At Buffalo NASFiC today, I was slotted in last minute to teach drawing. “Gotta Sketch ‘Em All” is a 30 min hands on class with kids (adults welcomed too) to draw kawaii Pokémon! See you at 4pm today!
Drawing Pokémon at Buffalo NASFiC
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Buffalo NASFiC Schedule
One of my friends asked me to participate in programming in the 16th NASFiC (North American Science Fiction Convention) coming up July 18-21, 2024 in Buffalo, New York at the Hyatt Regency Buffalo. I’m looking forward to speaking about writing, publishing, doing an author reading and discussing the movie Galaxy Quest. If you are in Buffalo, please drop by to say hi! Website: https://buffalonasfic2024.org/
My schedule: https://schedule.buffalonasfic2024.org/people/1426
Thursday, July 18, 2024
4:00 PM – Gotta Sketch ‘Em All, Convention Center 109 (Children’s)
5:00 PM – Reading Your Work Aloud, Grand Ballroom E (Reading),Duration: 50 mins
Friday, July 19, 2024
10:00 AM – Writing for Anthologies, Grand Ballroom FG, Duration: 50 mins
11:00 AM- JF Garrard Reading, Grand Ballroom E (Reading), Duration: 30 mins
12:00 PM – How Dark is Too Dark? Grand Ballroom ABC, Duration: 50 mins
2:00 PM – 25 years: Galaxy Quest appreciation, Grand Ballroom ABC, Duration: 50 mins
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Hi all, haven’t posted in a while, have been busy with life and travelling. Recently I went to Hong Kong to visit a 95-year-old relative and Seoul (because my cousin told me she wanted to go since we watch so many K-dramas). Will write a post in the future about the adventures we had while abroad. Toronto is such a quiet city compared to Hong Kong and Seoul. There’s barely any traffic or people here compared to there!
I haven’t been on social media very much since the beginning of the year and it’s been ok. The world didn’t end and I had time to do other things like travel and catch up on reading.
Recently, I discovered the email service I was using wasn’t sending out emails to everyone on my list which was about 1,600 emails. It was only emailing out 400 people. So I switched to a different service and found that after sending out a newsletter, 100 people unsubscribed. Fantastic! I say this because email services charge per number of emails on your list. Only people who want to get the newsletter should get it and I can avoid paying for extra emails. One person didn’t know how to unsubscribed and asked for manual deletion which was fine, learned how to do that today too!
Right now I’ve editing my 57th episode of the Artsy Raven podcast. The 56th episode will come out tomorrow, hope you get a chance to listen, it’s such a pleasure to listen to people read their words. The sun, is out, hope you all have a chance to go outside to bast in the sun a bit!
Away with 2023!
Wishing everyone a restful holiday and a wonderful time with loved ones!
Can Con 2023 Schedule
The summer went by so fast! Now I’m suddenly scrambling to pull myself together for Can Con 2023, a writing and publishing convention held in Ottawa. Things were going well, I actually did a jog in the park yesterday, but then in the afternoon I lost my favorite pair of headphones in the supermarket and my day went haywire from then on (I found myself crawling on the supermarket floor in search of them in case they got kicked under the shelves, but they stayed lost).
Sometimes I feel like whenever I feel happy, that is when things go really wrong. Anyhow, I’m hoping things will go well at the conference now that my bad streak has happened…below is my schedule if you happen to be going to the conference, feel free to come chat with me!
- Friday, October 13, 8:00pm – 8:50pm – Making a Podcast That Survives and Thrives
- Saturday, October 14, 10:00am – 10:50am – Hope in the Age of AI-Generated Content
- Sunday, October 15, 10:00am – 10:50am – Putting the PR in DePRession: Indie Publishing and Mental Health and 1:00pm – 1:50pm Dark Helix Press office hours (offering free consulting on publishing)
The schedule looks action packed with lots of writing sessions, book launches and interesting topics about the future of publishing. It’s one of the few conferences left in Canada that features genre writing and it should be hopping!
Writing five books in six months is an amazing feat!
