New LikeWise Fiction: "Crow's Eye," by Sarah Hollowell
Episode 3 of LikeWise Fiction features "Crow's Eye," by Sarah Hollowell.
“Her entire life, Ruby has known that something lives in the lake. She’s never seen it, but she’s felt its fingers brush her ankle. She’s felt its gaze.”
Listen to the story at:
You can also listen to the full episode and read the story text at the episode page on the LikeWise Fiction website.
Subscribers to the Likewise Media Patreon campaign at the $5 level and above can hear my special bonus interview with Sarah Hollowell. In our conversation, Sarah and I talked about sibling relationships in fantasy stories, fat representation, and the responsibility necessary when writing outside of your experience.
New LikeWise Fiction: "How to Be Chinese," by Celeste Ng
Episode 2 of LikeWise Fiction features the story "How to Be Chinese," by Celeste Ng. In this story, Mackenzie is a Chinese American adoptee who has grown up with a white mother in a Michigan town with few other Asians. As she goes off to college, she's excited to explore and connect with her heritage, but finds the question of identity to be complicated.
Listen to the story at:
You can also listen to the full episode and read the story text at the episode page on the LikeWise Fiction website.
Subscribers to the Likewise Media Patreon campaign at the $5 level and above can hear my special bonus interview with Celeste Ng. In our conversation, Celeste and I talked about the relationship between this story and her novels, and the complicated question of what heritage and culture mean for us as Asian Americans.
Launching LikeWise Fiction!
Episode 1 of LikeWise Fiction is finally here! In this inaugural episode I'm reading Alvin Park's story "Whale Fall." In this beautiful flash fiction piece, a whale washes ashore, a village loses its memories, and a relationship falls apart.
Listen to the story at:
You can also listen to the full episode and read the story text at the episode page on the LikeWise Fiction website.
Subscribers to the Likewise Media Patreon campaign at the $5 level and above can hear my special bonus interview with the author of today's story, Alvin Park. In our conversation, Alvin and I discussed the flash fiction form and why he's attracted to it as a writer, and what it means to be a "hyphenated American" writer.
Two Poems in Last Exit
I'm thrilled to share that two of my poems are up at Last Exit today, as part of their second issue! This is my first poetry publication, and I'm very grateful to Julia Dixon Evans and the whole team at Last Exit for including my work. And look at the rest of the line-up for the issue! Two of my faves, Chloe N. Clark and Cathy Ulrich, are also in there, plus a whole bunch of writers who are new to me, whose work I'm looking forward to getting to know better.
Check it out if you get a chance!
Last Exit Reading
Some exciting news! I'm going to be reading a couple of my poems at the next Last Exit event, on July 27. The line-up for the evening is pretty freaking amazing, if I do say so myself: Kristen Arnett, Tommy Pico, Sarah Rose Etter, and Lilliam Rivera will all be there. If you're going to be in the San Diego area, come check it out. It's free!
New KTCO: Ashly Stohl
It's funny, so often I find myself going to an artist's or author's website and getting irritated that there are no recent updates about their work, no news about new publications, no links to interviews or press coverage. These are things that I am always looking for when I'm doing research for an upcoming podcast episode or even when I just want to do a deep dive into the archive of an artist I admire. And yet, of course, on my own website the blog languishes for months at a time with nary a whisper of the things I've been up to. Presumably, if you're bothering to look at my website, you'd want to know what I'm doing, yes? So I'm going to try to commit to more regular updates.
Speaking of which, there's a new episode of Keep the Channel Open up today, featuring my conversation with photographer Ashly Stohl! I've long admired Ashly's work and not only because we both make images of our families—she brings a visual aesthetic to the genre that I don't often see, more influenced by street and documentary photography than by portraiture. And humor! So often that's missing from personal work, or just art in general. We talked about her books Charth Vader and The Days & Years, about artistic collaborations, about how to sequence a photo series, and about the difference between New York and LA. I hope you enjoy it!
New Book!
As some of you may know, I've been working on a small edition of handmade artists books for my series "Sheets: A Love Letter." I'm still finishing work on that set of books, and I'm very pleased with how they're turning out. The one problem with handmade books, though, is that due to production costs and the amount of labor involved in making each one, I can't make them as affordable as I'd like. So, following up on a suggestion I got from Aline Smithson at a portfolio review last fall, I've decided to self-publish a softcover version of the book.
The new softcover book was designed by me and printed by Edition One Books, who were very easy to work with; I would definitely recommend them for anyone looking to for a short-run printer. The edition is 100 books, and each will be signed and numbered.
If you'd like to buy one, you can pop over to my online store, where they're available for $25 each. Patreon subscribers at any level also get 20% off, so don't forget to use your discount code when checking out if you're a subscriber.
A few more detail shots will follow at the end of the post. Thanks so much to all of you who have supported me over the years. It really means a lot to me.
Color #63
Having taken a little time off to regroup, I've decided to start up my print sales again. This month I am tweaking the format a bit: as before, each month I'll offer a new print. However, I'll no longer automatically be taking the print down at the end of the month. Depending on how it's going, I may keep a print going for a few extra days, months, or even make it available permanently.
Additionally, I'll be offering each print in a selection of sizes and price points. All prints will be in an open edition, but signed and numbered.
This month I'm offering a new one from my "Wash Before Next Use" series, creatively titled "Color #63." Check out my prints page for all of the details.
New Site Design
In case you were wondering about what motivated this latest layout change, it was about equal parts boredom and a desire to look more like a "real" photographer.
It's been interesting looking back at the various incarnations of this site over the years. It's been a lot of different things at different times as my interests and goals have changed. It's been a link dump, a community site, a collaborative writing system, an RPG tools repository, and a more standard blog. I don't know what it will be five years from now, or even two, but I'm looking forward to finding out.
Minor Changes
You may have noticed that the "Daily Photo" and "Reviews" links are gone from the nav bar. Don't worry, all the content is still there. I just decided that it didn't make sense anymore to have three separate sections, so I combined them into a single, unified blog. All the old URLs should still work.