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Identity, Language, and a Love Triangle by the Sea

I’m Inci Atrek, a Turkish-American writer currently living in Istanbul after several years bouncing around Europe and Southeast Asia. My debut novel Holiday Country, out January 9, is a coming-of-age story about a young woman caught between cultures. 19-year old Ada leaves California on an annual trip with her mother to spend the summer with her grandmother on Turkey’s Aegean coast. When a man from her mother’s past mysteriously shows up in their seaside town, Ada’s intensifying attraction compels her to pursue him at all costs. Set against the backdrop of an intergenerational love triangle by the sea, the novel explores themes of identity, language, inheritance of fate, and mother-daughter dynamics.

headshot of author Inci Atrek

What Are You Reading?

cover of The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

Two books I recently finished and can’t stop thinking about are Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch and Mona Awad’s Bunny. And yes, loving one probably led me to reading the next, lured by the similar title! The Rabbit Hutch has one of the most shocking and satisfying endings I’ve read, with such a beautifully emotional build-up.

Bunny by Mona Awad

Bunny by Mona Awad

Bunny was an absolutely propulsive read with a mind-bending ending, and I’m dying to chat with other readers about it to compare notes.

Books That Shaped Me

cover of The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake was the first time I came across an American immigrant story that really resonated with me. Reading about the family dynamics and concerns of her characters prompted me to reflect differently on the questions in my own life and the stories I wanted to tell — perhaps they, too, were worthy of exploring in literature.

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Find a list of upcoming events here

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What the Sam Hell were you thinking?

My name is Robert Dugoni. I’m the author of many bestselling books, including the Tracy Crosswhite police series set in Seattle. I think the thing about me that raises the most eyebrows is, I am one of ten children, all from the same two parents. It’s rare, especially today. It was a bucolic childhood where in the summers my mother would open the door and we’d run outside to play in the cul-de-sac. I never wanted for someone to play with, and I was never lonely. With six brothers we were always up to something or guilty of something, and I remember fondly my father saying to me, or one of my siblings, “What the Sam Hell were you thinking?” Little did I know that Sam would become one of my more endearing characters in The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell.

author Robert Dugoni leaning against a brick wall

What Are You Reading?

cover of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin; rainbow font over an illustration of a wave

I read an eclectic mix of books. Often, I’m reading a book seeking a blurb. At present I’m reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin and it’s as good as its reviews. I’m also reading The Brisling Code by Janet Oakley, who has become the authoritative person on Norway during World War II. I’m also reading, The Wise Man’s Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicles) by Patrick Rothfuss which my son told me I had to read. He was right.

Books That Shaped Me

I’ve always been a reader, since I was young and my mother, a former English teacher, handed me classic literature to keep me occupied and out of trouble in school. Certain books have stuck with me, each for a different reason.

cover of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, Penguin Edition

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

I recall this as one of the first books I read cover to cover. I fell in love with the characters, and I was fascinated with the thought that a friend could betray another for the love of a woman. I fell headfirst into the adventure and was mesmerized at Edmond Dantes’ ingenious escape from a seemingly inescapable island prison. The book taught me to never quit fighting for my dreams and for what is right.

cover of Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

I was thirty when I read Larry McMurtry’s classic western. I fell in love with the Old West and with the characters on a journey to bring home cattle to Lonesome Dove. I read the book at a pivotal moment in my life. My longtime girlfriend and I had separated, and I was living alone and in the shadows of my highly successful siblings. When I read the ending, and Captain Call came home alone to Lonesome Dove, I cried for him and all that he had lost. It was one of the first books that touched me deeply, and I’ve tried to do the same in my own writing.

cover of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This was one of the first books I read that was more than just a story. It was a commentary on racial injustice. I came to understand that books could have a higher purpose than just entertainment, and could truly be a guiding light on intolerance, bigotry, racism, and other social issues while still being a fascinating read filled with wonderful characters. For much the same reason, The Green Mile and Stephen King’s deft touch at discussing racial issues and the unfair application of the death penalty, moved me.

cover of The Color Purple by Alice Walker, showing illustrations of two Black women leaning on one another. Their faces are featureless except for lips.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

I read this book for a course at Stanford University. I didn’t choose it and wasn’t all that excited, but I was hooked on page one and eagerly devoured the beautiful prose and the harsh reality of slavery in the deep south. It was an eye-opening read for a white, young man who grew up in a town with very few Black people, and who, up to that point, had never traveled farther south than the shores of Lake Tahoe in Nevada.

