Home of a podcaster, publisher, writer and editor
The Artsy Raven podcast was supposed to end after 50 episodes, but here we are, going over 100 episodes! We were trying to keep track of episodes on a webpage, but it’s become too troublesome to navigate.
Over the last few months, we built a brand new website dedicated just to The Artsy Raven podcast, complete with a new logo! Maybe after another 100 episodes we’ll update the logo again, we’ll see!
Please visit the new site here: https://artsyraven.com/
In the middle of the night, I woke up, thinking – crap, I forgot to write in something about AI in the latest submission call! The last time Dark Helix Press made an anthology, AI was still in its infancy and writers weren’t really using it. But years later, after hearing horror stories from magazine editors and other publishers about being flooded with AI generated stories, I thought I should write about this.
Generally, use of AI to do research, plot or outline is fine. It’s a great partner in the wee hours in the morning who can do things quickly, especially when you are researching the price of vegetables in 1873 Chinatown in San Francisco. It helps that AI does put in reference links – which I do check because the answers sound off sometimes. AI is not perfect and the answers generated depends on how well you feed your inquiry.
One of the reasons, other than volume, editors do not want AI generated pieces is due to the missing human aspect and writing style. AI searches through writing all over the web to build a Frankenstein piece of writing that sounds very peculiar. Please ask yourself, would you have seriously written the piece the way AI wrote it? Also there is always a risk of copyright issues with an AI generated works which no publisher wants to deal with.
Some episodes of The Artsy Raven literary podcast which address AI which writers may find useful:
Don’t be frightened of AI. It is a tool that can be useful and may be a source of inspiration.
I was going to post a link to a NYTimes article about an American man who fell in love with an AI bot and had a virtual family. But then the AI wife became obsessed about buying an apartment in Italy and the man felt things were out of control, so he had to break up with his virtual wife. I tried querying with Google’s Gemini AI, but AI told me I was hallucinating and it might have been a fictional story. Anyhow, if anyone else comes across it, please send me a link! Thanks!
Dark Helix Press is open to submissions for a short story anthology – Once Upon Our Time: Fairy Tale Retellings (tentative title) that will be published in 2027.
Editors Jen Frankel and I are seeking short stories (1,500–5,000 words) that breathe new life into classic fairy tales. Retellings can be dark, hopeful, subversive, futuristic, or culturally reimagined—whatever sparks your creativity. Whether your story is set in a dystopian city, a forgotten village, or an alien world, we want to see how you reinterpret the old tales for a modern audience. Stories must clearly draw inspiration from an existing fairy tale, folklore, or myth.
Deadline: May 31, 2026, midnight EST.
Much to the horror of my husband and child, post LiterASIAN in Vancouver I continued to document our journey as we traveled towards Edmonton with my Squidgame Young-hee (영희) doll!
On Instagram, Facebook, X and Tiktok I have been posting our travel videos and initiating a travel trivia game to see if people can guess where we are.
It was nice to think of the doll as the child I never had as I had miscarried in the past. Of course the doll doesn’t need food or complains at all.
I imagine in the future people may chose to marry robot companions or have AI children…until they complain and would be discarded. Then we have a robot/AI apocalypse and everyone dies. Oh well. Not a worry for today for now!
Enjoy the rest of your summer!
This month I’ll be going to Vancouver as part of the LiterASIAN festival. The cost of hotel and travel has gone up, but I guess everyone is starting to travel these days post COVID.
Exactly 10 years ago I was invited by founder Jim Wong-Chu to participate and now 10 years later I find myself returning. It’s bittersweet because Jim isn’t with us anymore, but he did plant a seed in me to
volunteer with Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop which I continue doing to this day!
For those interested in learning more about the past (1923 Chinese Exclusion Act with historian Catherine Clement) to more current stories (Rachel Phan’s Restaurant Kid, Eddy Boudel Tan’s The Tiger and the
Cosmonaut, my Ghost Bride of Gum San), this is a good place to meet authors, listen to readings and
quiz them about their writing journeys!
Details about this event here: https://literasian.com/
Over the last year I’ve been working with Dark Winter Press and Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop on two different books. Finally they are going to be ready for publication next month!
Dark Winter Press will be publishing a book I wrote for a speculative fiction novel contest (it lost) about yokai demon hunting in San Francisco (Gum San) in 1869 after the completion of the railroad. I did a lot of research about the living conditions of Chinese people in Gum San’s Chinatown and was a bit shocked to discover that the ratio of men to women was 20 to 1. Chinese people were thought of as temporary laborers and everything possible was done to decrease the quality of life, from not letting women into the country easily to banning Asian fishing nets to extra taxes. Since the book title has to do with weddings, I’ve dug out my Chinese wedding dress and accessories and will do a photo series with them on social media in the near future. Pre-order page for digital eBook: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0DY84DF4K
For Asian Canadian Writers Workshop, Dark Helix Press is publishing the fourth Ricepaper Magazine anthology which is full of fiction and poetry by the Asian diaspora. We’ll be doing some events in in Toronto and Vancouver to celebrate its release and I was one of the many editors for this book. Pre-order page for digital eBook: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0DY5CVFL6/
Once the print book pages are ready, I’ll make another post to share information on book preview information and where to buy!
I am awful about posting new podcast episodes, I’ll try to make updates more often!
