What comes to mind when you think of summer? Surf, sun and fun at the beaches? Hiking and camping in the mountains? Lazy days and balmy nights---and spontaneous road trips to unknown destinations? For me, though, summer evokes a particular image imprinted on my mind since my early childhood in … [Read more...]
It's pretty obvious: Writing is a lonely pursuit. One holes up in one's "office" (any place conducive to a self-hypnotized state) for hours on end, hoping to sweat out precious words onto blank pages. Day in and day out. Rain or shine. Inspired or not. But always consumed by a desire to project … [Read more...]
Earlier this week I did something fun. I drove three-and-a-half hours from San Diego to a remote spot northwest of LA but inland from Ventura---a small valley nestled against the mountains and named Ojai, from an old Indian word meaning "Moon." Residents of the quaint small town that bears the … [Read more...]
When I first saw this May 24, 2014 article in the New York Times, my mind flashed back to the recent news of the two hundred schoolgirls kidnapped from their public school in Chibok, Nigeria, and to another related tragedy from a couple of years earlier---the near-death shooting of another … [Read more...]
It's a wonderful feeling to receive positive feedback on something you have poured yourself into for years, even when recognition wasn't what motivated you in the first place. I was the lucky recipient of such good news when I got notification last week that my six-year labor of love, Once upon a … [Read more...]
The Vietnam War played a crucial part in my younger life, directly resulting in my starting over in this new homeland in America. I sometimes relive it, in bits and pieces of memories that surface in my dreams and eventually ended up on the pages of my book Once upon a Mulberry Field. Likewise, … [Read more...]
My novel Once upon a Mulberry Field was released on Valentine's Day 2014, not so much because it is a love story during the Vietnam War but because that's an easy date to remember for record keeping purpose. That publication date also allowed me to enter some popular book award contests that … [Read more...]
It's common knowledge that nowadays most authors have to do their own book marketing. That's a given for self-published authors, the so-called "indies" whose ranks are swelling like never before. But even traditional publishers, in constant struggle mode in an ever-evolving and fiercely competitive … [Read more...]
With this post, I am going to break a couple of my own rules. First, I'm not attaching a picture to the post as usual, since nothing can compare to the breathtaking scenery you're about to behold. And then, with no adequate preamble except to say that Ha-Long means "Descending Dragon(s)" in … [Read more...]
I've often been asked: "Where did the title of your book, Once upon a Mulberry Field, come from?" The short and simple answer has always been: It was derived from the two famous lines in the Vietnamese masterpiece popularly known as Truyện Kiều (The Story of Kiều) by the celebrated poet Nguyễn-Du … [Read more...]