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There are a few of my books that, if you’re looking to discover me, I would recommend.

cover of My Sister’s Grave by Robert Dugoni

My Sister’s Grave

The first in the 10 book (and counting) Tracy Crosswhite series. Tracy is a Seattle Homicide Detective wracked with guilt over the death of her sister and determined to find her killer. To do so, she’ll first have to get the man convicted of the crime a new trial.

cover of The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni

The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell

This coming-of-age story of a boy born with ocular albinism (red eyes) has captured the hearts and minds of millions of readers. With his uncompromising mother determined to give Sam the very best education at the local Catholic school, Sam must navigate classroom bullies and a principal determined to break his spirit. Sam bonds with his two best friends, Ernie, the only Black student in the school, and Mickie, a misfit tomboy, to navigate the pitfalls and difficulties of life and find for himself the true meaning of an ‘extraordinary life.’

cover of Her Deadly Game by Robert Dugoni

Her Deadly Game

The first in the Keera Duggan series. If you like games, police procedurals, legal thrillers and/or family dynamics, you’ll love watching Keera, a chess prodigy, deftly navigate in the courtroom defending Vince LaRussa, accused of killing his wife. She does so at the family criminal defense practice with her dysfunctional siblings, all of whom are scarred from their highly successful father’s lifetime of binge drinking.

cover of The Eighth Sister by Robert Dugoni

The Eighth Sister

The first novel in the Charles Jenkins espionage series. After years out of the spy game, Charles Jenkins is pulled back to Russia by his former case officer. His job is to find the Russian spy who has infiltrated an American spy ring and is killing the seven sisters who have provided America with a wealth of valuable information. Jenkins realizes, too late, that he’s a pawn and is soon scrambling to evade a dogged former KGB Agent, Viktor Federov, who has orders to bring Jenkins in, dead or alive.

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It Only Took Me 17 Years

Hello! I’m Ben Fountain. Devil Makes Three is my fourth published book, and my second published novel. I’ve got a couple of novels in the drawer. On occasion I give a lecture titled “How To Get a Book Contract in Only 17 Years,” which people tend to take as stand-up comedy, and I suppose it is kind of funny, in a twisted way, that it took 17 years of writing before I finally placed my first book. Whatever.

Devil Makes Three is set in Haiti in the early 1990s, when Haiti was under the heel of the military regime that forced out President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The novel follows three main characters: Matt Amaker, an American expat who owns a dive shop in Haiti; Audrey O’Donnell, a rookie CIA case officer; and Misha Variel, a young Haitian-American who interrupts her PhD studies at
Brown University to return to Haiti because of a family crisis. What happens? A lot, I think.

The novel gets into scuba diving, treasure hunting, CIA skulduggery, geopolitical machinations, capitalism, the legacies of slavery and the global plantation economy (past and present incarnations), Vodou, the scholarship of the Black Atlantic, gun-running, drug-smuggling, medicine, and the NGO industrial complex, in addition to family, love, sex, death, and all the rest of it. I’ve made something like 50 trips to Haiti over the years, and have been a serious student of the country for over 30 years, so hopefully the book has something worthwhile to say about human experience as it’s lived in that place.

headshot of author Ben Fountain wearing a black tshirt and tan jacket

What Are You Reading?

a graphic of the cover of Dark Days: Fugitive Essays by Roger Reeves

Dark Days: Fugitive Essays by Roger Reeves

Reeves is one of the best poets around, and now he channels his formidable talents into prose explorations of America, racism, history, family, love, resistance… well, I could go on.

