Category: Anthologies

Two Books Coming out in March 2025!

Anthologies, Books, Canada Anthology, publishing, ricepaper magazine, shortstories, Uncategorized, Writing

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!

Can Con 2023 Schedule

Anthologies, conventions, editing, marketing, podcast, podcast, self-publishing, Writing

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!

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!

Doing my first live stream podcast interview and Medium personal essay about caring for the elderly during COVID

Anthologies, articles, asian, Books, branding, caregiving, children, death, editing, family, Medium, podcast, self-publishing, Uncategorized, Writing

Many months ago I was booked for an interview on the Lurking for Legends podcast and totally forgot about it until the host Richard H. Stephens sent an email with the live podcast link! Since my last blog post, my 106 year old grandma passed, so I had been busy planning another funeral and dealing with over zealous relatives who all have opinions but at the end of the day only me and my siblings were paying for this funeral.

Having done a few interviews in the past, the biggest difference in live streaming is the lack of opportunity to correct mistakes. It’s similar to giving a talk in public. It’s a good exercise in practicing improvisation because there will be questions asked which are not scripted and you have to pull yourself together to speak clearly. There were also questions from the audience via the Facebook live feed and I had to answer these on the fly too. I always think afterwards about how I could have sold things better (my husband says I am the worst salesperson!) but every experience makes the next one better.

Link to the interview here: https://fb.watch/bEvr6vdY34/

I haven’t written anything in a while, so I wrote a long personal essay called How COVID Affected the Care and Death of the Elderly In My Family. It’s a recap of what has happened over the last few months with my mother and grandmother before they died. Death is final and even conspiracy theorists can agree that such a thing will happen to all of us! Or maybe not…

Have a look at the essay here if you have time and please follow me on Medium if you can. To qualify for their partner program I need 100 followers but I only have 2. Yes, pretty sad, I know. In the near future I will be posting more on Medium and then mentioning them on my WordPress blog as larger pieces fit there better I think.

Have a great day and please stay safe!

Moni Brar reads “Fault Lines” and tells us what inspired it on Artsy Raven Eps 11

Anthologies, Artsy Raven, ArtsyRaven, asian, editing, family, podcast, publishing, ricepaper magazine, Writing, you tube

Moni Brar’s works have appeared in PRISM international, Hart House Review, Existere, The Maynard, untethered, Hobart, and other publications. She is a member of the Alexandra Writers’ Centre Society, The League of Canadian Poets, and the editorial board of New Forum Magazine.

She reads “Fault Lines” and tells us what inspired it on the Artsy Raven podcast, Episode 11. This clip is an excerpt from the episode.

Moni can be found on Instagram @monibrar.

The Artsy Raven podcast about writing & publishing episodes are on Spotify & Youtube: https://jfgarrard.com/arpodcast/

Kathy Quyen Pham answers “Why did you want to pursue a MFA?” on Artsy Raven Eps 10

Anthologies, Artsy Raven, ArtsyRaven, asian, Books, podcast, ricepaper magazine, women, Writing, you tube

Kathy Quyen Pham is a Vietnamese Canadian writer currently based in Saigon. She has published fiction in Ricepaper, Cagibi, and NōD Magazine.

She answers the question “Why did you want to pursue a MFA?” on the Artsy Raven podcast, Episode 10. This clip is an excerpt from the episode.

Kathy’s website is https://kathypham.ca.

On Twitter she is @kqphm and on Instagram she is @kqphm

The Artsy Raven podcast about writing & publishing episodes are on Spotify & Youtube: https://jfgarrard.com/arpodcast/

Kevin Wong answers “What inspired you to write stories about Hong Kong?” on Artsy Raven Eps 9

Anthologies, Artsy Raven, ArtsyRaven, asian, editing, podcast, ricepaper magazine, self-publishing, Uncategorized, Writing, you tube

Kevin Wong was born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia: the same hometown as Sidney Crosby and Sarah McLachlan. He has always loved writing and creating art, and even as a child he was constantly drawing, painting, writing stories, and telling tales to his friends and family.

He answers the question “What inspired you to write stories about Hong Kong?” on the Artsy Raven podcast, Episode 9. This clip is an excerpt from the episode.

The Artsy Raven podcast about writing & publishing episodes are on Spotify & Youtube: https://jfgarrard.com/arpodcast/

Bianca Weeko Martin answers “What makes you decide to make a piece of artwork versus writing?”

Anthologies, Artsy Raven, ArtsyRaven, editing, podcast, publishing, ricepaper magazine, Writing, you tube

Bianca Weeko Martin is a designer with Filipino, Indonesian, and Chinese ancestry. She was educated at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture in Canada, where she has been based since immigrating with her family from Jakarta in 2000.

