Julia Desiree Merican
is a writer, editor, and researcher
Julia Merican is a writer from Kuala Lumpur and an archivist of small scraps of human experience. Her words have appeared in various print and digital publications, and once, quite excitingly, on an unfurling scroll in a gallery.She completed her MSt in English at Oxford and her Writing MA at the Royal College of Art, and has held full-time research positions at the speculative design studio, Superflux, and the independent think tank, the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs.Currently, Julia lives in London, and is finding writing in the third person quite a lot of fun. She thinks often about liminal or ruined spaces, the ancillary prettiness of an em dash, how heritage is made and broken, and the art of living so gently you barely make a sound.In 2026, she will publish her first full-length work of nonfiction, The Inconsolable Secrets, with MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE, and her first novel, Plain Things for Lustrous, with Antigone Editions. When she is not working on these books, she writes an occasional newsletter, Glimmers and Inklings.
Get in touch at:[email protected]
2025
glimmers and inklings
serious play
what's in your blue razz lemonade?
kintsugi
random access memory
2024
tea and frequency
the power of critical sensemaking in shaping futures
proximity
only lemons: will calver’s lovely, ordinary, perishable things
minding the gaps: a sonic essay
the olive branch and the poetics of reconciliation
an interview with amina cain
playing the fool
protecting the flame
2023
allom! amatai! allom!
signs of the times
gallery in a state of undress
diasporic dysphoria
2022
gift exchange
the directness of apples
dressing up for noodles
a silent dwelling
let the land be
monitoring the belt and road initiative
2021
cosmopolitan reveries
turmoil within and without
a conversational art with larissa pham
how i settle myself
the gendered politics of 'mustang'
at the core of it
2020
the cerebral and the sensual
meta morphosis
unlucky
‘hidden lines' exhibition text
being foreign, abroad and at home
2019
'fragmented bodies' wall text
the allure of the italian summer
hungry ghosts
editorial work
the key press
the dodo newspaper
search magazine
the oxford review of books
cereal magazine
palatinate
ft. lighthouse
artist profiles
yula kim
qloud collective
victoria kosasie
the develop collective
mariana cordoba
lina a.
ian collings
rachel duvall
copywriting
studio macbride
moro dabron
cereal magazine
francis gallery