It’s an extraordinary book.

Books That Shaped Me

cover of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

I read The Sun Also Rises for the first time when I was 14 or 15, and that book snapped my eyes open like nothing I’d ever encountered. I hardly understood a bit of it, but something about the precision of the language, the concreteness of the experience being rendered, flipped a switch in my brain. I began to think about my life as opposed to just stumbling through it day to day. My relationship with Hemingway has gone through many ups and downs since then, but however I’m feeling and thinking about his work at any given time, the fact remains that The Sun Also Rises kicked into life whatever capacity I have to think and feel in a considered way.

cover of Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

I could say much the same thing about Love in the Time of Cholera, which I read for the first time when I was in my mid-30s. That book kicked something into life in me; call it the mid-life version of what The Sun Also Rises did to me as an adolescent. García Márquez opened the door for me to a new way of seeing and feeling and thinking.

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Join me this fall and winter for a discussion of Devil Makes Three. I’ll be making appearances at several bookstores, libraries, book festivals, and more. You’ll find locations, dates and registration information for each discussion here.

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Bestselling Author, or Infant Yachtsman on the Run? We May Never Know.

Hello, everyone, I’m Dean Koontz. Or so I have been telling people for a long time, and they have come to believe it. A week after birth, already talking, I insisted on being called Rolf Bettenburger. This made me a target of the FBI in the days before the bureau targeted everyone, because there was a Rolf Bettenburger engaged in shady business in Austria, who had appeared to die in a freak blimp explosion when I was six days old. When I was two months old, Bettenburger’s fortune was siphoned out of his Swiss bank account, and three days later, bearing Bettenburger’s ID, someone resembling me was briefly detained at a yacht brokerage in Monaco, where he attempted to pay 4 million in cash for a 160-foot ocean-going vessel. This obvious criminal escaped by soiling his diaper; while authorities recoiled at the stench, the suspect toddled away with all that cash and was never found.

Because time steals so many details of our past from memory, I can’t say with any certainty that there was in fact a connection between me and that would-be infant yachtsman. I can only note that neither the FBI nor Interpol has been able to prove anything, and I predict they never will.

These days, I live in southern California with my wife, Gerda, and our golden retriever Elsa. You might know me as a bestselling author, but Elsa knows me as her food source, and Gerda knows me as Rudy Bildungsroman.

My latest novel is called After Death. It’s a tense and twisty story about the consequence of an experiment where 55 die in a laboratory accident — and one man recovers from death with an extraordinary ability and an urgent mission.

I work hard to make my novels edge-of-the-seat experiences. They also provide a contrarian view of the world that you can’t find most other places, and they are meant to give you hope in what often seems to be a world without it.

What Are You Reading?

cover of Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

I’ve recently reread Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which was somewhat scandalous in its time, but is now a curious mix, both sweetly charming and deeply sad — and much better than the movie.

And I will soon start reading a massive biography, Rolf Bettenburger: Infant of Mystery.

Books That Shaped Me

cover of The Deep Blue Good-by by John D. MacDonald

All the wonderful novels by John D. MacDonald, Charles Dickens, and Jane Austen. Many of the science fiction novels of Robert Heinlein.

I found much invaluable guidance in two nonfiction volumes. The first is Building a Better You by Victor Frankenstein. The second — Childhood Is a Boring Waste of Time: How to Start Life as an Adult When You’re One Week Old by Rudy Rolf.

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As I understand it, in this section I am encouraged to shamelessly promote some of my works, and I’m okay with that. I wrote a series of 12 shorter stories with the overall title of Nameless, about a man who has no memory of who he once was, but who is compelled to bring justice to those miscreants who deserve it. He is generously funded by a deeply mysterious organization and is on a path toward a devastating self-discovery.

cover of The House at the End of the World by Dean Koontz

You might also enjoy my recent novel, The House at the End of the World. It’s about an artist who lives alone on an island and who finds herself facing a terrifying enemy in an epic battle to save the world.