Recently on the Artsy Raven podcast we spoke to Vincent Yee, #writer of Clara Wu Books! He shared his story and his incredible journey of writing five books in six months before embarking on a marketing campaign which landed him on the The Kelly Clarkson Show! #asianamerican #diversityinbooks #writinglife
Spotify podcast link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4ASr1qrVZqSYuXThu01zVA
Youtube podcast link: https://youtu.be/nxPLTIAZLBE
Being Embarrassed by your Writing
Last week, daycare asked me to bring in a copy of a children’s book written by my child, a picture book about marbles which is a fairly specialized topic! The next day, I packed up a copy of the book and on the way to daycare my child began sobbing. Real gigantic tears falling down their cheeks and howling while we crossed the street.
It turned out they didn’t want me to bring the book to daycare because they thought the other children will see this picture book and make fun of them. I told them it was an accomplishment to publish any book and not to let the haters get to you.
As a parent your influence is limited once they go to daycare or school and I can’t control what happens there. The daycare staff felt bad and told us that we can bring the book back home and perhaps bring back another day. Now the book is resting on a table at home.
It is scary being a writer because you don’t know who will be reading your words. Never mind writing, all your social media posts are being looked at by strangers. Over time I hope my child will gain more confidence to share their work one day, and not be so scared. I suppose the upside is maybe they will be more aware of what they are posting onto social media if they are worried about reputation? Or maybe they will post idiotic things together with their peers? The road to the future is unknown, but experiences will guide us along the way on this strange journey of parenthood and childhood!
Happy Canada Day!
Just sending out a “Happy Canada Day!” greeting to everyone!
I just want to stay inside and write, but it’s such a beautiful day today and my kraken child has continuous needs. Maybe one day they can pour their own apple juice and make a meal for themselves, but this seems light years away! I will go outside and let the bugs have their feast (they never bite my husband, I suspect they know they will become entangled in arm hair), have a good day and enjoy the present!
Open call for Stephen Chow’s Upcoming Shaolin Women’s Soccer movie!
The internet is abuzz with Stephen Chow 周星馳 posting an open call on Instagram to cast his upcoming Shaolin Women’s Soccer movie. Stephen Chow Sing-chi is a Hong Kong filmmaker, director, actor and comedian, known for Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle.
In many of his movies, he has a preference for casting “unknowns” and inexperienced people to provide a freshness to his projects. He had announced previously that he wants to complete another movie before he is 65 and since he is 61 now, this might be the movie. This open call is international, so why not apply and dream a bit?
His Instagram post is about his birthday wish asking for “people mountain people sea” which means “a lot of people” to apply for his movie’s casting. He asks for non-ugly women and no photoshopped pictures. However, people in the comments section are asking about transgender roles (Wang Lei), being a man (Edison Chen) or a woman who has had multiple children (Myolie Wu). He asks for everyone to throw their name into the bucket anyways!
The Instagram (click here for link) post doesn’t contain much details, just to send in a picture along with “qualifications.” Singapore’s 8days news site translated some of the comments on the post from celebrities and such.
I sent in something and also asked for am interview in the message. Will see if I get any responses. Good luck to all of us!
Those clever phishers
Recently I received multiple emails from a PR company claiming they can generate media opportunities for me, whatever that means. I clicked on the emails because the heading mentioned a past interview I gave to another website and I thought it might be a real request since I also receive a lot of messages from legitimate PR companies. These emails mentioned my interest of publishing diverse voices and named my publishing company. Then I noticed that although the emails came from different people and were signed by different people, the messages were exactly the same and all of them requested I cc their co-worker “Shane.”
By mentioning something from someone’s past and posing it as a genuine request in the subject line, this gives a higher percentage of people opening the email instead of deleting it right away. It’s also quite easy to figure out my interests from my websites and social media postings. I worry about what phishers will think of next.
Hopefully my mind will still be sharp before the next wave of phishers come after me again! If you have faced similar phishers or even more clever ideas, please share!
Musings of a Generic Asian 
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