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Friday, October 8, 2010

Hyphen Magazine


"Hyphen is a magazine about Asian America for the culturally and politically savvy. Built around a clarity of image, word and social awareness, Hyphen takes form from the artists, thinkers and creators who are shaping a new multiethnic generation.
Hyphen is not a formula but a sensibility—not a collection of recycled fare with an Asian flavor, but original reporting on stories that move beneath the mainstream. Curious and questioning, Hyphen looks into the hard issues, but also the Asian American by accident, by tangent or by happenstance. Visually arresting, it strikes the gut with clean design, sharp photography and original illustration.
Like its readers, Hyphen is many things—cool librarian, shy musician, dorky hipster, cute techie. Like Asian America, its interests are varied—politics, art, health, music. Much like the hyphen connects words and concepts, Hyphen magazine connects readers with Asian America as it happens."
Launched in 2002, Hyphen is a nonprofit, all volunteer magazine printed three times a year. Based out of the Bay Area, Hyphen has been putting out an award winning magazine for almost a decade. You know how you sit around with a few friends and ask "how can we create something that we care about and believe in," and then (if you're like me) you forget about it the next morning? Well check out the story behind Hyphen's beginnings, which shows you what a dedicated and talented group of people can do.

The Hyphen staff puts in so much time, heart, and effort into make Hyphen a success that it would only be right for everyone to support them by subscribing and donating. They are currently in the middle of a fundraising campaign and everyone knows how hard it is to put out a quality paper mag nowadays so help'em out! Also, Hyphen is always on the lookout for passionate volunteers to join their business, editorial, events, and web teams. And if you got a short story to share, Hyphen's new fiction editor is looking for submissions.


On top of publishing a magazine and hosting social events around the Bay Area, Hyphen also organizes an annual Mr. Hyphen competition. This year's winner will be crowned on November 6th. What is Mr. Hyphen? Glad you asked.
"Mr. Hyphen turns stereotypes about Asian males on their heads. The competition is structured like a pageant with rounds of talent, fashion and Q&A in front of a sold-out crowd. Striking a blow for equal-opportunity all-in-good-fun ogling, Mr. Hyphen is an energy-filled evening of fun and charity. And to top it off, the man crowned Mr. Hyphen wins a $1,000 cash donation to his nonprofit organization."

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith

While I can't speak with absolute authority on this, award winning author Cynthia Leitich Smith's website and blog (Cynsations), are the top destinations for anyone interested in literature for children and young adults. Actually, who needs authority. Cynthia's website is definitely the best destination!

Seriously, there's so much great stuff on her recently redesigned main site that trying to sum it up could take forever. Instead I'll just recommend clicking over and losing yourself in all the wonderful articles, videos, links, news, advice she has gathered over the years.

There is one section on her site I wanted to specifically highlight though, as it's relevant to Lonely Comma's purpose. Under the link to Children's and YA Literature Resources is a section for Diverse Reads. Within it are sub-categories such as multicultural, multiracial, Native Americans, and an Asian-Heritage page. Cynthia's husband, Greg Leitich Smith, an author himself, provides us with the introduction:
"The field of Asian American children's and young adult literature includes many wonderful books — poetically written and exquisitely illustrated. The number of children's authors and illustrators working from the relevant communities is steadily on the rise, and some of these folks — like Yumi Heo, Cynthia Kadohata, Allen Say, An Na, Linda Sue Park, Janet Wong, Lisa Yee, and Laurence Yep — have received great critical acclaim.

Books featuring Japanese, Chinese, and Korean characters — while still limited in number — are far more prevalent than those reflecting any other Asian or Asian American community, especially the Southeast Asian. We hope to see more quality books reflecting the diversity of Asian American life in the future."
-Children's and YA Books with Asian Heritage Themes-
On the rest of the page, there's a few highlighted books as well as links to interviews and featured authors on the sidebar. Also, there are separate sections for anthologies, Chinese heritage, Korean heritage, Japanese heritage, and a resources and links section. In a way, Lonely Comma hopes to be a continuation of the passion and work the Leitich Smiths have obviously put in and they've been kind of inspiring figures. Currently Cynthia teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts so that could call for a field trip right? Leitich Smith also does quite a few events. Consider yourself lucky if you've been able to catch any of her events or speeches.

Cynthia Leitich Smith
Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter

Greg Leitich Smith
Website | Blog

Friday, October 1, 2010

Association of Iranian American Writers (AIAW)

"The Association of Iranian American Writers is a member-based organization dedicated to promoting the work of fiction and non-fiction writers, essayists, poets, journalists, photojournalists, and artists who work with words. Iranian heritage and/or Iranian history and culture are important aspects of our work, although not necessarily our essential subject matter."
There's been a lot of books from and about Iran in recent years and I hope you've all read Persepolis, Reading Lolita in Tehran, Septembers of Shiraz, and Funny in Farsi. I mean, c'mon, they are huge books (not literally) and you couldn't have missed them at the bookstore. Up until a few years ago, I had no exposure to Iranian American literature, which is totally sad because there's a ton of great Iranian American writers and stories that need to be told. AIAW's well organized and informative site is a great place to get started, especially their Featured Writers Overview page.

I have to admit, I didn't know much about the history of Iran back then either, pre- or post-revolution, and I had to take some time to educate myself because if you're going to journey into works set in unfamiliar historical places, you gotta study up. That's half the fun of reading, am I right?