Another recent novel of mine, The Big Dark Sky, is set on an isolated ranch in Montana, where a dozen strangers are drawn together to confront a threat to the future of humanity.
Finally, if you want to be scared silly but at the same time experience a warm-and-fuzzy feeling, I recommend my novel Devoted. The main character, Woody, is an 11-year-old autistic boy who hasn’t spoken a word until a uniquely gifted golden retriever enters his life following the murder of Woody’s dad. Elsa loves this one! Every time she rereads it, she gets so excited that, every 30 pages, she has to be taken outside to pee.

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Meet the Author QA Test – Production

Meet Rod Angeles Pulido

Kumusta ka! I’m Rod Angeles Pulido. Yes, my initials spell out RAP, but I’m an author, not a rapper. (I would never inflict such pain on the world.) I write Filipino and queer characters with extraordinary talents, geeky interests, and sometimes snarky mouths. My debut novel, Chasing Pacquiao, tells the story of Bobby Agbayani, a bullied queer teen who learns to fight back against his tormenters by studying the fights of his hero, boxer Manny Pacquiao—only to learn that Pacquiao himself is homophobic. My novel is for those who’ve been let down by someone they admire, and anyone who’s ever wanted to sock it to a bully.

What Are You Reading?

there goes the neighborhood book cover

There Goes The Neighborhood by Jade Adia

I’m currently enjoying There Goes The Neighborhood, the timely YA from debut author Jade Adia. It’s the story of Rhea, a South Los Angeles teen who—along with her best buds, Zeke and Malachi—fights back against gentrification by creating a fake gang to scare off developers. Rhea’s voice is wit-sharp, and the predicaments that she and her friends find themselves in make for fun hi-jinx, while addressing the importance of neighborhood and cultural preservation. Moreover, it’s the story of ride or die friends who will go to great lengths to stay together. I highly recommend this stellar debut.

Books That Shaped Me

cover of X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson

God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont

Like Bobby, the protagonist in Chasing Pacquiao, I grew up an avid comic book reader. The X-Men graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills—written by Chris Claremont and strikingly illustrated by Brent Eric Anderson—opened me up to the possibilities of social commentary in storytelling. The X-Men are a band of superhero mutants—individuals born with extraordinary abilities who protect a world that fears them. They come up against not a super villain with powers, but an ordinary evangelical minister who preaches hate against all mutants. The premise of the X-Men is based on the Civil Rights

Movement of the 1960s and can also be viewed as a metaphor for the plight of the LGBTQ+ community. This story in particular encouraged me to deal with social issues in my writing. It’s a groundbreaking work which showed that comic books are not just disposable stories for children, but can be serious works of artistic merit. Even today, the story is still relevant and continues to inspire me.

More Good Stuff

The pandemic has been a challenging time for the world as well as for me, personally. Here are some links that reflect my experience and reactions during these difficult times.

My coming out essay, Late to the Party, in which I address queer gatekeeping in publishing and Ownvoices.

The Pride Book Fest panel, Owning Our Own Voices, in which I and a group of notable queer authors discuss bi-erasure and gatekeeping in publishing.

Stop Asian American, Pacific Islander Hate rally in which I read my original poem Not the Other.

In an interview with the podcast Try Reading, I talk about the genesis of Chasing Pacquiao and the importance of BIPOC and queer representation.

For the latest updates on my author journey, please follow me on Instagram and Twitter @rodapulido.

Mabuhay!

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For Anyone Who’s Ever Wanted to Sock It to a Bully

Kumusta ka! I’m Rod Angeles Pulido. Yes, my initials spell out RAP, but I’m an author, not a rapper. (I would never inflict such pain on the world.) I write Filipino and queer characters with extraordinary talents, geeky interests, and sometimes snarky mouths. My debut novel, Chasing Pacquiao, tells the story of Bobby Agbayani, a bullied queer teen who learns to fight back against his tormenters by studying the fights of his hero, boxer Manny Pacquiao—only to learn that Pacquiao himself is homophobic. My novel is for those who’ve been let down by someone they admire, and anyone who’s ever wanted to sock it to a bully.

