Aloha! Unlike the family you’re born into, your writing community is comprised of humans of your own choice. I’ve been so lucky in this regard, I’ve made so many great friends along the journey of becoming a published poet and novelist. It was not quick nor easy, finding these chosen family members. Yet these people have become my lifeline, and those friendships have sustained me during some dark years. Since…
Aloha! It’s that time of year, when the class of 2019 looks into the near future and selects the next wave of debs – class of 2020! The year of perfect vision! Starts this fall! Please check out K.A. Doore’s wonderful post, she diligently described the Debutante Ball functions and the Debs’ tasks. It looks like a lot. But when spread among five people who will be lifelong friends, it…
Aloha! I’ve been celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month this month, albeit intermittently. Each week, I’ve posted a stack of books by authors (and friends!) whose work I love and admire. And I thought I’d end the month with a visual guide to a stack of really great books that you should check out this summer — some are upcoming titles, such as Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok…
This week’s topic: “MFA vs NYC vs Choose Your Own Adventure.” Aloha. What if my writing education has been all three? I confess I’m a bit of a professional student. I love to be in a class, I love to have homework and get direction. The underlying motivation all throughout my writing life has been my desire to find community and gain skills, to chip away at a steady pace….
Aloha. I started writing poetry when I was nine years old. I remember writing in bursts. I had a wonderful teacher that year, and she was encouraging us to write beyond what the class assignments required us to do for the poetry unit. I first learned about haiku and sonnets and I was hooked! I wrote anywhere and anytime, and on any surface — from napkins to spiral notebooks. By…
I had a few inside jokes in my debut novel, The Atlas of Reds and Blues. The former title, When the Dolls Leave the Dollhouse, was an inside joke — and a nod to the Model Minority Myth. But Counterpoint Press did a comparative title search, to make sure there were no other recently published books with the words doll or dollhouse in them – in competition. And it turns…
Aloha. This week we are to write about where we live and how this influences our writing. Although I’m in California these days, I was born and raised in North Carolina. Prior to moving out west, I’d spent sixteen years in Georgia. The first time I wrote the story that eventually became The Atlas of Reds and Blues, I still lived in an Atlanta suburb — and I wrote about…
Aloha. K.A. Doore wrote an essay yesterday about the reader’s buying power and how the support of an independent bookstore helps save jobs and sustain a vibrant literary community. I have nothing to add to her excellent work – she said it so eloquently. I want to say that I’m so deeply grateful I have the love and support of Counterpoint Press. This amazing independent press was brave to embrace…
Aloha: It’s tax season and this is a perfect time to remember that unless your last name is GRISHAM or KING, it is difficult to make a living writing books. Don’t let it deter you: creating a writing life is a noble calling, it just doesn’t pay well for the aspiring or newbie writers. It doesn’t pay well for poets. You should know that it’s madness in a way, to…
As a Deb this year, I’ve had the enormous privilege of working with four amazing, super-talented writers. And I’m so pleased to be able to finally sing the praises of Martine Fournier Watson’s debut novel, The Dream Peddler. I love this novel so much! It is dreamy, spooky, suspenseful. A sleepy town awakens when a young boy goes missing and the Dream Peddler arrives. The intertwining stories between the townspeople…