Also, this past weekend I went to Zohreh Ghahremani's book launch -- which was how I found out about AIAW. I had the honor of getting an advance copy of Sky of Red Poppies awhile ago and Zoe was kind enough to let me blurb it! Let me tell you, it is not easy to sum up a beautiful book in a few short sentences. Or in my case, a sentence. If it were up to me, I would have slapped a lot of superlatives and exclamation marks for my portion because that's how I felt about Zoe's book. I think you'll agree after reading it.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

South Asian Author Challenge

When you were in elementary school, do you remember the reading challenges that would reward you for reading from a set list of books? Those were awesome right? I remember being given certificates, ribbons, medals, and even a special assembly once. Being rewarded for being a voracious reader was kind of cool, even if it kept you up late at night and your mom got mad at you for reading at the dinner table. "I gotta finish all these books Mom, there's a medal coming!"

Well maybe like me you're a little past middle school, so what happens when there's nobody to give you shiny metal (or plastic) for reading? Where's the motivation? As we all know, the motivation to read should intrinsic; reading expands your mind and makes you stand out from your non-reading friends, I'm convinced of it. Don't believe Glee's Sue Sylvester's declaration in a recent commercial, "Why should children be burdened by the tyranny of reading? Words are hard!" The only hard thing about reading is not being able to read fast enough to get through everything you want.

In the book blogosphere, there are quite a few reading challenges and many of them are themed. Take this one for example, the South Asian Author Challenge hosted by Swapna Krishna. The challenge is to commit to reading three, five, seven, or ten books about or by a South Asian author during this calendar year. Which countries might fall in that categorization? India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Next year that list will be expanded to include Bhutan, Maldives, and Nepal.

Swapna is a very prolific book blogger and is also highly organized so she's got challenge info, sign ups, author lists, and her own reviews all up at the challenge main page. As 2010 is already winding down, there's a 2011 Challenge being put together. So no complaining about not having enough time to jump on board. If you start now you can even get a head start. Then next year we'll see about getting some medals around neck...if you deserve them.

Here's a fun and intimidating tidbit: Swapna has read 330 books this year already. As she details in her post, that's 116,598 pages. I have entire groups of friends who haven't read that many books in their lives combined. And if that sounds like a lot, last year she breezed through 450 books! When you get the chance, go thank Swapna for putting such a great challenge together.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Yiyun Li

How'd you like to be a MacArthur Genius? What're the qualifications? I dunno, it's all very secret and anonymous. Each year, the MacArthur Fellowship awards twenty to forty people "who show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work." The winners receive $500,000 and a lot of congratulatory phone calls. Proving how much I don't know about the world, the only name I recognize from the past few years' winners is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2008).

This year there's a Chinese American writer on the list, Yiyun Li, and she's already been having a banner year as she was named one of The New Yorker's 20 under 40 a few months ago. I read her story, The Science of Flight, but haven't read any of her other stuff yet. I'm pretty sure the best place to start is with A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, which was her debut book of short stories. Li immigrated from China in 1996 and received her MFA in creative nonfiction at the University of Iowa, and a fiction MFA from the Iowa Writers' Worskshop. She's now a professor at UC Davis and it must be amazing to be her student. Maybe I'll try to crash a class. Wanna join?

It looks like Li's currently on tour for her new book, Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, and you can check her site for all the tour dates and locations.
"Li's stories are typically set in her native China and she wields a darkness and weightiness of tone that she has used to carve out a place for herself among the broader community of first generation immigrant writers."
-The Millions, "2010's Literary Geniuses"-

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Cha: An Asian Literary Journal

"Cha, founded in 2007, a decade after the handover, is the first Hong Kong-based English online literary journal; it is dedicated to publishing quality poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, reviews and photography, and art. Cha has a strong focus on Asian-themed creative work and work done by Asian writers and artists. It also publishes established and emerging writers/artists from around the world."
Cha has a very active blog located at asiancha.blogspot.com and I've been subscribing for quite awhile as they have proven to be a great resource for finding other Asian authors, illustrators, and literary sites. Here's an interview with founding co-editor Tammy Ho Lai-Ming from Lantern Review Blog, and a post about the etymology of the "Cha" name.

On the right side of their page are image links to past issues, with each issue showcasing a different header image. Kinda cool. Here are their submission guidelines. They are currently accepting submissions for Issue #13, to be published February 2011.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

API/A Love Letter Project


If you need to know what's going on in the Asian American community, you need to be reading Phil Yu, aka Angry Asian Man. Oh you already know about Angry Asian Man? Of course you do. Well Phil just posted this link to the API/A Love Letter Project, which, aside from having a stunning blog design is a really interesting idea.
"The premise behind the API/A Love Letter Project is reclaiming a sense of optimism and self/communal progression for the Asian/American community. What the API/A Love Letter Project is is a collection of essays and letters written by members of the community—whether academic or not—poeticizing their hopes and dreams for the future of the social circles they come from."
-API/A Love Letter Project's About page-
The site started in July and is irregularly updated but I get pretty excited when a new post pops up in my Reader.  Maybe you have a love letter to share? I'm gonna try to write one up I think, once I figure out who exactly my community is... Maybe I should start by checking out API/A Love Letter Project's Facebook too!
 
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