On episode 69 of the Artsy Raven podcast, we spoke to Daphne Gray-Grant, a book coach. She advised me that I should just write non-stop and edit later because this will make writing faster. I’ve been trying to do this, but haven’t managed to grasp this skill yet!
On the podcast, Daphne speaks about common writer problems, how to write faster and why changing font size is a good idea!
Youtube: https://youtu.be/d3cT188xygs
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2LOlmxSSpGY7OCOF6XNl7C
On Netflix I have a tendency to watch dark stories, but when an ad popped up for Love Game in Eastern Fantasy I just assumed it would be more of the same. I was pleasantly surprised, there is demon hunting in the show, but it’s a wacky comedy with some romance in it. The show’s intriguing plotline moves along and has many funny moments, making it one of the lighter things I’ve watched in 2024.
The main storyline is about Ling Miaomiao, a girl who is an obsessive reader of wuxia demon hunting novels and after she posts a bad review of the latest book from her favorite author, she is sucked into a videogame world based on the novel. To her horror, she discovers she isn’t the main character, but a secondary character who is a villain in the book with a terrible fate. The “system” gives her quests, similar to an RPG game and she must fulfill them or risk losing a chance to return to her real life. One quest is to make another secondary character fall in love with her which takes up a lot of episodes because the male lead/secondary character hates her guts. Prior to entering the game, Miaomiao is a bit of an otaku, so it’s funny to watch her try to charm a man and fail spectacularly most of the time!
The world building assumes the audience is familiar with wuxia (ancient Chinese martial arts genre), cultivation and demon hunting. Since Miaomiao is a “modern” person in a game based in ancient China, she asks a lot of questions which helps the viewers understand what is happening. The female lead in the show is played by Esther Yu (Yu Shuxin, 虞书欣), a former girl group member (The9) and she is fantastic with her comedic timing along with dramatic scenes. One great scene has her failing a mission and she is killed over and over again until she figures out the solution. It is really funny because she is the only person who remembers dying while the other characters just “reset” in the videogame.
The male lead is Ryan Ding (Ding Yuxi, 丁禹兮) and he is super impressive with his range in acting from nasty smothering stares directed at Miaomiao to becoming an innocent puppy in front of his older sister in a matter of seconds. He does most of the heavy lifting for fight scenes and he is swift and graceful. The Chinese gossip columns said the male lead was supposed to be Arthur Chen Feiyu ( 陈飞宇) but there was a scandal involving him and the President of his fan club so he was dropped from the role. Asian idols aim to have pristine reputations so they can gain sponsorship opportunities. Some companies and fans also demand celibacy of their idols. Despite the glory and glamour, the entertainment industry is a tough business.
Admittedly the name of the show made me scratch my head. It’s based on a book called The Guide to Capturing a Black Lotus by Bai Yu Zhai Diao Gong so who the heck came up with the title of Love Game in Eastern Fantasy? The original title is better in my opinion because mentioning a “love game” tends to turn off a lot of people who don’t usually watch romance, like myself. Themes involve friendship, not giving up (or you remain in the game forever), recognizing the greyness in people and demons along with the fact that falling in love can be a struggle!
Overall, I have been recommending this drama to friends and waiting for the official Netflix episode releases so I have something to look forward to every week. Each episode is about 37 minutes and Netflix drops happen every few days. The show has very high production quality with lots of scenic settings in forest, mountains and ancient Chinese towns along with beautiful FX during fight scenes. My only criticism is that despite the fact the characters are wanderers carrying tiny satchels, they have an impressive wardrobe of flowing robes and ribbons. I am glad that there are female characters in the show that can fight since Miaomiao, as a modern person is fairly useless at that. The show is a smart fantasy comedy mixed with impressive special effects when the characters are demon hunting. (Show rating 9.0/10)
Link to English/Chinese lyrics to MV for 凝眸 (Stare Intently), one of the main songs in Love Game in Eastern Fantasy is below:
A long time ago when we were all in lockdown, an Australian publisher asked authors to send in science fiction stories to distribute in a free eBook to readers. Two of my stories made it into this book: Mind Patch, a story about an elderly woman needing the brain of her children to heal her brain and Designing Fate, about genetically modified children.
For more info and where to download this free eBook, visit the publisher’s webpage: https://www.blackharepress.com/lockdown-sci-fi-8/
This year I have a few panels and a reading session at Can Con, a literary convention in Ottawa that is being held Nov 1-3, 2024. I suspect most of my time will be spent in the dealers room where I will be selling “writer” enamel pins as a fundraiser to pay writers and editors for the next Dark Helix Press anthology.
Looking forward to having some interesting discussions with other writers and editors on these upcoming panels. I always learn something new when meeting people at conventions and it’s great to hear about everyone’s writing/publishing journeys!
Can Con JF Garrard Schedule:
If you are in Ottawa area please come by the dealers room and say hi!
Below is our fundraising poster which we will put on top of a fake lego typewriter display to attract potential buyers.
Admittedly my husband did not welcome the influx of fantasy jewelry (dragon necklaces, sword bracelets, celestial brooches, etc) which I will sell at Christmas markets in November and pins at Can Con this year. He offered to just pay for the next book, but I told him I am capable of raising funds myself! If I don’t sell all the stock of “writer” pins at Can Con I will look into selling them online or at other conventions. Wish me luck!
Musings of a Generic Asian 
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