She answers the question “What makes you decide to make a piece of artwork versus writing?” on the Artsy Raven podcast, Episode 8. This clip is an excerpt from the episode.

Her latest publication is Belief: http://www.darkhelixpress.com/acww/belief/

The Artsy Raven podcast about writing & publishing episodes are on Spotify & Youtube: https://jfgarrard.com/arpodcast/

#Op-ed “Selling #Diversity to the Reluctant” published @medium – people are scared about being cancelled

Anthologies, articles, asian, diversity, marketing, publishing, Uncategorized

Recently I finished an op-ed piece and sent it around to major media outlets. It wasn’t picked up by anyone. Naively I thought that since the piece was about a small press publishing a book by Asian writers and finding it difficult to gather in-depth book reviews, this would be an interesting read since a lot of diversity articles only talk about the good things about why it’s needed or negative experiences. The experience I had was a good one, but in the op-ed I wanted to highlight the fact that people are scared about being cancelled, so they can’t comment on anything, which makes it difficult to move forward. Everyone says they want diverse books, but is this really true? Or are they saying this because it sounds like the right thing to say?

The link to the op-ed piece is here: https://jfgarrard.medium.com/selling-diversity-to-the-reluctant-ce80b5e0ccd8

I emailed The Idea Shop and Josh (One Man Podcast) to make sure they were ok with me mentioning their names in the op-ed and they were both cool. I spoke to Josh on his One Man Podcast about a bunch of stuff and when COVID restrictions are lifted more we will meet in person!

As a writer, I wonder about why this piece was rejected. If you are a successful op-ed writer, perhaps you can send me some tips!

Generally, the message in this piece was: sometimes it’s best just to sit down to have a cup of tea and eat together to build relationships going forward. Basically instead of preaching diversity, let’s talk about what we have in common and be friends!

#HappyPrideMonth, talking to #comedian #JoshWilliams and #Youtube link for #Belief #booklaunch! #LGBTQ #ArtsyRaven #onemanpodcast #writing #publishing

Anthologies, Artsy Raven, asian, Books, editing, interviews, podcast, publishing, releases, ricepaper magazine, Uncategorized, Writing

June is Pride Month and on the Artsy Raven podcast we are releasing episodes featuring a LGBTQ author every Sunday. More details available in our June newsletter (click here), including which episode to listen to which has a submission call for short stories. It was great to talk to these authors who all generously shared their challenges and struggles, but despite all this, they all remain optimistic and achieved their goals!

At the end of May we had a book launch for Belief, an anthology featuring Asian authors. I was happy that my 3-tiered cake didn’t fall down and it was a lot of fun baking, even though I’ve lost my sense of smell and taste after the COVID vaccine. Since I take care of my 105-year-old grandma, I get tested for COVID every week and it’s been negative. Anyhow, we recorded the Belief event which can be watched on Youtube here. More details about the book here.

Comedian Josh Williams and I talked a little bit about Belief and other things in life on his One Man Podcast, click here. His podcast is a casual conversation and somehow I impressed him with my talk about the radioactive sandwiches I fed people when I worked in Nuclear Medicine!

I’ve been trying to do more writing by doing writing sprints with an indie author group every Sunday night, but it’s been slow. My brain is still split on weekdays because of virtual school and I can’t write one sentence without the kraken (my child) demanding something. I’m not sure at what age human children become more useful!

For more detailed Artsy Raven podcast episode summaries, they are posted on Patreon and Ko-fi every Sunday.

Stay safe until next time!

#AsianHeritageMonth #Asian #Author #Readings and #Interviews! #canlit #Belief @ricepapermag @darkhelixpress

Anthologies, Artsy Raven, asian, podcast

May is Asian Heritage month and this year on the Artsy Raven I interviewed a few of the authors from the Belief anthology, a book which has been getting some PR on Canadian radio stations. This is the first book I’ve ever done marketing and interviews via radio stations so I’m not sure what the ROI is on doing this, we will see! Visit the book page to see the radio interviews and other media links, including The Richard Crouse Show on Newstalk 1010 and THE RAW MIKE RICHARDS SHOW on SAUGA 960 AM: http://www.darkhelixpress.com/acww/belief/

Every week in May I’m dropping an interview with a Belief author and they read their piece from the anthology as well. It’s really great to hear the authors read from pieces which we have been editing for a few months and they give life to their words! Check out the Artsy Raven podcast page for dates of when the episodes will be released: https://jfgarrard.com/arpodcast/

The podcast pace hasn’t been too bad, I am not an exhausted pigeon yet! Until next time!