Novels
Sofia and the Utopia Machine, Epigram Books 2018. A young girl accidentally creates a new universe in her mother’s government lab in Singapore. Can she get away from the authorities before it’s too late?
“An impeccable local fable of authoritarian unimaginativeness”
– Wong Wen Pu, Mackerel
Shortlisted for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize 2017 and the Singapore Book Awards 2019
Buy the ebook here (pays off my advance – I won’t get anything), the physical book here (pays off my advance) if you are not in Singapore for the best shipping, or drop me a line for a signed copy with a little extra swag (I earn the most if you do this – basically SGD$8.00 if I pass on the cost of shipping to you).
Sofia and the Utopia Machine audiobook also available from Storytel, narrated by Bianca Kimble.
Immersive Art
Virtual Reality
Marcus and the Shadow is a Virtual Reality artwork commissioned by Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) in 2022, and follows the story of a young boy who meets his Shadow, a black winged lion that haunts him. He must learn to cope with difficult emotions like grief, sadness and despair in order to learn to ride astride his Shadow. Initially created as a picture book with fountain pen illustrations, the VR presentation creates an immersive environment with soundscapes and interactivity, to portray a message of hope and resilience against the odds. Made with Unity Developer and real-life VR wizard Stacey Fazackerley and with New York composer Sam Torres providing a haunting track ’18’, as well as poetry sung by myself and stunning 360 degree visuals.
Visual Storytelling/Sequential Art
Chun Xue (Spring Snow) by Hao Ran, Illustrated: Hao Ran was the only fiction writer allowed to publish during China’s Cultural Revolution. Although critics think of him as a propagandist today, this illustration project throws doubt onto this critical consensus through bringing out the nuance and ambiguity in a short story he wrote about a revolutionary young woman and an elderly ‘capitalist roader’ man castrating pigs in a small village. I used traditional Chinese art techniques and iconography, and the art style then bleeds into expressionism and finally abstraction inspired by 1980s Chinese artists like Wu Guanzhong who were influenced in their abstraction by Jackson Pollock and Picasso. The project aims to ask the question of our time: if you were a pig, would you rather be castrated by capitalism or communism? Read/view it here at Asymptote Journal. Art by Judith Huang, Critical Essay by Judith Huang, with Calligraphy by Zhipeng “Nick” Huang.
Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse Illustrated
“One of the most interesting, ambitious and elegant submissions I have ever received. My congratulations; keep painting – ” — James Wood
Since To The Lighthouse is Virginia Woolf‘s “turn of the century” novel, I made a sequence of 37 plates illustrating the novel working through the art styles of the time period (1800s to 1920s), from naturalism to cubism to abstraction. I also included some typographical experiments to present the slideshow as a visual novel. [reformatting for current website]
Short Fiction
Dark Chocolate – in QLRS October 2022 – read here for free
2219: How the Lion Brought Down the City published as part of ArtScience Museum’s 2219: Futures Imagined exhibition – read here for free
Ants in Loreli READ September 2016 – Read here for free
Ambergris in Spittoon Issue 2 – Read here for free
The City in Ayam Curtain ed. JY Yang and Joyce Chng, shortlisted in Best Singaporean Short Stories – buy here
Second Best Friends at Quarterly Literary Review Singapore – Read here for free
Poetry
Conversations with Water and Singa, two new poems in Of Zoos 13.1 – Read here for free
Love Across the Causeway, a series of love poems set in Singapore in Portside Review Issue 12 – Read here for free
Rokujo, Jesus in the Jing and Radio in Asia Literary Review Issue 32 – Read Rokujo here, Buy here
Caliban in Asian Cha – Read here
Making rounds in Spittoon Issue 1
Swing Past Old Pluto and farewell blue elephant in LONTAR #8 – Buy here
Ants (reprint) and a different story in LONTAR #10 – Buy here
The Apocalypse Museum and the ride home in Bones, Prairie Schooner – Read here for free
Translation
Vanishing Beijing by King Shatuo, about a technology that shields untrendy businesses from view in Beijing, trans Judith Huang for the 2024 Worldcon Glasgow Future Affairs Administration packet, read here for free.
