Pandan Weekly

a bi-annual zine celebrating art made with and for a community + a weekly email newsletter delivering hearty pieces from Asia and the diaspora

What we believe

A community helps us find confidence, our voice, and our audience, and get the support and safe space we need to be vulnerable as artists.

You’re probably familiar with the lone artist trope. While that may suit some people just fine, many of us crave to be more connected. That’s because we thrive when we are in community with fellow open-minded writers. Being part of such an environment is already special, and we are taking things further by releasing zines as proof of the beauty of communities.

We’re here to encourage community, not competition, among writers.

Traditional publishing can feel competitive, as writers’ works are often evaluated against each other for limited space in a lit mag. This can result in writers becoming more competitive or dejected, or simply keeping to themselves. Here, with our submission process, we seek to remove competition and encourage generosity, so that writers can freely support other writers.

A piece of writing doesn’t have to be the “best” to be read; it just has to be written with intention.

We’re here to help authors be read by their intended audience, and we want to empower authors to share and talk about their work, because they might not have had that chance in the past. We’re also here for readers who’ve been waiting and searching for more stories written about or for them. The newsletter format adds a personal touch to how these stories are delivered, each piece a gift.

The reasons we write what we write matter, whether those reasons are political, personal, or both.

While there are works we can appreciate without knowing their respective contexts, there’s no denying that we can understand and enjoy them more deeply once we learn where the author is coming from. And given that the voices of people in other parts of the world don’t reach us, who else will tell us about the works and the stories or circumstances behind them, if not the authors themselves?

We imagine a kinder, more empathetic, and more connected world through stories, by seeing—and vicariously experiencing—different but familiar and nuanced perspectives.

We’re here to shine more light on the stories and cultures of people closer to home—people like us, people who aren’t sure where home is anymore, or people who have realized we have more than one home.

Writers should be able to talk openly, without being shamed, about their creative process.

Doing so can help fellow writers who are going through similar challenges (writing isn’t easy or glamorous for many of us). Likewise, we love to see all writers, not just the bestselling or award-winning authors, promote and take pride in their work. We celebrate the act of writing something meaningful to oneself and/or other people.

We don’t believe in hierarchies.

What you read and what we publish are works that mean something to someone, and for us, that’s worth sharing.

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Editor

Stephanie Shi is a writer and, more recently, a community manager. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in The Tiger Moth Review, diaCRITICS, Spellbinder, The Lumiere Review, Anak Sastra, The Ekphrastic Review, After the Art, and 11 x 9: Collaborative Poetry from the Philippines and Singapore, among others. In 2014, she won the Loyola Schools Award for the Arts for her essays. Born and raised in the Philippines, she now lives in Switzerland.