He also wrote several novels and biographies, including ones on Tan Sie Tat and Lie Kim Hok.

The young Tio was educated at a Dutch-run school for ethnic Chinese, learning Dutch and a smattering of various other languages.

[3] Entitled Sie Po Giok, it followed a young orphan who is treated unfairly by his uncle and eventually leaves for China.

Tio continued to write, sending his work to various publications, including Bintang Soerabaia, Warna Warta, and Kong Po.

[2] One of these writings, published in the Bandung-based Lay Po in 1923, revealed that Lie Kim Hok's Sair Tjerita Siti Akbari (1884) had based heavily on Raja Ali Haji's 1846 poem Sjair Abdoel Moeloek.

[6] In 1924 he established a literary review, entitled Tjerita Pilihan (Choice Stories) which published translations of European literature; although initial circulation was remarkably high, at 5,000 copies, it had gone bankrupt by the tenth issue.

[2] He wrote a biography of the boxer Tan Sie Tat in 1928; it would prove to be Tio's last book for thirty years.

[4] The editorship at Pewarta Soerabaja proved Tio's longest-held position; he headed the newspaper continuously until 1942, when the Japanese occupied the Indies.

[1] Sie Po Giok was republished, using the Perfected Spelling System, in 2000 as part of the first instalment in the Kesastraan Melayu Tionghoa series.