Tag: anthology

Belief review on the #RawMikeRichards Show with @TheIdeaShopca this morning! Some thoughts…#Toronto #Vancouver #canlit #youtube #soundcloud

Anthologies, asian, editing, interviews, marketing, radio

This morning we woke up early to listen to “The Raw Mike Richards Show” on Sauga 960am which caters mainly to the Toronto area. Once a month, The Idea Shop goes onto the show to promote the latest book releases in the Canadian market.

To be honest I was a bit nervous about what people would think about the book because although I think it’s fantastic, I’m also the gardener who helped plant the flowers, so my perspective is biased!

It was wonderful to listen to the opinion that the stories were like a “box of chocolates” which cheered up the readers during COVID and also brought up memories of the host (Mike Richards) being close to an Asian family in the town they grew up in. Canada’s strength lies in diversity and the ability for people to work together to transform society for the better.

Have a listen to the audio here: https://soundcloud.com/ideashop/reading-is-beliving-the-idea-shop-april-2021

Youtube video here:https://youtu.be/Tq-o_7RnXkg

Have a great day, good luck hunting for the COVID vaccine and stay safe!

Immersion and Brave New Girls

Anthologies, Books, editing, publishing, science, science fiction, Writing

Immersion, an Asian speculative fiction anthology of fifteen stories which I edited with Allan Cho and William Tham is out! Two years in the making, we’ve used a lot of blood, sweat and tears on this project. The stories range from glimpses into loving relationships (with mermaids, grandparents, etc) to science fiction (using fish slime for fashion) to horror (supernatural beasts and an artist painting in blood). When we started the project we didn’t know what would come in the door. All we knew was we wanted to offer a chance to authors to send in the fantastic and surprise us! Towards the end we also did a cover re-haul and it looks completely different from before!

My latest published short story, The Curse, made it into Brave New Girls: Adventures of Gales and Gizmos. This anthology is the latest release from editors Mary Fan and Paige Daniels, featuring young adult science fiction tales about teen girls with a knack for science, tech, engineering and math… hackers, mechanics, inventors, and more! Proceeds from sales will be donated quarterly to the Society of Women Engineers scholarship fund.

 

 

 

 

Call for Submissions – Immersion: An Asian Anthology of Love, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction

Anthologies, asian, science fiction, Writing

Call for Submissions: Immersion: An Asian Anthology of Love, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction

Deadline: Open February 15, 2018 – December 31, 2018 (deadline extended from previous Oct deadline)

Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop and Dark Helix Press are collaborating! We are searching for submissions for “Immersion: Love, Fantasy, Science” an anthology of speculative fiction stories to be published in the summer of 2019.

The anthology editors are Allan Cho, (Inside the World’s Major East Asian Collections), JF Garrard (Trump: Utopia or Dystopia, The Undead Sorceress) and William Tham (Kings of Petaling Street).

Construct a story about an Asian main character set in an immersive alternate past, present or future. Fill this reality with hints of reality, magic, or fantastical but believable science. If you are interested in writing about a motorized caravan train across the Silk Road, or sages searching for magical apprentices in the South China Sea, now is your chance. We also like good wuxia swordplay and other martial arts as much as we enjoy postcolonial politics and other contemporary topics. Draw on your heritage and transport us to a different world.

We are collecting short stories and flash fiction; please make sure there is a beginning, middle and an end.

Stories may be dark in nature, but no gratuitous violence, sex, or racist content. Novel excerpts not encouraged unless they tell a complete story.

For more details on how to submit, visit Dark Helix Press’ website link.

Please read the instructions. Stray stories are hard to keep track of and do get lost no matter how good they are!

Cover Reveal for Trump Utopia or Dystopia!

Anthologies, Books, branding, business, editing, marketing, publishing, Toronto, Trump Anthology, Writing

Whoopee! The great Jen Frankel and I are almost done editing this Trump book! Instead of 20 stories as planned, we have 30 stories. Too much of a good thing won’t kill you…I think…depends on what…

Anyhow, we revamped the cover too to make it a bit stronger. There were debates over changing the title too, but in the end, we stuck with the same title as Trumptopia, Trumpocalypse, etc were all taken.

It was great to work with all the writers and although sometimes we agreed to disagree, everyone worked hard on polishing their stories. We hope that reader will enjoy the book as we had a fantastic time editing!

This week I’m off to read a new piece about Toronto convention no-nos at the Tartan Turban Secret Readings #5. I honestly don’t know what to expect. There could be 5 people in the room or 50! Looking forward to connecting with local authors and seeing if they know more secrets about success than I do.

I had a talk with the organizer who asked me about where I published other than self-publishing. I said only Ricepaper Magazine and their anthology. Then after hanging up, I realized that I had either written or contributed a bunch of stuff to rather large outlets such as Entrepreneur Magazine, Women’s Health, Book Baby (blog), Authors Helping Authors, etc. I’m just not used to taking credit for stuff. The lesson from my MBA marketing prof: ‘ if you don’t toot your own horn, no one will do it for you!’ obviously didn’t stick to my brain that much.

Over the weekend one of my American friends told me about some course on selling millions of books. I told her that at the end of the day, I believe it’s about creating a good quality story. Marketing/selling is a different skill set than writing, but first you have to write something worth selling!