“The Writing Life Beyond COVID-19: A Virtual Residency” was co-organised by Cha: An Asian Literary Journal and the newly founded Mongrel Writers Residence™, featuring SEVEN Hong Kong-based writers and Cha contributors and SIX transnational writers, who are graduates and students of the International MFA in Vermont and the former CityU-HK MFA, two MFA programs directed or co-directed by the renowned writer Xu Xi. Every day for seven days in a row, one writer from Hong Kong was teamed up with one transnational writer to read their work, comment on each other’s writing, and talk about their life during these strange and extraordinary times. Moderated by Tammy Lai-Ming Ho (Cha) and Xu Xi (The Mongrel Writers Residence™). The videos are available below.

Day 1: MON August 3 (led by Xu Xi)
Belle Ling: “The Untranslatability of my Udon Breakfast”
Alizah Holstein: “The Mathematics of Distance”

Day 2: TUE August 4 (led by Tammy Ho)
Marco Yan: “Train”
Hayley Katzen: “Every Paddock Has Its Problems”

Day 3: WED August 5 (led by Xu Xi)
Collier Nogues: “There is a Season Waiting Behind This One”
Lavanya Shanbhogue-Arvind: “Misadventures of a Masked Kind”

Day 4: THU August 6 (led by Tammy Ho)
Cheng Tim Tim: “Love in Isolation” and “The End of Policing”
Xu Xi: Opening excerpt of the essay “When Your City Vanishes”

Day 5: FRI August 7 (led by Xu Xi)
Chris Song: “Worried About Home”
Paul Rozario-Falcone: “When Lovers Die”

Day 6: SAT August 8 (led by Tammy Ho)
Chan Lai-kuen: “An Elephant of Foam”
Jake Edelstein: “Scattered: On Losing Focus, A Job, and Moving in a Pandemic”

Day 7: SUN August 9 (led by Xu Xi)
Henrik Hoeg: “Writing in the Time of (Blank)”
Joey Chin: “The Present is Tense”