Hong Kong’s English‑language literary community gathered at the city’s Helena May club on 28 April for the Proverse Spring Reception – an evening that served as a centenary tribute, prize‑giving and triple book launch.
Hosted by managing editor Gillian Bickley, the reception drew authors, poets, diplomats and long‑time supporters of Proverse, the boutique Hong Kong publisher behind the International Proverse Prizes for previously unpublished writing in English. Guests browsed a book table stacked with novels, memoirs, poetry collections and anthologies while student volunteers from Hong Kong College of Technology handled sales and signings.
Bickley opened by thanking the Hong Kong Arts Development Council for its ongoing support of the Proverse Prizes and selected titles by Hong Kong authors, then invited Proverse writers in the room – including Victor Apps, Philip Chatting, Catherine Chen, Akin Jeje, JP Linstroth, Alan Loynd, Doris Ng, Peter Cookson Smith and Stewart McKay – to stand for recognition. Three new books were launched on the night: Chatting’s dystopian novel Dewfall; Bewitched and Beguiled: Poetry of Enchantment by New Zealand writer Hayley Ann Solomon; and Mingled Voices 10, the latest anthology drawn from the International Proverse Poetry Prize.
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The evening also marked what would have been the 100th birthday of Proverse Prizes cofounder Dr Verner Bickley, who died in 2025. A projected photograph and an archival audio recording of him reading Leigh Hunt’s “Abou Ben Adhem” reminded the room of his gifts as both writer and speaker, before a short video from 2017 outlined his vision of the Proverse Prizes as open to writers worldwide, regardless of nationality or residence.
Tributes to Verner Bickley and to the international reach of the prizes shaped much of the programme.
Neville Shroff, president of both the Zoroastrian Charity Funds of Hong Kong, Canton & Macao and the Royal Commonwealth Society Hong Kong, spoke about the longstanding role of Hong Kong’s Parsee community in education and highlighted the success of Indian poets in recent Proverse competitions, including 2025 Proverse Poetry Prize winner Tanusha Nagrath and past laureate Vinita Agrawal.
British Council Hong Kong director Susannah Morley recalled Verner Bickley’s years as a British Council education officer in Asia, while New Zealand’s consul‑general in Hong Kong, Peter Lund, drew attention to Proverse’s work in championing New Zealand poets such as James Norcliffe, a 2011 Proverse Prize finalist, and Hayley Ann Solomon, who has had four collections published by Proverse.
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The formal launch of Mingled Voices 10 showcased Proverse’s global footprint. First‑prize winner Zuo Fei, speaking by video from Beijing, reflected on poetry as an “anchor” between city and countryside and paid tribute to Bickley’s role in sustaining an international community of writers. Former British Council Hong Kong director Jeffrey Streeter offered a recorded introduction to the anthology and its theme, “The Gift”, before a roster of poets – including Alex Chan, Andra Huang, Akin Jeje, JP Linstroth, Jun Pan (Janice), Luisa Ternau, Anson Honghua Wang and Graham Wood – read their work aloud. Pre‑recorded readings from writers in Europe, the Americas and India underlined the anthology’s reach.
As the formalities drew to a close, Bickley thanked an extended cast of behind‑the‑scenes collaborators – from long‑serving designer Dicky Wu and printer Jackson Ng to photographers and student helpers – before inviting guests back to the bar and book table. For a couple of hours on Garden Road, the usually solitary work of writing felt like a genuinely shared endeavour: a mingling of voices from Hong Kong and far beyond.
