ANNOUNCEMENTS - the cherita

A N N O U N C E M E N T S

1 February 2026

4 unique short form genres created by ai li
that honour storytelling and keep its breath alive

Cherita [b. 22 June 1997]
Gembun [b. 12 June 1997]
Dua [b. 4 March 2022]
Ta Da [b. 15 May 2022]

*

forest dreaming
cherita 107
edited by ai li

*

will he be back ?
gembun anthology 21
edited by ai li

updates on all forthcoming dua and gembun anthologies
and our exciting the cherita award

For those of you who missed reading ai li’s essay i, storyteller on Cherita, Gembun and Dua on Rhyvers and viewing her You Tube Cherita video interview for The Wise Owl by Neena Singh, for their special issue on Cherita, here are both links again below.

Here are ai li’s You Tube interview link : www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnGmkKKQvqo and the link for her essay i, storyteller on Cherita, Gembun and Dua rhyvers.com/hk22/

The full transcripts for both can be found on www.thecherita.com/lectures/ as well on the Rhyvers and The Wise Owl’s websites.

There are now over 6000 views for my Rhyvers essay on Cherita, Gembun and Dua, which appeared on 16 September 2023, with 3900 views the last time I looked, for my You Tube video Cherita interview, which appeared on 30 September 2023, and which The Wise Owl’s Editor Rachna Singh called ‘insightful’.

Chinese New Year is almost here again. I can already hear the near thundering hooves. I am convinced that the new Year of the Horse will be a much better one for all of us after the hiss of last year’s snake. The countdown begins . . .

When I introduced my new short form genre ta da not long ago, I had no idea what to expect response wise.

I am delighted to share with you this month that there are now going to be not just one ta da anthology as originally proposed, but four anthologies in the offing. Some of you have taken quickly to ta da like a second skin whilst others are excited at being able to stretch and grow their writing abilities that much further without any tiresome shackles, and then submitting their storytelling gems for not only ta da, but for the other 3 unique genres I created, in the hope that their work will be published in 4 different anthologies to showcase their efforts.

Cherita, Gembun, Dua and Ta Da all require very different mental disciplines when writing them well. When the right discipline is used to pen these genres, the results are simply breathtaking.

Book 107 of the cherita – forest dreaming is for your February 2026 reading and will he be back ? is our gembun anthology 21, both of which are imbued with 90 virgin poems.

There are now 107 anthologies of the cherita, and they are all available on Amazon in paperback and kindle, along with 21 Gembun Anthologies, and 17 Dua Anthologies, with more coming your way.

forest dreaming is our Book 107 in the cherita series of storytelling books, with 90 virgin cherita of more timeless stories to hopefully inspire our readers and poets to join our caravanserai of storytellers.

forest dreaming showcases 90 fine cherita and cherita terbalik from writers and poets who hail from UK, USA, Singapore, India, Germany, France and Croatia

forest dreaming, Book 107, belongs to the ongoing the cherita series, as do ai li’s personal ongoing writing in one breath series of 36 virgin Cherita, Gembun, Dua, Ta Da, Cherita and Tanka, Cherita and Haiku, and Cherita, Tanka and Haiku books, and lastly ai li’s poems for inner rooms series with its 18 Tanka and Haiku books. All these books are available in paperback and kindle on Amazon.

# For all acceptance letters for Cherita before 7 April 2025, for our forthcoming Anthologies – Books 103, 104, 105 and 106, please be aware that your acceptance letters should have read ‘for the fourth quarter 2025 and not ‘for the first quarter of 2026’. Your accepted cherita will now appear much earlier. Please accept my sincere apologies. I will have to have a serious word with my Dyslexia. #

Two of my own books of virgin Gembun, the weight of rain and blank screen, my two books of Dua, the journey east and dancing shoes, and arriving nowhere, my first cherita, gembun and dua book, along with another night and leaving, my two ta da anthologies now join my writing in one breath series.

I have edited forest dreaming as I have all the other anthologies of the cherita, to be experienced two ways. It can be read as one storybook but also as an anthology of individual poems. Two reading experiences within one book, filled with stories of Life, Love, Loss and Renewal.

cherita terbalik continues to capture the imagination of poets and there are again fine examples in this edition.

