Juked
Interview
With Ashley Farmer
I had a fantastic conversation with the talented and astute writer, Ashley Farmer, about my short story collection, Counterfactual Love Stories & Other Experiments over at Juked. If you have a moment, it’s an engaging read I think.
At long last, another part of my dream as an emerging fiction writer is coming true! My first reading from COUNTERFACTUAL LOVE STORIES & OTHER EXPERIMENTS, my debut collection of short stories, will take place in-person at the always awesome Skylight Books in LA!
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Click on image to purchase!
Well, one of the things I longed for the most after I realized that I would have 3 books coming out in the span of nine months (which is every bit of a logistical nightmare as you can imagine, but also a beautiful problem to have if we’re being totally honest), was a poster for my book tour for the next two years. I wanted a tour or a “tour” or both in order to connect the three separate books (and genres) together. I also wanted a poster to graphically situate, connect, and unify my three books while also giving something to people like me who crave tangibility, especially tangible art and literary merchandise.
So, while this poster was conceptually created by me, it was completely designed, imagined, and realized by Aaron Draplin, who is an artistic genius. I’m so in love with this poster I’m about to frame it myself and hang it in my office. I might also consider raffling one or two free copies of this poster once Counterfactual Love Stories & Other Experiments is out in the world.
“Semi-Permeable Membrane” out today in the Columbia Journal
My short story, “Semi-Permeable Membrane,” which is part of my upcoming short story collection, COUNTERFACTUAL LOVE STORIES & OTHER EXPERIMENTS, was published today by the Columbia Journal,
Read MoreTwo of my short stories, “Secret Codes & Oppressive Histories” and “10 Zen Koans” were published recently in the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States journal.
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My short story, “The Geography of Desire,” was published recently in issue #17 of Juked.
Read MoreMy craft essay, “The Cult of Likeability,” is now up at TriQuarterly
Read MoreThis morning I learned that my craft essay, “The Cult of Likeability (or Why You Should Kill Your Literary Friendships)” was accepted for publication in TriQuarterly.
Read MoreSo today I got the awesome news that my short story “Geography of Desire” was accepted by Juked.
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Today, I got the best kind of email from an editor at Longreads and learned that I’d sold an essay of mine from my experimental memoir, DREAM POP ORIGAMI. This is a major victory for me . . .
Read MoreBefore the insurrection on Halloween, the security guard considered himself an atheist and a cynic, but there are some things too hard to understand, things without precedent, and one of them is a polished ten-inch Colt Python Revolver pointed directly up your nostrils.
Read MoreMy short story about class/race in Humboldt Park, "Guide to the Other Side of the Universe," which is part of my short story collection, Geography of Desire, was accepted yesterday in the Angel City Review, an awesome LA-based literary journal. Stay tuned for more deetz!
Few things push plot lines as well as vengeance in drama and leveling up in RPGs, which is why Dishonored 2, despite its many flaws, integrates plot, adventure, and history effortlessly into a unified field, centering its narrative on the propulsive quest of assassination and personal redemption. Much like Victorian morality in the nineteenth century, this game is a Manichean fantasy world of good and evil.
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The Western canon has no objective nomination process, which is why it is both axiomatic and controversial. Literature written by (and often for) white writers is still treated as classic, crucial, and central to our literary archive, codifying a clear but tacit anglonormativity. But why have APIA voices been erased from the so-called “Great Books” for so long, and how should APIA writers respond to this longstanding erasure?
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After mom got remarried to a white architect, my twin brother and I moved to Wacker Drive to live in the future. For Yoshi and me, the honeycombed Marina Towers were a time warp to another dimension.
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The Sympathizer forces readers of Asian American Pacific Islander (APIA) literary fiction to reconsider our own craft dogma and ask questions about the value of literary didacticism all over again: when is didactic literature useful, even necessary, and what purposes can it serve in our society as art, historiography, and also racial, cultural, and moral education?
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I got the great news yesterday that my short story "Conspiracy of Lemons," which is part of my conceptual short story collection, City of Sand, was accepted in Witness, a journal I've been sending submissions to off and on since 2010. It's incredibly satisfying to finally get a piece in that literary journal. Stay tuned!
Noctis (and His Boy Band) Save the World from Darkness by Killing Shit
Only in a Japanese RPG can a boy band save the world from the nefarious empire and its demonic biotechnological army. In Final Fantasy XV, four male friends led by its visual kei leader, Noctis (whose name means “night” in Latin), use the empire’s language of violence to decolonize the kingdom of darkness. Somewhere, Fanon’s ghost is drinking sake and smoking Peace cigarettes in celebration.
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Where literary and cultural analysis get a face lift
I got the great news recently that I'll be blogging for Ploughshares for 2017, focusing on APIA literature, gender constructions, and video games as literature, among other things.