Hong Kong Writers Circle

Your Literary Journey Starts Here!

The Hong Kong Writers Circle opened submissions for the first issue of its new quarterly online magazine The Apostrophe on April 1st (no joke), 2023. Inspired by the five points of the bauhinia flower, Hong Kong’s emblem, every quarter we publish five original stories or poems by local and international writers of up to 10,000 words and match them to five original pieces of art. Every issue is based around a theme. Writers and artists can submit from anywhere in the world and there are no limits on the number of submissions.

You do not need to be a member of Hong Kong Writers Circle to submit writing or art and we do not charge a reader or submission fee. Submissions for the first issue closed 30 April 2023 and our inaugural issue was published 1 June 2023. You can read and download this issue and all subsequent issues on Substack.

If your artwork is not matched with a story for the issue you submitted for, it may still be published in future issues.

If your story is not chosen for the issue you submitted it for but we feel it’s well suited to a future issue with another theme, we will contact you!

In April 2025 we published our first eight issues as a zine – something we hope to do again in the future!

Our editorial team is Jan Lee (editor-in-chief), Sadie Kaye (art editor), Sam Powney (associate editor) and Jay Oatway (associate editor).

Our cover artists are: The Acrofamily, Ilos Ilyas Elias Kirkan, Bethan Clarke, Kasra Shroff, Anthony Roussel, Rachel Smith, Victoria Mae Martin, Jan Lee, Cassandra Lee, Mike Provorst and Jade Bryant.

View our submissions guidelines here and don’t forget to subscribe!