author Rod A Pulido wearing a dark blue zippered jacket with a red and white stripe across the chest and a dark blue and white baseball cap

What Are You Reading?

there goes the neighborhood book cover

There Goes The Neighborhood by Jade Adia

I’m currently enjoying There Goes The Neighborhood, the timely YA from debut author Jade Adia. It’s the story of Rhea, a South Los Angeles teen who—along with her best buds, Zeke and Malachi—fights back against gentrification by creating a fake gang to scare off developers. Rhea’s voice is wit-sharp, and the predicaments that she and her friends find themselves in make for fun hi-jinx, while addressing the importance of neighborhood and cultural preservation. Moreover, it’s the story of ride or die friends who will go to great lengths to stay together. I highly recommend this stellar debut.

Books That Shaped Me

cover of X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson

God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont

Like Bobby, the protagonist in Chasing Pacquiao, I grew up an avid comic book reader. The X-Men graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills—written by Chris Claremont and strikingly illustrated by Brent Eric Anderson—opened me up to the possibilities of social commentary in storytelling. The X-Men are a band of superhero mutants—individuals born with extraordinary abilities who protect a world that fears them. They come up against not a super villain with powers, but an ordinary evangelical minister who preaches hate against all mutants. The premise of the X-Men is based on the Civil Rights

Movement of the 1960s and can also be viewed as a metaphor for the plight of the LGBTQ+ community. This story in particular encouraged me to deal with social issues in my writing. It’s a groundbreaking work which showed that comic books are not just disposable stories for children, but can be serious works of artistic merit. Even today, the story is still relevant and continues to inspire me.

More Good Stuff

The pandemic has been a challenging time for the world as well as for me, personally. Here are some links that reflect my experience and reactions during these difficult times.

My coming out essay, Late to the Party, in which I address queer gatekeeping in publishing and Ownvoices.

The Pride Book Fest panel, Owning Our Own Voices, in which I and a group of notable queer authors discuss bi-erasure and gatekeeping in publishing.

Stop Asian American, Pacific Islander Hate rally in which I read my original poem Not the Other.

In an interview with the podcast Try Reading, I talk about the genesis of Chasing Pacquiao and the importance of BIPOC and queer representation.

For the latest updates on my author journey, please follow me on Instagram and Twitter @rodapulido.

Mabuhay!

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Celebrating Love, Community, and the Beauty of Everyday Moments

Hello, dear reader! I’m Gloria Chao, the author of When You Wish Upon a Lantern, Rent a Boyfriend, Our Wayward Fate, and American Panda. As a former dentist, I’m thrilled to now spend my days in fictional characters’ heads instead of real people’s mouths. Being an author was the wish I wrote on my metaphorical lantern ten years ago, and thanks to readers like you, it came true.

I love writing contemporary stories with humor, romance, and complicated family members who sometimes may or may not say some of the things my mother says (like, “you have to swing your arms three thousand times a day for good health”).

When I’m not writing, I’m usually on the curling ice. I started because I loved the feeling of flying across the ice and it made the winter go by faster, and now my husband and I are world-ranked in mixed doubles because we both like to get really into things.

What Are You Reading?

cover of At the Speed of Light by Cindy L. Otis, showing the face of a young women with reddish brown hair, blue eyes, and white skin peering from behind pane of cracked glass

I am just starting Cindy Otis’s fiction debut, At the Speed of Lies, about a girl who is searching for missing kids from her school. I loved Cindy’s nonfiction True or False: A CIA Analyst’s Guide to Spotting Fake News (and think it’s a must-read for everyone), so I’m so excited to dive into her thriller.

I also just finished rereading Ann Liang’s This Time It’s Real, which is a swoony fake-dating celebrity romance. Ann is a new favorite author of mine, and I also highly recommend her debut, If You Could See the Sun, about a girl who suddenly gains the ability to turn invisible.