A World of Tragic Heroes by Zhou Wen, about an AI that becomes a grand director for all the world as a stage. trans. Judith Huang in The Digital Aesthete: Human Musings on the Intersection of Art and AI, edited by Alex Shvartsman (2023). Read here. Anthology available here.
How the Stars were Connected by Zhou Wen, about stargate-traveling friends. trans Judith Huang in Future SF Magazine (2022). Read here for free.
Enclosure by Mu Hai, about a virtual reality version of Nanjing after all humans have been uploaded to virtual reality. trans. Judith Huang forthcoming in Rikka Zine (2022) Japan.
By Those Hands by Mu Ming, in which a neuroscience researcher does some unorthodox experiments on a traditional basket weaver in Sichuan. trans. Judith Huang in Clarkesworld Anthology (2022).
Rat’s Tongue by Xin Fan, where an intrepid courtier looks for an exotic delicacy for a tyranical emperor, trans. Judith Huang in Future SF Magazine (2022). Read here for free.
A Mountain of Dust by Wangxiang Fengnian, a novella about a world where you never die, but just shrink down in size when you don’t have enough to eat, trans Judith Huang in Future SF Magazine (2021). Read here for free.
The Final Test by Ti Sha, about a Turing test set by AI for an AI doing a gaokao to gain citizenship, trans Judith Huang in Future SF Magazine (2021)
The Woman Carrying a Corpse by Chi Hui, trans Judith Huang, in The Way Spring Arrives, an anthology of Chinese women’s science fiction by Tor.com publishing (2022).
WINNER OF THE ROSETTA AWARD FOR SFF TRANSLATION 2021:
Rœsin by Wu Guan, trans Judith Huang, in Future SF Magazine December 2020 East Asia Issue – Read here for free. Also available in the Rosetta Archive in print here. Also a Locus recommended story.
Shanghai Stories by Xiao Shui, trans Judith Huang, in Asymptote – Read here for free
Stories from the Bohai Sea by Xiao Shui, trans Judith Huang in LA Review of books – Read here for free
Drums, Bells and Nests by Ye Mei, trans Judith Huang, in Spittoon Issue 3 – Buy here
Poems by Yeng Pway Ngon (box set of chapbooks) trans. Judith Huang, Goh Beng Choo and Alvin Pang by Ethos Books.
Translation work for National Library Board of Singapore
Editing
I was the poetry editor of the Singlit heartbreak writing anthology Perks of Being Dumped (Marshall Cavendish 2024). An incredible book full of stories, poems and creative non-fiction about the upsides of breakups. Available on Amazon here.
Op-Eds/Essays/Reviews
Download Girlfriend, a creative non-fiction piece about an AI girlfriend, in The Pearl Prize 2025 anthology – Read here
Island Inheritance, Mother Material: Review of Dinner on Monster Island by Tania de Rozario in SUSPECT magazine here
Review of Who Comes Calling? By Miriam Wei Wei Lo in Mascara Review here
In a Singapore full of crazy rich foreigners, inequality is becoming ingrained – South China Morning Post – read here
I’ve written a lot about the intersection of faith, science, art and rationality/mysticism. You can read this stuff in my author page at the Harvard Ichthus here
Some of the greatest hits include:
- The Doubt. On burying my grandma
- The Great Pleasure. On coming to terms with learning the young earth Creationism I grew up with was wrong, thanks to stargazing and a whale skeleton.
- Screwtape on Prefrosh. Exactly what it sounds like. In which I rip apart Harvard, academia and elitism in general in the style of everyone’s favourite CS Lewis demon mentor.
- Real Artists Ship. Why you should stop sitting on your stuff and just send it to someone, even if it’s just one person.
- Philip Larkin: Congregating Endlessly. A little manifesto on what I’d like religion to be, something based on water.
- Dark and Powerful and Beautiful: Sex and the Single Christian. I guess I just found a poetic way to say it’s okay to be horny if it’s spring.
- His Presence in Childhood. Intimations of another world as a child.
- To Darken Counsel without Knowledge. Judith’s Answer to Job.
- What we don’t talk about when we don’t talk about failure. On the theory that we are narrative creatures and what to do about perfectionism.
- On Zora Neale Hurston’s Moses. Literary treatments of Biblical subjects and the gap between text and truth
Interviews
Heartlines Interview at Centre for Stories
Loreli Interview (Scroll down) conducted by Max Berwald