Blogs are dead; long live the blog! Welcome to a curated selection of my blog posts on writing, diversity, LGBTQ+ young adult, and my books, dating all the way back to 2008. If you enjoy my writing, please consider supporting it with a donation.
If you follow me on Twitter or if you remember my National Book Award acceptance speech, you’ll know that for several months now, right-wing efforts to remove books about people of color and LGBTQ people from schools and libraries (including public libraries) have been ramping up across the U.S.
Read MoreI’m thrilled to share the news that my next novel, titled A Scatter of Light, will be published in fall 2022. Here’s the whole convoluted inside publishing backstory of how this book came to be.
Read MoreDiving into the ideas and inspirations behind my latest novel.
Read MoreA couple of months ago, the New York Times asked me if I’d be interested in writing some flash fiction (that is, a very short story) inspired by a photo from their archives. This story would be part of a collection of flash fiction written by Asian American young adult authors. You don’t get this kind of invitation every day (!) so of course I said yes.
The Times then sent me a selection of photos from their archives, and I chose one of them that inspired me. It was, I admit, the strangest and quirkiest photo they sent me. I knew that the flash fiction collection was aiming to explore Asian American identity, and because I’m a contrarian and delight in pushing against identity boxes, I chose the photo that seemed to be the least connected to popular concepts of “Asian American identity.”
Read MoreIt’s only one month until the 10th anniversary edition of Ash is released, and I’m thrilled to show you the full, updated cover today. It still retains the image of the girl curled up on the ground that made me love the original cover so much, but the title treatment is new and several incredible authors have contributed new blurbs for Ash.
I case you're not familiar with publishing jargon, blurbs are those little bursts of praise that are printed on book covers. (For example: "This book is better than sliced bread!" — Jane Bestseller, Author of Many Bestsellers) They are a source of incredible anxiety for authors, because who wants to go around asking for other people to praise your book publicly? It's totally nerve-wracking!
So when I learned which authors had offered new blurbs for a 10-year-old book, I was completely floored. Here they are on the new cover, front and back:
Read MoreThe new year is already upon us, and I'm happy to report that I have a new short story just published that you can read right now.
Foreshadow is a new publisher of young adult short fiction; they describe themselves as "a serial YA anthology, published digitally." What this means is that every month in 2019, you'll be able to read three new (free!) young adult short stories. They'll be written by published authors and new voices alike. I'm thrilled that my short story, "Red," leads off their first issue of the year.
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