Featured Poets as they appear in this anthology :-

ai li/ Lakshman Bulusu/ Lee Hudspeth/ Kathabela Wilson/ Partha Sarkar/ Jackie Chou/ Teri Messmer/ Taura Scott/ Eva Joan/ Djurdja Vukelic Rozic/ Senka Slivar/ Timothy Daly/ Sigrid Saradunn/ Joanna Ashwell/ Orrin Préjean/ Nicholas Gentile/ Pitt Büerken/ Michael H. Brownstein/ Patricia Allen Smith/ Jennifer Gurney/ William Scott Galasso/ D’ellen/ Sharon Hawley/

Six sample virgin Cherita from this anthology :-

chimney smoke

i saw you
forty two years ago

that first smell
of autumn
now in my dreams

ai li

on
gray
rocks

spruce trees
rustle to

the stars

Djurdja Vukelic Rozic

this dewdrop world

sliding down
into another

the long leaf
that makes a bridge
to the future

Kathabela Wilson

every day

will you check
for the sunflower
turning

back across
our footsteps

Joanna Ashwell

opening my eyes
in the morning

the old
rocking chair
is barely moving

who is watching me sleep..

Teri Messmer

without
crutches

free
flying
kite

Partha Sarkar

the cherita lighthouse has been awarded to the following writers and poets in this anthology for their timeless Cherita :

Kathabela Wilson/ Timothy Daly/ Sigrid Saradunn/ Joanna Ashwell/ Nicholas Gentile/ Jackie Chou/ Djurdja Vukelic Rozic/ Senka Slivar/

will he be back ? is our gembun anthology 21 and it appears alongside forest dreaming, Book 106 of the cherita, this month.

will he be back ? showcases 90 virgin gembun.

Featured Poets as they appear in this anthology :-

Joanna Ashwell/ ai li/ James Haddad/ Michael H. Brownstein/ Paulette Calasibetta/ Jan Stretch/ Partha Sarkar/ Pitt Büerken/ Sigrid Saradunn/ Jackie Chou/ Kathabela Wilson/ Patricia Allen Smith/ Lakshman Bulusu/ Dennis Owen Frohlich/ Keitha Keyes/ Katherine E Winnick/ Vidya Premkumar/ Daniel W. Brown/ Jan Stretch/ David Cox/

Six sample virgin gembun from will he be back ?, our gembun anthology 21 :-

locked away

the times
when sound
had no echo

Joanna Ashwell

daisies
grow wild
wave beside the road

he remembers only love

Sigrid Saradunn

the joy
the sadness
the passion

of a flamenco dancer

Jan Stretch

cool evening walk
taking a
deep breath

of jasmine

Kathabela Wilson

he’s never home these days

the scent
of lonely nights
called hope

ai li

alone

I wrap
myself
in dreams

Katherine E Winnick

a gem has been awarded to the following writers and poets in this anthology for gembun that sparkled :

Patricia Allen Smith/ Kathabela Wilson/ Jackie Chou/ Katherine E Winnick/ Partha Sarkar/ Pitt Büerken/ Jan Stretch/ Michael H. Brownstein/

Please use our standard submission emails for all 4 of our genres as I consider them separately. Failure to do so can cause a delay in replying to your submissions.

This is February’s update on the cherita award :

I am sharing 6 cherita of mine below – 3 from my book of exclusively cherita the promise of rain, and the other 3 from my cherita and haiku book night rain.

the promise of rain and night rain by ai li are available from www.thecherita.com/ailis-bookshop/

cherita

is
the breath

of
a story
made concrete

ai li
from the intro of the word healers

If anyone is seriously considering to write Cherita well, my advice is for you to get hold of a copy of either one or both of our Cherita Award books or any of my own books which will help as reference guides for widening the storytelling scope for creating timeless Cherita.

I hope these cherita will further inspire you, should you decide to submit your virgin cherita for the cherita award. We also now have Joanna Ashwell and Ceri Marriott, our first two Cherita Award recipients with river lanterns and soirée, their respective books. Who will be our next Cherita Award poet?

fine
jade dust

someone

is carving
a phoenix
rising

ai li
from the promise of rain

your dead hair

in
a lacquer box

to open
or
not to open

ai li
from night rain

two hands in prayer

in the small
old chapel

the wind outside
playing messenger
for the gods

ai li
from night rain

i always

go back
to
the beginning

to find
myself

ai li
from the promise of rain

ben hur

a cast
of thousands

night voices
on the box
i’m not alone

ai li
from the promise of rain

kingfisher

i see you
we are two loners

at dawn
touched
by dew

ai li
from night rain

For all new entrants, please be aware that fewer words in your cherita are always more, and to not repeat a subject matter often, unless of course you are able to come to it from a very different angle or perspective, rendering it anew. You want your portfolio to be one of timelessness and wonder, and to avoid a sameyness of subject matter which would inevitably make your portfolio bland and yawn inducing.

CURRENT SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FEBRUARY 2026

Please can you now submit all of your submissions in Arial 11 font size, left justified with no italics, and also use our standard submission email for all our genres. This will be in effect as of now.

