A new, collaborative hardback annual called GOLDEN is officially in production. This project aims to collect and document the experiences of East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) people living in the UK.
The magazine is a joint effort by three major community groups: MilkTea, Resonate, and the UK’s first ESEA bookshop, Juniper by the Sea. It’s set to be a premium, limited-edition release.
Calling All ESEA UK Creators: What is GOLDEN?
GOLDEN is designed to be an annual review. It will cover a wide range of topics that are important to the British ESEA community.
We’re talking about everything from fashion and film to politics, food, and literature. The goal is to celebrate the full spectrum of ESEA thought and creativity in the UK.
It’s more than just a magazine, though. It’s a collectible, hardback cultural time capsule. The magazine intends to put ESEA perspectives front and center, showing the world how we see it, not just what we do.
Jun Kit Man, Co-founder of Resonate, said he’s looking forward to what creators will bring. “I’m genuinely excited about GOLDEN,” he stated. “At Resonate, we see incredible talent every single day, and this magazine is the next big step for our community. Think of it as a treasury—a gorgeous, hardback annual designed to showcase the very best of British ESEA creativity. We’re not just looking for stories; we’re looking for voices that build a whole new way of seeing things. We want the tone to be what our community is: resilient, nuanced, and unapologetically ourselves. If you’re a writer, artist, or thinker ready to step up and show the world the depth of our talent, join us. Let’s make this platform beautiful and essential, together.”
The Teams Behind the Project
The collaborators all have strong histories of supporting the community.
MilkTea focuses on showcasing the best of ESEA cinema in the UK. Co-founded by Chi Thai and Vicki Liu Brown, the group started with screenings but quickly grew to focus on community building. They have partnered with huge names like Netflix, A24, and Sony Pictures. In 2024 alone, they took home the prestigious Engholm Prize at Cinema For All’s Film Society of the Year Awards.
Then you have Juniper by the Sea, which holds the title of the UK’s first ESEA bookshop. The founder, Zoe, started the bookshop after realizing how hard it was to find British Chinese fiction growing up. “Growing up in the UK through the 90s and 00s, it seemed that the Chinese part of my life could be neatly put into boxes,” she said. Zoe created the bookshop to be a place where ESEA stories are celebrated and easy to find.
Your Chance to Contribute: Submissions and Pay
The teams behind GOLDEN are actively looking for contributors. If you’re a writer, photographer, artist, critic, designer, or thinker, they want to hear from you.
They want work that either reflects on, challenges, or offers a new view of the ESEA experience in the UK today.
Submissions can include many different formats. This means you can send in essays, interviews, visual art, photography, creative writing (like prose and poetry), or even cultural analysis. The editors are looking for work that is bold, nuanced, and luminous.
If your piece is accepted, you’ll get an honorarium of £100 once the final contribution is delivered. You also get a complimentary copy of the finished annual.
Key Dates and Next Steps
The publishing team has set a target release date for Lunar New Year in 2026. If that proves too tight, they’ll aim for ESEA Heritage Month in 2026.
If you want to contribute, you must first submit an Expression of Interest (EOI).
The deadline for those EOIs is 31 October 2025. The deadline for final submissions, if your EOI is approved, is 30 November 2025.
You can find all the details you need and submit your EOI by going to: www.milkteafilms.com/golden.
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