Cover Reveal for Amnesia of June Bugs!

After months and really, years of anticipation, my debut novel, Amnesia of June Bugs has a cover at long last! I can’t even begin to tell you how exciting, how deeply fulfilling, how incredibly satisfying it is to see the face of this novel. Part of my excitement is based on the fact that this novel was my MFA thesis at Notre Dame. I finished a version of this novel back in 2007 and then spent the next twelve years revising it over and over again, mostly on my own and then later with Sunyoung at Kaya Books, whose brilliance really helped push this book and who fought so hard for it. She lit did everything in her power to get the board to accept it for publication. When they rejected this novel, my heart was broken for years. It hurt even more that this book was rejected by the only mainland AAPI press in the whole country. Talk about damage to my soul!

The truth is, I actually abandoned this novel for years, heartbroken and afraid that I was the only one who saw its literary worth. In the back of my mind, though, there was this silent voice in my head that knew the board was wrong, that they didn’t know a dope book when they saw one. I believed that this book would someday find the right publisher, that with enough revision, dedication, dedication, and hard work, I could not only turn this novel in the tiny little masterpiece that it is today, but just as importantly, find the right home for it. I just needed to find the right (small) press that published transgressive work, that sought books that were audacious, creative, ambitious, multimodal, highly imaginative, beautiful, and a little experimental, and that’s exactly what I found when Leland, the editor at 7.13 Books, emailed me and said his 2021 catalog was full but that he was open to bumping my novel to the 2022 catalog. I said fuck yes and now my baby has a face!

Stay tuned for updates, interviews, reviews, and more!

Ideas for the Future

I may rage against the machine when a particular rejection stings, but I'm the kind of dude that gets back up (literally) the next day and tries another way to make it work.  Writing, after all, is the one thing I'm great at.  Resilience is another.  And Ima figure out how to get my novels in the hands of my future readers because that's who I am.

In the next month, I'll be sending AMNESIA to several indie presses that I think might be receptive (among others, FC2 and Curbside Splendor) as well to a few laser-targeted literary agents who represent multicultural literary fiction.  One of them will be Zadie Smith's agent, because of the obvious similarities between The Amnesia of Junebugs and White Teeth. 

With a clean break from Kaya, I have the power to (re)consider all my options, not just the obvious ones.  I have the possibility of finding an even larger audience and a much more supportive editorial department.  I have the right to try again and find the right press for my manuscripts as a hapa writer of fiction. 

I may be bruised, but I'm still standing.  I'm still going to make this work.

Going All Out

After a concentrated two weeks where LB and I saw both our families back to back, I'm finally getting back in the groove with my writing, revising, and submissions.  And today I've realized that I'm going all out.

Recently, a bunch of my friends have been getting agents, then two-book contracts, thereby fundamentally changing their literary careers in the span of literally one year.  A boy can only dream . . . Of course, because I'm human, I've been waiting by the phone too for the same phone call, waiting for the same miracle to magically transform my writing career into a solid object, but so far, I've been mostly stood up by publishing industry (literary journals have been much kinder to me).  Agents are happy to tell me how talented I am, but their rejections are always about the fit.  Truthfully, it's hard not to feel bad about yourself, especially when you stroll through the local bookstore and you see straight up shit on the coop.  But I'm an eternal optimist, obviously delusional, and also very stubborn, so I'm not giving up.  Not when I'm so close.

This leads me to the whole point I was making before I digressed earlier.  Now that I'm back in action, I'm going all out, man.  I'm submitting queries for NINJAS to a bunch of new agents soon (I'm still waiting to hear from three agents who are reading full manuscripts, but the longer time passes, the less hopeful I get).  If Kaya rejects AMNESIA (they're taking their sweetass time, by the way), I'll send a query for it to fifty agents the next week.  I just sent out several novella manuscripts to Plougshares and the Massachusetts Review.  I'm also sending one of my best (and fave) short stories to several literary journals.  Lastly, I'm sending my memoir to a few indie presses that I think would be a good fit aesthetically, conceptually, and structurally.  Instead of staggering my submissions as I was forced to do during the school year, I'm now going full force.  And that's not even including a screenplay I'll start revising/continuing this weekend about two bike messengers in DTLA.

And it don't stop . . .

Amnesia of Junebugs Submitted to Kaya Editorial Board

So last week, I finally submitted my completely reworked, revamped, and revised novel, The Amnesia of Junebugs, to the editorial board at Kaya Press.  In case we just met, I sent Kaya a radically different iteration of this novel two years ago that had a different name (Blank) and also a different narrative framing device, among other wholesale changes.  The board liked many things and disliked some other things, so I've spent the last two years working with Sunyoung Lee, Kaya's publisher, to address many of the big problems the board raised and also to rewrite this novel until it was a tiny bit awesome.  I've been working on and off on this novel since 2007 when I finished it, which is oh, just 8 goddamn years!

But now this novel is something I love very deeply and am immensely proud of.  I'm giving Kaya first dibs because Sunyoung has helped me so much making suggestions and also because I'm unbelievably grateful they're reading it again after 2 years.  If you know me, you know I'm intensely loyal.  Beyond that, Kaya is a great fucking press that publishes great writing about the APIA Diaspora with beautifully designed covers.  But if for some--completely insane--reason they don't publish it, I feel confident that another press will.  It is a very good novel.  It is in fact, a great novel.  It belongs with Kaya and the choice is now theirs.

Stay tuned!

Final Revisions Before Sending Manuscript to Publisher for Evaluation

Even though I'm leaving Chicago in less than two weeks, I'm trying to pack my whole life into cardboard boxes, see Chicago as much as humanly possible with my gimpy ankle, and also finish a third and final master revision of my debut novel, The Amnesia of Junebugs, before I send it to Kaya Press.  Sunyoung, the publisher, who I've been working with for the past year, will then read my completely revamped manuscript, and then pass it on to the editorial board for a second evaluation if she likes it (I sent them a very different version of this novel a year ago after which, they asked for a rewrite).  Anyway, I know this may sound like a sure thing, but the reality is, the editorial board at Kaya Press is really tough and I don't get the impression they agree on novel manuscripts very often.  Either way, I can only hope they love this newest version as much as I do.  If they do, this could finally be it.  Could being the operative word here.  Stay tuned, people . . .