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Knives, Seasoning, and a Dash of Love
By Katrina Kwan

In this spicy workplace romance, a hotheaded celebrity chef finds himself drawn to his inexperienced new hire. But when her bubbly attitude collides with his sharp edges, can they handle the heat, or will their love be a recipe for disaster?

Alexander Chen is one of the most talented chefs to ever grace the culinary world of French haute cuisine. He rules his kitchen with an iron fist and fiery temper, so it’s no secret that if you can’t handle the heat, he’ll gladly toss you out with the trash. As one of the first Chinese-American chefs to claw his way to the top, he has a lot to prove and a massive chip on his shoulder.

But he wasn’t always like this. Eden Monroe, his newly hired sous chef—who may or may not have (definitely) embellished a lot on her resumé to land herself the job—knew him back when he still went by his real name, Shang. He used to be sweet and helpful and definitely not the second coming of the devil himself.

Eden won’t say anything, though, no matter how hot her curiosity burns. Especially if it could cost her this job, which she needs if she has any hope of hiring a private detective to find something she lost long ago.

All she has to do is fly under the radar. It’s just a shame that she and her new boss butt heads more often than they fulfill orders. But what happens when things finally boil over, and they discover the feelings between them are spicier than they ever imagined?

Batshit Seven
By Sheung King

*2024 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Winner*

Glen Wu (aka Glue) couldn’t care less about his job. He’s returned to Hong Kong, the city he grew up in, and he’s teaching ESL, just to placate his parents. But he shows up hungover to class, barely stays awake, and prefers to spend his time smoking up until dawn breaks.

Inventive and utterly irresistible, with QR codes woven throughout, Sheung-King’s ingenious novel encapsulates the anxieties and apathies of the millennial experience. Batshit Seven is an ode to a beloved city, an indictment of the cycles of imperialism, and a reminder of the beautiful things left under the hype of commodified living.

The Book of Rain
By Thomas Wharton

*2023 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Finalist*

The northern mining town of River Meadows is one of three hotspots in the world producing ghost ore, a new source of energy worth twenty-eight times its weight in gold. It’s also linked with slippages of time and space that gradually render the area uninhabitable. After the town is evacuated, the whole region is cordoned off, the new no-go zone wryly nicknamed “the Park.”

Three intertwined stories flow from the disaster of River Meadows. Alex Hewitt and his sister, Amery, were among the first to be shipped out of the contaminated town. Now an accomplished game designer, Alex has moved on, but his sister has not, making increasingly dangerous break-ins to save animals trapped in the toxic wasteland. When at last she fails to return from a trip inside the fence, Alex flies to River Meadows to search for her, enlisting her friend, Michio Amano, a mathematician who needs to transcend the known laws of physics if he and Alex are to succeed.

Chinatown
By Madeleine Thien & Alice Ping Yee Ho

Step into the evocative world of ‘Chinatown,’ an extraordinary opera that weaves the gripping narratives of early Chinese newcomers in search of a brighter future. This groundbreaking production, blending Hoisanese and English, pays homage to their resilience and the challenges they faced. Composed by Alice Ping Yee Ho, with librettist Madeleine Thien and translator Paul Yee, ‘Chinatown’ is a moving musical journey through history. Experience the power of their stories in this heartfelt opera.

The Cave
By Tomson Highway, John Millard & Martha Ross

A ragged group of animals flee for their lives and take refuge in a cave. The animals, through song, comment on their fate and that of the world. What caused their dire situation? The writing was supported by two themes: the Genesis ‘expulsion from the garden’ story, and our changing environment. In our complacent greed we are ‘evicting’ ourselves and all creatures from the ‘garden’. The Cave is our way of telling the story of the earth’s precarious survival.

The Lesson of Da Ji
By Marjorie Chan & Alice Ping Yee Ho

With this award-winning work, Juno Award nominated composer Alice Ping Yee Ho and her collaborator librettist Marjorie Chan have created an opera that blends Chinese, Baroque, and Western art forms while bringing legend and dance into a world of music and drama.The Lesson of Da Ji blends the European masque tradition with classical Peking opera to tell a vibrant and beautiful story, an invented tale of forbidden love based on the historic character of Da Ji, a famous concubine of the Shang Dynasty. The unique instrumentation of the accompanying ensemble has been chosen to showcase the expressive quality of Chinese instruments (pipa, zhongruan, guzheng, and erhu), the elegance of Baroque instruments (lute, recorders, harpsichord, bass viol), the lush Western strings as well as the dramatic use of percussion instruments.

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