Peril is a new Asian-Australian website designed to build a critical mass of Asian-Australian art and cultural concerns. Our ambition is to have two core issues a year on the site with a forum board for people to chat and comment. Why Peril? From the so called Yellow Peril that labelled the wave of Chinese immigration in the 19th century. We are perilious and take risks but not in the way that the Pauline Hansons of the world think!

We are also calling for contributions for issue two – and the theme is “Heroes”. The closing date for submissions is September 1 2006.

For our inaugural issue we have interviewed Hsu-Ming Teo, a self professed nerd, about her most recent novel “Behind the Moon”. Andy Quan will entertain you with his reflections on how homosexuality saved him from being a nerd… An anonymous contributor reveals the world of imageboards on the net and Tom Cho takes us to dinner with his relatives. We have included two poems from S.K. Kelen on computers and some Asian influenced artwork by Tim Gaze. Finally I have included an article of my own about finding myself in fantasy fiction.

We have some links to some fantastic nerdy sites that we would like to share with you, including a nerd questionnaire which the editors have taken. If you’re interested Tseen and Hoa scored as modern cool nerds and Tom scored higher than 93% on nerdiness, higher than 57% on geekosity and higher than 50% on dork points which made him – well a nerd! For the record:

• A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
• A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
• A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

We are also calling for contributions for issue two – and the theme is “Heroes”. We welcome articles, poems, fiction, and artwork around the theme. Our preferred format is plain text and the closing date for submissions is September 1 2006. Send your material or enquiries to peril@asianaustralian.org