Rowena Leong Singer is a graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars, where she was awarded the Barry Hannah Merit Scholarship in Fiction. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Narrative Magazine, and KQED’s Perspectives. She has also received an honorable mention in the Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers. In addition, she has been accepted into select workshops and conferences including the Sewanee Writers’ Conference; Tin House Summer Workshop; Hedgebrook Master Class; Community of Writers; ZYZZYVA Writers’ Workshop; and Rooted & Written, a workshop for writers of color, co-sponsored by the Writers Grotto.

Her debut novel, All Manner of Beasts, is a historical fiction set in Japanese-occupied Philippines during WWII. Ten hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese troops invade Manila, where a young Chinese couple, Grace and Deming, await the new year with a baby on the way. In this story, told in alternating points of view, a wife becomes the hero to the husband who had imagined her as the helpless one in their marriage, while soldiers hunt for guerrillas and their supporters, making this couple their target. From the city of Manila to the jungle of Mount Arayat, Grace and Deming discover that in a world where survival is the only rule, the choices they make could irrevocably change who they consider friend or foe—even when it comes to each other. Filled with complex characters and moral complications, this book grapples with identity, questions of humanity, and courage amid overwhelming odds.