Books That Shaped Me

cover of The Baby-Sitters Club #: Kristy's Great Idea, showing four young girls in a bedroom with assorted snacks and soda. One of the girls is on a pink corded phone, another is writing in a notebook

The Baby-Sitters Club books were the first I truly loved as a kid. I read and reread them, and I carried them with me everywhere I went. They got a little gross—I take much better care of my books now to the point where I fold special bookmarks to use so I won’t damage the spine (and I’m making them for readers to celebrate the release of When You Wish Upon a Lantern—see below). 

In high school and college, I stopped reading for fun, and it was the height of Twilight that brought me back and introduced me to YA. Some of the first YA authors I fell in love with were Nicola Yoon, Adam Silvera, Zoraida Córdova, and Jenny Han. Reading their stories gave me the courage to write honestly about characters who reflected my experiences.

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I am so thrilled to share my fourth novel with you! When You Wish Upon a Lantern follows a girl whose family owns a wishing lantern shop, and when she finds out the shop is struggling, she teams up with the boy from the mooncake bakery next door to make wishes come true for the customers in secret. Only, sparks fly and she realizes she has a secret wish of her own she doesn’t know how to grant—to be with him.

This book is a celebration of the beauty of everyday moments, of love, of community, of Chinese culture. I hope to remind readers that even though it’s rare, magic can be found in the real world. And sometimes you have to make your own magic.

I folded corner bookmarks as a gift with purchase, and they are available if you order a signed copy from Women and Children First Bookstore here (while supplies last).

I wrote a post for School Library Journal’s Teen Librarian Toolbox about the history of wishing lanterns, the inspiration for the book, and how you can craft your own paper lanterns with secret wishes.

And you can read the first chapter of the story on We Need Diverse Books here.

Purchases of When You Wish Upon a Lantern through April 10, 2023, in any format from any retailer are eligible for a free button pack from Penguin. You can submit your receipts here.

You can find me online at GloriaChao.wordpress.com and on Instagram and Twitter @GloriacChao. Please say hi! I love hearing from readers! 

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On Pride, Prejudice, Protest, and Understanding Your Worth

For readers who can’t get enough Pride and Prejudice retellings, Berkley is proud to introduce Pride and Protest by Nikki Payne, a smart, sexy take on the beloved tale that tackles gentrification, race, and the age-old problem of embarrassing relatives. By day, debut author Nikki Payne is a curious tech anthropologist asking the right questions to deliver better digital services. By night, she dreams of ways to subvert canon literature. She’s a member of Smut U, a premium feminist writing collective, and is a cat lady with no cats.

Get to know Nikki a little bit better below, from what she’s reading to an exciting cover reveal.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikkipaynebooks/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nikkipaynewrites

author photo of Nikki Payne, a Black woman wearing long gold earrings and a black high-neck sweater.
image credit: Frank W

What Are You Reading?

cover of Love Marriage by Monica Ali, showing the text of the title and author in large colorful print against a background of different colored triangles

Love Marriage by Monica Ali

Love Marriage was a Phenomenal Book Club choice in 2022 and I’m trying to read through this awesomely curated list. I’m always interested in gaining insight into the experiences of first-generation immigrants and their struggles to reconcile their heritage with their new surroundings. I’m so curious about how authors deal with the challenges faced by people living in between two cultures. It’s a book about the complexities of love and relationships. It’s darkly humorous in a way that dares you to keep a straight face in the midst of the heroine’s misjudgments.

cover of Stories from The Tenants Downstairs by Sidik Fofana; illustration of a brick apartment building

Stories from the Tenants Downstairs by Sidik Fofana

Stories from the Tenants Downstairs by Sidik Fofana is an amazing collection of interconnected short stories that explore the lives of residents in a gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood. This brilliant collection is stunning on audio (seriously, so good) and it explores the impact of displacement, economic inequality, and the erasure of community history. It’s also a deeply working class book situated in an urban environment, as opposed to the blue collar suburbs we read so often about. Though it interrogates pretty deep issues, it still manages to be an incredibly hopeful book exploring the delicate interdependency between folks from diverse backgrounds, revealing the ways in which people can come together and find common ground despite their differences.

