The Inkwell is an entirely non-profit entity, so all of our workshops, publications, and readings are free and staffed by selected Inkwell members. These people make Inkwell function and help build an exceptional literary community in Shanghai. If you need to contact any of them, please send an email addressed to that particular Inkwell member at submissions@inkwell.asia.
Dr. Ryan Thorpe
Founder
General Director
Ryan is an associate teaching professor at the University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University and assistant director of its writing program. He publishes regularly, and his book, Teaching Second Language Creative Writing, is due out from Routledge in 2021. His trilogy of novels The Willows, Arcadian Midnight, and The Wardens is due out in 2021 from Aethon Press.
Hannah Lund
Publishing Director
Creative Nonfiction Head
Hannah is a writer, translator, and editor. She has translated for Tencent, Blizzard, and Chinese movies. She recently published a graphic novel about Chinese ghost stories, and her work has appeared in many different places. She co-founded the Hangzhou Writer’s Association international. More information on her work can be found at hannahlund.com.
Rivkah Greig
Educational Outreach Director
Reading Club Head
Rivkah is an English teacher from the United States. She enjoys experimenting with different genres and styles in her writing. Besides being a Shakespeare enthusiast and a mezcal super-enthusiast, you can probably find her haunting foreign language bookstores or cradling her cat, Diandian, while reciting poetry into her cat’s face as the cat tries to jiu jitsu her way out of Rivkah’s arms.
Russell Grant
Workshop Director
Poetry Workshop Head
Russell originates from South Africa, but he is a long time resident of Shanghai where he teaches. As a former photographer, culture writer, and barman, Russell brings a worldliness and accessibility to each of his poems. He regularly explores themes of neurodivergence and personal demons in his work, and he is active in the Shanghai poetry scene.
Michael Robinson
Public Events Director
Mike is a published author of science fiction and a China veteran. He runs his own company, Robinson Consulting Shanghai LLC, which specializes in writing, editing, and creative language needs.
Patti McAlpine
Youth Writing Project Head
Patti is a writer/teacher from Texas and has produced stories for Children Radio Programs. She has been involved with several writer workshops and organizations. Presently, she teaches English in Shanghai and is working on a play and memoir novel.
Mathijs van de Mast
Fiction Workshop Co-Head
Math is just one of those Dutch guys. He’s written so many stories they’ve started to jostle into one another and fray at their boundaries and come apart at their fault lines–and Math loves watching all the destruction.
This morning he woke up next to a grapefruit, and spent five full minutes remembering that he lives in Shanghai. If you tickle him under the chin it will rain. Somewhere.
Elena Sichrovsky
Fiction Workshop Co-Head
Elena Sichrovsky is an Austrian-Taiwanese writer living in Shanghai, China. She’s also a student at SUES and a horror movie buff on the weekends. Her work has been published in SciPhi Journal, Zoetic Press, Planet Scumm, and Black Telephone Magazine, among others. Through her writing she wants to find the beauty in the terrifying and the terror in the beautiful.
Paula Willis
Sunday Scribbles Head
Paula hails from the U.K. and can generally be found writing queer genre fiction (fantasy, sci-fi, and fairytales). They have had short stories published in anthologies and online magazines, and are working on editing a YA novel. They run Sunday Scribbles, a casual writing and meet-up session.
Vivian Zhu
Shenzhen Head
As a rebellious Shanghainese, Vivian resides in Shenzhen as an English teacher. She is a proud alumna of the University of Edinburgh in Comparative Literature and she also studied with Professor Tom Drury in Writer’s Workshop Summer Program at the University of Iowa in 2019.
Vivian’s current interest lies in the inner lives of Chinese millennials in a globalized world, and in particular how overseas experiences shape their values, identities and everyday lives. She is working on her novella the Boyfriend I Talk with on the Phone.