Year of the Snake

Let's begin

Hello. I guess it’s time I got started here. I have been intending to start a newsletter for a while now, because marketing experts says it’s essential, and what if social networks disappear? So this will be a space for me to update readers on what I’ve been up to, and to share some writing from time to time.

The title of this Substack is borrowed from an event concerning Elizabeth Warren, of course, but persistence has been the key to any kind of success I have had as a writer. Take, for example, my latest book, River of Dolls and Other Stories, which will be available in print in the United States, Japan, and other places on January 19. The stories in this collection were written over the past thirty years or so, and I shopped this publication around for about fifteen years before finally selling it to Penguin Random House SEA.

This collection was a finalist, twice, in a literary competition, and I received a couple of previous offers of publication from small, independent publishers which seemed to publish their books only through Amazon, but I wasn’t really satisfied with that arrangement.

I submitted to Penguin Random House SEA on something of a whim. They were open to publications, and I noticed they’d published a book or two set in Japan, and this was the only manuscript that I had. To my great surprise, they responded to my query quickly, and within a few months, I had a book deal.

This year I will persist in promoting my short story collection and the novel I published last year, Cinnamon Beach. And since last year, it seems like all I did, writing-wise, was review galleys, edit, and revise, I am looking forward to plunging into some new projects. I don’t have any pressure to write; I am not under contract, and I don’t have an agent. I will just be writing for fun.