Books That Shaped Me

cover of The Color Purple by Alice Walker, showing illustrations of two Black women leaning on one another. Their faces are featureless except for lips.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Color Purple shaped me because I read it at a time when I was struggling with issues of my own worth and value as a Black woman. The main character of Alice Walker’s seminal novel has three strikes against her: she’s Black, she’s a woman and she’s “ugly.” All of my female heroines will battle with and overcome being underestimated in some way. All of them will find new ways to appreciate and understand their worth, and nearly all of them will have to overthrow villains in their life that only focus on their limitations.

More Good Stuff

Check out the recent cover reveal for Nikki’s new book, Sex, Lies, and Sensibility, coming November 21st! You can check out the cover on Instagram or TikTok.

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That’s When I Realized What All Comics Could Do

Hello, readers! My name is Jennie Wood and I’m a non-binary author, musician and creator of Paper Planes and the Flutter graphic novel series. Flutter was named one of The Advocate’s best LGBTQ graphic novels of the year, a Barnes & Noble book of the month, a Virginia Library Association Diversity Honor Book and published as a collection by Dark Horse. My work can be seen in several anthologies, including the Eisner award-winning Love is Love, Planet Comics, and John Carpenter’s Tales for a HalloweeNight.

What Are You Reading?

cover of But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust, showing an illustration in blue tones of two boys in a forest

But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust edited by Charlotte Schallié
Illustrated by Miriam Libicki, Gilad Seliktar and Barbara Yelin

I recently finished But I Live, a co-creation from three graphic novelists and four Holocaust survivors that came out last year. The book consists of three illustrated stories. Each story vividly and thoughtfully tells the experiences of these survivors as children during the Holocaust. Extremely moving and intimate, it’s one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read. 

In these stories, the reader sees the Holocaust through the eyes of children. That’s one reason the book is so powerful. The kids can’t comprehend what is going on around them. I remember learning about the Holocaust in school as a kid, and struggling to get my mind around that level of hatred and evil. It’s still hard as an adult to sit with these stories, to let them in completely. But we must. We can’t give into censorship and denial. We can’t turn away and avoid the horrors of the past. We have to hold these stories up, embrace and share them so they are not forgotten. This is more important now than ever before. 

Books That Shaped Me

cover of Blankets by Craig Thompson, al illustrated cover showing two people embracing in the snow with a forest in the background

Blankets by Craig Thompson

Having recently finished reading But I Live, graphic novels that have influenced me are on my mind. I grew up reading superhero comics as a kid because they provided an escape from problems at home and from being queer in a small, conservative southern town. However, it was later as an adult when I realized what all comics could do. When I did, it was through graphic novels. I remember reading Fun Home, Y: The Last Man, and Blankets, one right after the other, and realizing that so many things were possible in the comic and graphic novel format from sweeping epic stories to extremely intimate ones. 

Craig Thompson’s Blankets has stayed with me over the years for many reasons. When I first read it, I could relate to the small town Christian upbringing and his lonely, isolated childhood. Also, the need to move away from home — not only to survive, but to thrive — really resonated with me. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to really appreciate and prefer more intimate and personal stories like Blankets. I’m also able to look back now and see how friends and loved ones from my childhood left their mark on me. Blankets definitely influenced Paper Planes. The confusion and yearning, the struggle to communicate feelings and emotions that we all experience growing up, all of that is so well done in Blankets. And how I felt while reading that book for the very first time well over a decade ago – that has stayed with me. It’s such a sensitive, human, bittersweet story. For me, it’s the bittersweet stories that are the most satisfying. As a reader, I often think I want the happy ending, but deep down I really want something that mirrors real life. 

More Good Stuff

Here is more work from the artist of Paper Planes, Dozerdraws. 

I will be at this year’s ALA Annual Conference & Exhibition, which is in Chicago this June. I’ll post more info on that event as well as others throughout the year here

Here’s more info and a preview of Flutter, my graphic novel series, which has been collected into one book by Dark Horse.

