I’m excited to be appearing (virtually!) on a panel at the first Filipino-Canadian Book Festival next month. My event is on Saturday, July 13 at 10.15 am PT. Here are the details: World-building and Cultural Research for Storytelling Join us for this insightful author panel on creating immersive worlds, grounding…
I'm excited to have the chance to geek out about both character development and video games at the SFWA Blog! In my article "Character Development Lessons From Video Games," I talk about some of my favourite character-driven fantasy and role-playing video games, and the lessons they taught me in developing…
I'm looking forward to sharing a short reading from my work-in-progress at the Draft Reading Series once again! I had a great time reading at Draft in February 2021, and once again it'll be a great event with many talented writers. This will be a virtual event happening on Monday,…
Why do we need older protagonists in fantasy, sci-fi, and other forms of speculative fiction? I recently wrote an essay for All Lit Up about the value of north-of-25 protagonists in speculative fiction (and beyond). An excerpt: I do enjoy books where the protagonist saves the day at the age…
Say hello to the German-language edition of The Quiet is Loud, published by Piper Verlag and translated by Diana Bürgel! As I've mentioned before, I have family in Germany and so this is very special to me. I'm excited for the opportunity for Freya's story to reach German speakers. You…
In June 2021 I had a lot of fun as Open Book's Writer-in-Residence, and so I'm excited to announce that I'm now writing a regular column for them! My first article is about my experience with the highs and surprising lows that arise after publishing a book. It's a must-read…
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Eden Boudreau on the Dear Lonely Writer podcast. The time really flew by as we talked about writing journeys, character-driven fiction, identity and belonging, small presses, and connecting with your people. You can listen to my episode here, and after you're done…
I'm having a lot of fun with my newsletter. It's been nice to return to slightly longer forms of expression considering, you know, *gestures vaguely at the state of social media*. I realize that this blog/journal can count as a longer form of expression, but honestly I'm still not sure…
I'm grateful to ECW Press, Diaspora Dialogues, and the Ontario Arts Council for awarding me Recommender Grants for Writers to write Seeker of the Lost Song, my fantasy novel-in-progress blending elements of Filipino and Finnish culture and history. It's truly an honour to have this support. Arts funding is critically…
I did a Q&A with Susan Sanford Blades in the January edition of her Girls to the Front newsletter! Thank you, Susan. It was fun to talk about the timeline of writing The Quiet is Loud, worldbuilding, its themes, and of course - its food. I didn’t consciously draw on…