You will still be required to fill in your hometown/city and country with all submissions [this info is for our files] but only your country will be published in our books from this edition onwards. This will help speed up my proof reading.

There are also no longer any deadlines for submissions which are now on an ongoing basis.

*Please use our standard email submissions forms for each of our 4 genres and do not lump them together under one submission email. Unfortunately, failure to do so often results in a slower response back from me as I read, consider and file all the 4 genres separately and any deviations get placed under a different file.*

Edition # 8.7 will be the last book numbered this way. From January 2025, all our books will be simply numbered, starting with Cherita 94, Cherita 95, Cherita 96 and so forth. This new numbering style will be incorporated in all the acceptance letters.

*
General Information on the Gembun and Dua Anthologies

All our anthologies have 90 poems within.

In the next few months or so, I will endeavour to launch the finished and checked anthologies, as you have all been saints with your inspirational patience.

I would also like to profusely thank all the poets whose gembun, dua and ta da have been selected for the forthcoming anthologies for being so patient.

My wish, as I have indicated before, is for the both Anthologies to become a fluid and ongoing series for showcasing the best of the Gembun, Dua and Ta Da genres with the gems from your writing. That has not changed.

Gembun and Cherita share the same year of birth and hopefully they will continue to celebrate storytelling with Life, Love, Loss and Renewal into and beyond their third decade.

Dua and Ta Da may not have been around as long as Gembun and Cherita, but they are part and parcel of a storytelling quartet that perpetuates the stories of Life, Love, Loss and Renewal.

I have enjoyed the challenge of selecting and collating for this edition of the cherita and of any other new books from either our 1-2-3 press or our the empty press, and hope that you will find the poems within worthy of a campfire gathering and the sharing of meaningful stories.

If this new book or books strikes or strike a chord with you, please feel free to review, comment on Amazon or give feedback directly to me. It would be much appreciated. Many thanks.

ai li
editor

creator of cherita, gembun, dua and ta da
and of 19 other unique and original linked forms

www.thecherita.com
storyteller oasis

1 January 2026

4 unique short form genres created by ai li
that honour storytelling and keep its breath alive

Cherita [b. 22 June 1997]
Gembun [b. 12 June 1997]
Dua [b. 4 March 2022]
Ta Da [b. 15 May 2022]

*

winter afternoon
cherita 106
edited by ai li

*

mindfulness
dua anthology 17
edited by ai li

updates on all forthcoming dua and gembun anthologies
and our exciting the cherita award

There are now over 5900 views for my Rhyvers essay on Cherita, Gembun and Dua, which appeared on 16 September 2023, with 3800 views the last time I looked, for my You Tube video Cherita interview, which appeared on 30 September 2023, and which The Wise Owl’s Editor Rachna Singh called ‘insightful’.

A Happy New Year to all our poets, writers, contributors and readers.

I don’t know about you but I will be using this festive break to rest and heal as much as I can to fortify me for whatever 2026 will be throwing my way.

As for my recent island stay, I found not only strong echoes reminiscent of my family’s unmistakeable and unforgettable way of using both protein, herbs and vegetables sourced from their newly adopted homeland, but was also able to fortunately meet so many Hokkien speaking Thai Chinese whose parents, grandparents had arrived from the Fujian province of China to find new lives away from the famine, poverty and revolution which they had been eager to leave behind. We embraced one another like long lost friends and were reluctant to break away from our embraces. A trail of disappearing Hokkien words and much loved phrases was all that was left behind in the cool tropical night air après the genuine sweetness of our Straits Chinese connection. I don’t think we will all meet again but I did sense that the ancestors were smiling ever so broadly at having engineered a much needed meeting for a group of time travellers that won’t come this way again.

Here are two images of a small range of Nyonya desserts and sweetmeats from the Princess Terrace Café in Singapore. The veteran pastry chef has worked his magic here using as his ingredients [I thank him every time I see him as I feel blessed to be there and able to lose myself for a few hours culinarily speaking], thick first press coconut milk [my mother too would also use first press for desserts to achieve that thick consistency of good English custard, and the second thinner pressing would be for curries], freshly grated coconut, thick gula melaka [fresh palm sugar], grated tapioca and tapioca flour, butterfly pea colouring, freshly cut banana leaves, glutinous rice and flour, cochineal. sago starch, pandan or screwpine leaves for aroma and colour, fresh eggs to make egg custard jam and so forth. The ingredient list is varied and seemingly endless. He’s old school and has freely used the natural bright hues to honour the creative eclectic spirit of the Peranakan people.

kueh

For contrast, I have included a youtube video of another fine kueh maker who creates Nyonya desserts and snacks daily in his shop in Kuala Lumpur. He starts before the crack of dawn and also uses natural ingredients but prefers pastel shades for his creations which is a departure from the more recognisable colourful array of delights. Making Peranakan desserts is, without a shadow of a doubt, a labour of love and one of intense timing and precision to get the textures and consistencies right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22WxJLXJd8k

I take my metaphorical hat off to both masters from under my duvet. Nothing and no one could induce me to get me out of bed before the crack of dawn.

