Home of a podcaster, publisher, writer and editor
Visit https://artsyraven.com/free/ to win a copy of Somewhere in Nowhere! Enter by May 8, 2026.
In Ep137 of the Artsy Raven, Steven Gellman shares how his background as a songwriter shaped his debut novel, explains why telling the story of an #LGBTQ+ #Jewish teenager felt necessary, and treats us to a live performance of the theme song he wrote for Somewhere in Nowhere.
songwriter, @ninestarpress, #LGBTQ+Romance, #ComingofAge, #ContemporaryRomance, YAbooks
I have been so behind on posting Artsy Raven episodes to social media for a while. Finally caught up and posted info about the latest episode.
On the ArtsyRaven.com website the episodes are always up to date but I struggle with social media to post on 6 different sites after an episode comes out to promote it. I want to use a program to post everything at once but this doesn’t exist!
The latest episode features doctor/writer Ahmad Saber who is also Canadian, enjoy!
#HappyValentinesDay ! Celebrating the start of the 6th season of the Artsy Raven podcast with Cynda’s Cookies! Our 126th episode features #filmmakers #NovaAmi and #VelcroRipper on #climatechange.
We are trying to commit to one podcast episode a week, but it’s hard. Depending on release dates of books or films, I’ve been dropping 2-3 episodes a week. Not very sustainable, so I need to learn to say “no” more!
Writing has been slow. Kraken child still sucking out all my energy daily…maybe when they go to university (years from now), things will be more quiet!
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
Musings of a Generic Asian 
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