Our Team
Maylia Erna Sutarto
Maylia Sutarto is a mother of multilingual kids, a counsellor for children's development and education, and a senior editor of several motivational, fiction, and non-fiction books. Despite graduating as an accountant from Airlangga University, she has a passion for education and literature. She used to be a teen journalist for a local newspaper in Surabaya for three years. In 2007, she co-authored an essay collection on home-schooling from the perspective of a homeschool practitioner, as well as about psychology, child development and parenting. In 2012, she taught creative writing to communities of young writers in public libraries. Years of accumulating experience as well as formulating her own literary curriculum at home with her children, she started up IWEC Indonesia in 2014. She believes that children must have great literary education.
FOUNDER & CEO
Fairuza Hanun
Fairuza Hanun is a writer whose work focuses on post-colonialism, literature, care and ecology. Her work has been published and forthcoming in multiple journals, including a contributor in Asymptote Journal’s blog and GENCONTROLZ Magazine’s All That Jazz column, Perhappened Magazine, PR&TA Journal, and more. She helped develop IWEC’s syllabus and is both editor and creative writing mentor there. Formerly an assistant editor at Asymptote Journal, she also moonlights as a freelance publicist for creative arts, as well as co-founder and co-editor in chief of GENCONTROLZ Magazine.
CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER
Maya Nurhasyim
Maya Nurhasyim graduated from Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) with a degree in Environmental Engineering. After graduating, she worked at a pharmacy in Jakarta until she met her life partner and got married. Upon expecting a child, she resigned from her job and decided to become a full-time mother and entrepreneur from home. In between her work, she likes to read books. That is why she is focused on literacy, especially for children. When she reunited with her best friend from junior high, Maylia Sutarto, she found they had the same idea and values, and partnered with her to develop the latter's academy for literary arts across Indonesia.
SALES DIRECTOR
Miristika Melfri
Miristika Melfri is a spirited, perceptive mentor in graphic storytelling, as well as a supporting book designer at IWEC Indonesia. She graduated from Jakarta Institute of Arts (IKJ) in 2019 with a degree in Visual Design Communication. In her free time, she often practices on her digital painting, making comic strips, and working out. She has been drawing since she was a child, a girl dreaming of becoming a comic artist that she is now.
MENTOR & BOOK DESIGNER
Fairuz Ambar
Fairuz Ambar is a comic tutor, a freelance illustrator, a comic artist and merchandise designer who often features in Comic Con and Comifuro. Holding a Bachelor’s in Visual Design Communication from Jakarta Institute of Arts (IKJ), she hopes to share her love for social spaces through comic-strips and fan art on social media.
MENTOR & GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Anh Thu Nguyễn
Anh Thu is a poet and writer whose works currently centre on diasporic sensations, identities, and languages. She has been published and/or is forthcoming in Koening Zine, Sledgehammer Lit, and Tiger Zine. Moonlighting as founder and editor-in-chief of POC-led GENCONTROLZ Magazine, she is a Sociology BSc Student at University of Bristol, excited to discuss how to facilitate access to edducation and productive discussions in an age of misinformation and polarisation. She has graduated from A-levels with 4 A*s in four essay subjects: English Literature, French, History, and Sociology; and has completed courseworks on post-colonial literature and the French Revolution. She has achieved an A in her 6650-word EPQ on inequality in education. Currently, she is developing on her editorial skills too, working as a manuscript editor for IWEC Publishing.
ENGLISH EDITOR
Michelle Hadipraja
Michelle Hadipraja works in social media marketing, an "excuse" to justify her being chronically online. She is a film & comedy enthusiast who watches too many sad European films for her own good. Part of the core team behind GENCONTROLZ Magazine, Michelle dabbles in marketing, editing, film reviewing and web design. She plans on studying Liberal Arts at university, where she wishes to expand on her interests of intersectional feminism, film, philosophy and education.
VISUAL & CONTENT CREATOR