Pink Is the Color

of my favorite fountain pen, with matching ink. Ever since I went back to grad school, I've rediscovered the joys of writing on paper and began collecting fountain pens. While I edit, pink splatters across the page. Progress.

Gold Is the Color of the Award

granted to Grandfather's Story Cloth, a picture book that I edited. Written in English and translated to Hmong, this little book shows a Hmong-American boy dealing with his grandfather's Alzheimer's and learning more about his cultural past through the story cloth as his grandfather slowly forgets. Foreword magazine liked it enough to give it the Gold medal!

More info about the award at Shen's Blog.

Gray Is the Color

of the dust on this blog. If I were more efficient about cleaning, I would tidy everything up all once.

Tan Is the Color

of creative writing, according to my newly acquired hood, which is more a muddy brown bear brown color than tan. I've heard this rather uncreative hood color was assigned to creative writing because it is a relatively new major, and all the other "good colors" were already taken. English is white, and blue belongs to philosophy. Now I want a funny-floppy PhD hat and matching robe with racing stripes. But more school will need to be on hold while I figure out the rest of this year and the rest of my sepia-colored life.

Red Is the Color

of the cover of my thesis, entitled Almost All Asian All the Time. Some stories are almost where I want them, and more still require significant revision. But I'm happy for now. Time to resurface.

Congrats to Eugene (E.J.) Fischer!

Eugene Fischer is someone I feel like I barely know, as when we were at Clarion, Eugene preferred to be called E.J., which are my own initials, confusingly enough. Nevertheless, when I read Eugene's first sold story (which incidentally was one of his Clarion application stories), published on Strange Horizons, I finished it with such pride and nostalgia. It was so very E.J. His prose is sparse, and his logic is thorough, yet the ending will touch you in a manner that you will not expect. Wonderful work, E.J.

Read Eugene Fischer's "Husbandry" at Strange Horizons.

Congrats to Sarah Miller's First Sale!

While at Clarion, Sarah Miller had discussed creating a pen name for herself because there were already plenty of Sarah Miller's in this world. Well, her first ever sale had only a few days' turnaround until official publication, so no time for random pen names. Congrats to Sarah!

Read Sarah Miller's "The Music at Bish Bash Falls" at Everyday Weirdness.

Congrats to Shweta Narayan!

A belated but still excited shout out to Shweta Narayan for her first pro publication! Shweta attended Clarion the summer before my class, yet we were lucky enough to have her cheerful and helpful presence as a volunteer. Oh, and Shweta is definitely a Clarion star-on-the-rise, as she has recently sold her 3rd pro story!

Read Shweta's lyrical "Nira and I" at Strange Horizons.

Journeying through Thesis-land

Recently, I have discovered Thesis-land, a place where time and space have no logical relationship to who you are, what you are doing, or any sort of reality that is not completely absorbed in your head. Thesis-land is isolating, enthralling and all-encompassing, as you bang your brain against the wall in vain attempts as you re-shape your stories to re-envision your themes, re-will your characters into some semblance of life, rewrite your sentences to actually make some modicum of sense. Forget about elegance. Forget about perfection. Forget about publication. They are not attainable when you are mired in Thesis-land.

Yes, I have been exploring Thesis-land and trying to figure out where I will be after I receive this special little paper stating I have achieved a Masters of Fine Arts, despite my feeling that as a writer I am still very much an apprentice--actually I am a toddler, no longer a mewling infant, but not quite yet confident that I won't fall flat on my face each and every time I attempt that great feat of taking a writing step. And there's not the cushion of diapers to save me from the pain of falling. All tears will be shed on the hardwood floors of reality. All focus is gathered towards finishing.

Sometimes the journey
is all there is, that and faith
you will reach The End.

To Current Clarion and Clarion West Applicants

You've revised your stories for the umpteenth time until you can't see straight. Or perhaps you wrote them only once. You've filled out the form online. Heart-racing, you press Submit. Now you are done. For now. During the next few weeks you might be wondering everyday if you got in, or, like me, assume you won't and move on. But however you choose to manage the waiting period, you secretly you hope.

