Tom Cho, as well as being an editorial adviser on Peril is also an author in his own right. We caught up with him just before the release of his new book “Look who’s morphing”.
Peril:     “Look who’s morphing” has a pretty unique cover – it’s a portrait of you! How does this reflect in the content of the short stories inside?
Tom: Putting myself on the front cover of my own book is a playful move – and a bit audacious. That’s also how the book itself can be seen: …

Fashion/Fetish – An interview with Tom Cho and a variety of short prose pieces and poetry.

Nam Le’s first anthology of short stories “The Boat” has met with critical and commercial success internationally. Peril was lucky enough to catch him on the run.

The installation Pho Dog provoked a reaction from the Vietnamese Community Association in Western Australia.

Passing, Failing – Interviews with Nam Le and Mai Long, and a variety of short prose pieces and poetry in response to the theme. We invite people to comment on our commentary with their views.

Hoa Pham interviews Vietnamese-Australian actress, HaiHa Le.

Dominic Golding’s autobiographical play “Shrimp” toured regional Victoria in 2007 as part of the VCE Drama Studies list. Most of the responses he said were good, especially from the students from minority backgrounds. However there was an incident when Dom had to confront a student’s verbal racism during the performance, and some of the teachers were stunned- having not read the briefing about what the play was about. We have published two excerpts of “Shrimp” to see what the fuss was about.

Welcome to issue 5, Drama. Firstly congratulations to Phillip Tang and Shalini Akhil whose pieces published in Peril were picked up the “Growing Up Asian in Australia” anthology edited by Alice Pung. Alice’s interview in the last issue has also been picked up by the Education Department in Western Australia for study notes. In this issue we are privileged to have interviews with the actress HaiHa Le, the artist Van Rudd and the author Simone Lazaroo. We also have excerpts from Dominic Golding’s play “Shrimp” and poetry …

This edition themed “The meaning of life” features an interview with Alice Pung exploring her meaning of life.
It includes a poem inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen Master, a commentary by Rosey Chang on the Dalai Lama and poetry by myself, Rosey and George Mouradatis. We also have a sound piece by Josh Goldman, for seven voices without words and a review of a workshop I attended at the University of Wollongong on Asian/Australian Values: New Directions in Australian Literature.
The next issues will be themed “Drama” with the …

Alice Pung is the author of the highly successful “An Unpolished Gem”. We managed to catch her in between literary dates and her work as a lawyer to ask her a few questions about the meaning of life.

Highlights from the Asian/Australian Values: New Directions in Australian Literature Workshop
I attended this workshop along with Tom Cho courtesy of Wenche Ommundsen and Alison Broinowski who brought together writers, publishers and academics to discuss Asian/Australian Values. Much was quoted from the current Griffith Review issue “In the Neighbourhood”, which featured articles discussing translation and “contamination” as a way of literary cross-pollination.

Josh Goldman is a composer / improviser / guitarist / educator who resides in the United States. He composes / improvises / performs music, using acoustic and electronic sources, for various ensembles and settings. Much of his music combines sound and visual elements (film / video / various installation spaces). His compositions and performances have been heard and awarded internationally. Mr. Goldman holds degrees from New England Conservatory of Music (BM in music performance) and Brooklyn College, CUNY (MM in music composition). 
Language is a stereophonic sound structure composed for …