Book 106 of the cherita – winter afternoon is for your January 2026 reading and mindfulness is our dua anthology 17, both of which are imbued with 90 virgin poems.

There are now 106 anthologies of the cherita, and they are all available on Amazon in paperback and kindle, along with 20 Gembun Anthologies, and 17 Dua Anthologies, with more coming your way.

winter afternoon is our Book 106 in the cherita series of storytelling books, with 90 virgin cherita of more timeless stories to hopefully inspire our readers and poets to join our caravanserai of storytellers.

www.thecherita.com/bookshop/

winter afternoon showcases 90 fine cherita and cherita terbalik from writers and poets who hail from UK, USA, Singapore, India, Bulgaria, Germany, Canada, France and Italy.

winter afternoon, Book 106, belongs to the ongoing the cherita series, as do ai li’s personal ongoing writing in one breath series of 36 virgin Cherita, Gembun, Dua, Ta Da, Cherita and Tanka, Cherita and Haiku, and Cherita, Tanka and Haiku books, and lastly ai li’s poems for inner rooms series with its 18 Tanka and Haiku books. All these books are available in paperback and kindle on Amazon.

I have edited winter afternoon as I have all the other anthologies of the cherita, to be experienced two ways. It can be read as one storybook but also as an anthology of individual poems. Two reading experiences within one book, filled with stories of Life, Love, Loss and Renewal.

cherita terbalik continues to capture the imagination of poets and there are again fine examples in this edition.

Featured Poets as they appear in this anthology :-

ai li/ Teri Messmer/ Sigrid Saradunn/ Larry Kimmel/ Kathabela Wilson/ Tim Callahan/ Richard Dutton/ James Haddad/ Partha Sarkar/ Tsanka Shishkova/ Nicholas Gentile/ Jackie Chou/ Pitt Büerken/ Patricia Allen Smith/ Liz Goetz/ Sharon Hawley/Taura Scott/ Dennis Owen Frohlich/ Jan Stretch/ Daniel W. Brown/ Lee Hudspeth/ Lakshman Bulusu/ Ceri Marriott/ Timothy Daly/ Eva Joan/ Jim Niffen/ Alessia Russo/ Michael H. Brownstein/

Six sample virgin Cherita from this anthology :-

tulip blossoms

one early
butterfly

still snow
on the
mountain

Eva Joan

before
and
after

the space
in between

life

Jan Stretch

the new moon

was so
bright

it illuminated
all
my past

Daniel W. Brown

how did they
find each other

two in a million

these perfectly
matched
bookends

Teri Messmer

my window

framed
with rain

i got lost
between lightning
and thunder

ai li

I play the violin

you gave me
as a child
and know that

somewhere
you are listening

Ceri Marriott

the cherita lighthouse has been awarded to the following writers and poets in this anthology for their timeless Cherita :

Teri Messmer/ Patricia Allen Smith/ Liz Goetz/ Kathabela Wilson/ Taura Scott/ Sharon Hawley/ Daniel W. Brown/ Jim Niffen/ Michael H. Brownstein/ Eva Joan/ Partha Sarkar/ Ceri Marriott/

mindfulness is our dua anthology 17 and it appears alongside winter afternoon, Book 106 of the cherita, this month.

mindfulness showcases 90 virgin dua.

Six sample virgin dua from mindfulness, our dua anthology 17 :-

windmill

I flail to warn the birds

Jan Stretch

away they went

but not to heaven

James Haddad

no one here but rain

washing away my sins

ai li

day kneels

to dusk

Paulette Calasibetta

the years have

become decades

Jackie Chou

the milky way

I pale into nothingness

Ganesh R

a dua bella has been awarded to the following writers and poets in this anthology for dua that shone :

Paulette Calasibetta/ Jackie Chou/ Sigrid Saradunn/ Ganesh R/

Please use our standard submission emails for all 4 of our genres as I consider them separately. Failure to do so can cause a delay in replying to your submissions.

This is January’s update on the cherita award :

I would like to share 6 cherita below of mine from my first book of exclusively cherita i left long ago.

i left long ago by ai li is available from www.thecherita.com/ailis-bookshop/

cherita

is
the breath

of
a story
made concrete

ai li
from the intro of the word healers

autumn

the tea pavilion
now deserted

steam from osmanthus buds
my embroidered sleeve
older than this century