You hope that you will find that magical key to get published (you won't but you'll be better informed). You hope that you will dazzle your Clarion classmates with your stories (you might) and get their stamp of approval that yes, this is a perfect story and don't change a thing (you won't). You hope the people that you meet at Clarion will understand you in a way that no one has understood you before (some will).

Clarion will change your life. You will go to San Diego (or Seattle) as one person and emerge a tested writer. You will be challenged/inspired to create something out of your comfort zone every single week. You will question your assumptions and your process as a writer, perhaps even your values and core identity as a person. You will be exposed to 17-20 highly intelligent writers whose conversations and work will blow your mind on a daily basis. You will find your writing tribe.

Clarion will not make you an instantly publishable writer. Only you can push yourself to that level. Rather, Clarion will accelerate you on your writer's journey. If you are a newbie to writing fiction, you will absorb perhaps years of experience in only six weeks. If you are on the brink of creating publishable stories, Clarion will push you over. Within the past six months since my Clarion class has graduated, at least six of us have sold stories, and three of them were first sales.

How to prepare for Clarion? Read, read, read, especially the books written by the instructors. Scour the internet for people who have applied. Scour the internet for people who have survived (and politely ask them for advice). But the bottom line is: Write as much as you can, ideally everyday.

And if you are not accepted this year, start writing and revising your stories for next year's application. Persistence is key, and the reward of attending Clarion or Clarion West is absolutely priceless.

Want to know more? Read some recent ruminations about Clarion from my classmates EJ, Damien, Kat, Megan.

Coraline the Movie in 3-D

I love movies, but nowadays I seldom see them live in the theaters. Before Coraline, the last movie that I remember watching during opening weekend was Dark Knight with my Clarion friends and our then-incoming Clarion instructor Neil Gaiman. So six months later I'm telling Clarion stories to friends, new and old, writers and non-writers, as we wait in line to see the midnight showing of Coraline written and directed by Henry Selznick and based on Neil's children's book. Each of us received a pair of plastic framed black 3-D glasses instead the kind made of flimsy white paper and red and blue tinted lenses that were so popular in the early days of 3-D. Indeed, the wrapping of the new modern glasses read: "Not safe for use as sunglasses."

Coraline is a story about a young girl whose family moves into an old house where under the wallpaper she discovers a small child-sized door that opens to a brick wall. In the middle of the night while following a mouse, she discovers that the door actually opens to a tunnel to another small door that leads to an identical house with an Other Mother and Other Father who look just like her real parents except that the Others have buttons for eyes. As Coraline explores her own world and this magically fun Other world, she discovers the truth behind Other Mother's motives and must use her real wits in the fantasy world to save her loved ones.

Shaped by Selznick's directorial eye, Coraline the movie is stunningly beautiful, with constantly changing animated effects engaging the eye at every moment, especially in the scenes of the fantasy world. Yet even during the "normal" setting of the dilapidated house, there is a sense of wonder. At times I was reminded of The Wizard of Oz, only Toto is now a cat. Also, the characters are well-rendered. Teri Hatcher's voice acting for normal Mother to Other Mother was expertly nuanced, and Dakota Fanning's voice gave Coraline a plucky 'tude. But it was the unvoiced moments that stole the show for me, like the various expressions of the cat, but especially one particularly poignant moment when, right before falling asleep, Coraline pretends her parents are still with her.

Honestly, I'm not sure if one absolutely needs to see this movie in 3-D to truly enjoy the experience, as only a handful of action shots took advantage of this format--a needle being sewn in the beginning, Other Father's mechanical arms reaching out, and a particularly scary scene near the end with Other Mother. As we're having a mini-Clarion reunion in a couple of weeks, I'll probably have the chance to watch the movie again and compare.

Sufficiently creepy, Coraline is a beautifully rendered movie with gorgeous animation, a tight plot with lots of action and well-voiced characters that will tug at your heart strings.