 2003
Singapore Youth Festival Silver Medal for original play, 2002

Selected Publications – Creative/Journalistic

Portside Review
Future SF Magazine
Prairie Schooner
Asian Cha
Asia Literary Review
Asymptote
Spittoon Literary Magazine
Quarterly Literary Review Singapore
China Daily
Lianhe Zaobao
Loreli
The Harvard Advocate
The Harvard Ichthus
VOX
Stylus Poetry Journal
Softblow Poetry Journal
Asymptote Journal
LONTAR
South China Morning Post

Selected Anthologies

Poetry Editor for Perks of Being Dumped, an anthology published by Marshall Cavendish
Tor.com anthology of Chinese women and non-binary Science fiction, “The Way Spring Arrives” 2021.
In Transit. Mathpaperpress. Singapore. 2016
Body Boundaries. The Literary Centre. Singapore. 2014
Ayam Curtain. Mathpaperpress. Singapore. 2012
Bringing it to Life. Pocket Poetry 2012. What if group, UK. 2012
Journeys. Sampad, Birmingham, UK. 2010
Creative Arts Program Alumni Anthology. Singapore. 2009.
Foyle Young Poets of the Year: 10th Anniversary Anthology. Ed. Andrew Bailey, George Ttoouli. The Poetry Society, London, UK. 2007.
from This tree. CAP Alumni Publication, Singapore. 2005.
but, ed. Cyril Wong. Singapore. 2005.

Selected Publications – Academic

Yeng Pway Ngon Poems: Personal Notes, Self-Exile, Resurgence, Other Thoughts. co-translated with Goh Beng Choo. 2012.
Judith Huang. 2009. A Little Bit of Immortality: The Mysterious Redemption of Karamazov. The Harvard Ichthus 5.2 – Winter 2009. Download ichthus5.21
Total Vision: Remedios Varo as Woman Artist and Heir to Surrealism, Expose 2005-6, pp. 64-71. Download HERE
Choy Keen Meng, Judith Huang, 2004, Economic Forecasting in Singapore, HSSRP 2003-2004, pp. 8-18. HERE

Readings & Exhibitions

Perth Poetry Festival (Western Australia) 2024.
Georgetown Literary Festival (Malaysia) 2023.
Singapore Writer’s Festival (Singapore) 2018, 2022.
Perth Poetry Club Featured Poet (Perth) 2023.
Woman Scream Featured Poet (Perth) 2024.
Navy Club Fremantle Open Mike (Western Australia) 2020.
Spoke & Bird Reading Series (Singapore) 2018.
Destination: INK Reading Series. (Singapore) 2017.
Spittoon Fiction Reading Series. (Beijing) 2015-2016.
Spittoon Poetry Reading Series Featured Poet. (Beijing) 2014-2016.
Etiquette + AWARE: Sugar & Spice Reading, The Pigeonhole (Singapore). 2012
City of Stirling Art Exhibition (Australia). 2010
Passion People: New Radio 93.8 Radio Interview (Singapore). 2005
Tuesday Magazine Arts First “Art in Progress” Exhibition (Boston). 2005/6
Harvard Advocate Reading Series (Boston)
Subtext Literary Reading at The Book Café (Singapore). 2004
National University of Singapore Centre for the Arts: Dome Literary Reading (Singapore). 2004
Foyle Young Poets Alumni Reading, Cambridge University (UK). 2005
Gamut Reading Series (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

About Judith