Mitch Kellaway reviewed my young adult novel, A Boy Like Me, for Lambda Literary.

I was recently interviewed for a new, ongoing Dead Darlings feature, Next Chapters. Dead Darlings is a great online resource for writers. Over the last decade, I’ve written various blog posts and participated in interviews for the website. 

Check out this recent 5 out of 5 star review of Paper Planes from First Comics News

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On community, curling, and making your own magic

Hello, dear reader! I’m Gloria Chao, the author of When You Wish Upon a Lantern, Rent a Boyfriend, Our Wayward Fate, and American Panda. As a former dentist, I’m thrilled to now spend my days in fictional characters’ heads instead of real people’s mouths. Being an author was the wish I wrote on my metaphorical lantern ten years ago, and thanks to readers like you, it came true.

I love writing contemporary stories with humor, romance, and complicated family members who sometimes may or may not say some of the things my mother says (like, “you have to swing your arms three thousand times a day for good health”).

When I’m not writing, I’m usually on the curling ice. I started because I loved the feeling of flying across the ice and it made the winter go by faster, and now my husband and I are world-ranked in mixed doubles because we both like to get really into things.

What Are You Reading?

cover of At the Speed of Light by Cindy L. Otis, showing the face of a young women with reddish brown hair, blue eyes, and white skin peering from behind pane of cracked glass

I am just starting Cindy Otis’s fiction debut, At the Speed of Lies, about a girl who is searching for missing kids from her school. I loved Cindy’s nonfiction True or False: A CIA Analyst’s Guide to Spotting Fake News (and think it’s a must-read for everyone), so I’m so excited to dive into her thriller.

I also just finished rereading Ann Liang’s This Time It’s Real, which is a swoony fake-dating celebrity romance. Ann is a new favorite author of mine, and I also highly recommend her debut, If You Could See the Sun, about a girl who suddenly gains the ability to turn invisible.


Books That Shaped Me

cover of The Baby-Sitters Club #: Kristy's Great Idea, showing four young girls in a bedroom with assorted snacks and soda. One of the girls is on a pink corded phone, another is writing in a notebook

The Baby-Sitters Club books were the first I truly loved as a kid. I read and reread them, and I carried them with me everywhere I went. They got a little gross—I take much better care of my books now to the point where I fold special bookmarks to use so I won’t damage the spine (and I’m making them for readers to celebrate the release of When You Wish Upon a Lantern—see below). 

In high school and college, I stopped reading for fun, and it was the height of Twilight that brought me back and introduced me to YA. Some of the first YA authors I fell in love with were Nicola Yoon, Adam Silvera, Zoraida Córdova, and Jenny Han. Reading their stories gave me the courage to write honestly about characters who reflected my experiences.

More Good Stuff

I am so thrilled to share my fourth novel with you! When You Wish Upon a Lantern follows a girl whose family owns a wishing lantern shop, and when she finds out the shop is struggling, she teams up with the boy from the mooncake bakery next door to make wishes come true for the customers in secret. Only, sparks fly and she realizes she has a secret wish of her own she doesn’t know how to grant—to be with him.

This book is a celebration of the beauty of everyday moments, of love, of community, of Chinese culture. I hope to remind readers that even though it’s rare, magic can be found in the real world. And sometimes you have to make your own magic.

I folded corner bookmarks as a gift with purchase, and they are available if you order a signed copy from Women and Children First Bookstore here (while supplies last).

I wrote a post for School Library Journal’s Teen Librarian Toolbox about the history of wishing lanterns, the inspiration for the book, and how you can craft your own paper lanterns with secret wishes.

And you can read the first chapter of the story on We Need Diverse Books here.

Purchases of When You Wish Upon a Lantern through April 10, 2023, in any format from any retailer are eligible for a free button pack from Penguin. You can submit your receipts here.

You can find me online at GloriaChao.wordpress.com and on Instagram and Twitter @GloriacChao. Please say hi! I love hearing from readers!