Author Archives: admin

Significant Object: Bird Figurine

Posted on by

bird-figurine-550

Last summer, my wife and I held a barbeque in our back yard. After the event, I saw a little yellow bird with a black crown and wings on the knickknack shelf above the toilet in the bathroom. I’d never seen this figurine before. The bird, its head turned ninety degrees to the left of its body, gazed at me squarely with unblinking black eyes.

When I asked my wife about where she got the figurine, she had no idea what I was talking about. The figurine suddenly took on the cold heft of an object that existed only to tell us how much it didn’t belong here.

[read more]

[bid on the object on eBay]

[about the Significant Objects project]

Raconteur and the Hunterdon County Library

Posted on by

A couple of weeks ago, I read at The Raconteur, one of the coolest used bookstores in Jersey.

0807091946I have no idea who that guy is, but he’s in the next picture, too.

0807091946aI read from the chapter “Jhee Hong,” which I thought was appropriate since it takes place in a used bookstore.  It was a great event, lots of interested readers and Q&A afterwards.

0807092140And since I can’t leave a bookstore without buying some books, these are the titles I left with.

raconteurbooksThat’s Matrimony by Joshua Henkin (who was at the BooksNJ festival earlier in the year and I should’ve gotten the book then, but we were pressed for time – but no matter, I got a signed copy!), Voodoo Heart by Scott Snyder, and Richard Price‘s Freedomland.  Haven’t read any of them, but that’ll soon change.

And this past week, the Hunterdon County Library invited me for a reading.

hclA little while ago, the director who put together BooksNJ asked the participating authors if they could say something about libraries, and here’s what I wrote.

Without libraries, I never would’ve discovered books on tape.  I’m still surprised that so many people haven’t experienced the joy of listening to a book narrated by a professional — they are, without question, missing out in a big way.  What hooked me was Frank Muller‘s narration of Chris Crutcher‘s collection Athletic Shorts, and since then, I must’ve gone through the majority of Muller’s performances (The Prince of Tides, 1984, The Great Gatsby — you can’t go wrong with anything he reads).  It’s unfortunate that he’s no longer with us, but his work will live on, thanks to all the great libraries.

If you have a road trip coming up or would like a change of pace for the daily commute, go to your local library and get yourself a Muller.

A Pair of Interviews

Posted on by

fictionwritersreviewI was fortunate enough to be interviewed by two excellent publications recently.  The first one is in Fiction Writers Review, conducted by Jeremiah Chamberlin when I was in Ann Arbor for the book festival this past May.   We gabbed for a good hour and had a grand old time about my novel and writing in general.  If you haven’t visited Fiction Writers Review, do so immediately.  The number of wonderful writers who’ve contributed so many sharp analyses about the art of fiction is nothing short of staggering.

thebrowserThe second interview was with The Browser, and this one is a little different.  Anna Blundy asked me to name five books about the Asian American Experience, and although I was initially stumped (five is tough!), I managed to come up with a list that is representative of my very personal view at that specific point in time (i.e., totally, completely subjective).  Regardless, it was a great opportunity to discuss a quintet of very different Asian American works.

Hyphen Review and Kindle-ing

Posted on by

hyphen_choTwo nice bits of news today:ea_kindled

1) The good folks at Hyphen Magazine (which is one of the most beautifully designed glossies you’ll come across)  were kind enough to give me a nice capsule review (which I had converted to text automatically via Free OCR).

2) There’s now finally a Kindle version of my novel.  Not that I can see it since I don’t have a Kindle, but it’s nice to know that for those who do, they can now read it on their fancy-schmancy ebook reader.

J. Robert Lennon’s Pieces for the Left Hand

Posted on by

lennon_pieces

Every time I open a new book of fiction, there’s a part of me that hopes for the improbable: to encounter something new, something utterly original.  So as you can imagine, I’m let down a lot.  But sometimes I get lucky.

It’s been two weeks since I finished reading J. Robert Lennon’s Pieces for the Left Hand, but here’s this little gem of a book, still sitting on my desk.  I don’t know when I’ll return this paperback to its designated shelf, but it won’t be anytime soon, for I keep going back to it, reading one of the 100 anecdotes in this collection at random, smiling and chuckling along the way.

[read more]

A review I wrote a couple of weeks ago, actually.  But the book’s still right here, on my desk.

A Close Call with the Bagel

Posted on by

Last night, I drove to the Brielle Public Library to do a reading/signing.  When I walked up to the front doors, I saw the poster they’d created for me.

brielle_poster

You might notice a slight problem with the poster.  I walked through the doors laughing my head off — I don’t know why, but I just found the badly pixelated photo of J. Robert Lennon and his expression hilarious.  One of the librarians explained they don’t do the posters themselves, headquarters does, and for some reason, they used the photo I’d taken at Cornell, and for some even more inexplicable reason, they used Lennon’s picture instead of mine.  I don’t know…maybe he looks more like me than I do.

In any case, I got there and set up in their magazine room.

0730091820a

That’s what the room looked like at 6:15pm.  We’d get started at 6:30pm.  This is what the room looked like at 6:45pm.

0730091820a

I spent the time reading Ladies Home Journal, an interview featuring Nora Ephron, Meryl Streep, and Amy Adams, about their new film Julie & Julia (it was basically a fluff piece, but great photos).  At five to seven, I realized that I was going to experience my first bagel.  Not bad, I suppose; I’d done over twenty events before this one and had avoided it thus far.

As I was just about to pack up, an old friend showed up.  Saved!  And in a big way, because we ended up talking for a good hour about books and movies and everything else we used to talk about when we worked together many years ago.  I had an audience of one, but it turned out just fine in the end.

Four Haiku from the Weekend’s Movies

Posted on by

It’s been a while since I had time to watch four movies over a weekend.  Movies are fun!  I should do this more often.  Some of these have been on the backburner for a while; we’re talking a couple of years.  These haiku are not exactly reviews, just reactions.

hangover The Hangover

Not really sure why
I didn’t find this film funny
Old School, that I liked
street_fighter Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

Chris “Charlie Nash” Klein
when his nostrils flare out, they’re
Holland and Lincoln
death_sentence Death Sentence

Kevin Bacon is
Charles Bronson with a conscience
Still he kills a bunch
crank Crank: High Voltage

Ten times funnier
than The Hangover, enjoy
the Godzilla scene

Of the four films I saw, Crank: High Voltage was my favorite. It’s just a crazy movie from start to finish. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first one, but this one is a ten in my book.

Significant Objects and What’s Your Exit?

Posted on by

A quick update:

so1) I’ll be partaking in Significant Objects, a very cool project that’s run by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker.  From the website:

A talented, creative writer invents a story about an object. Invested with new significance by this fiction, the object should — according to our hypothesis — acquire not merely subjective but objective value. How to test our theory? Via eBay!

So if you feel a hankering for some significant eBay chachkie like this one, go for it.  I’ve been buying and selling stuff on eBay since 1998, so I look forward to having my item listed.  I believe it’ll be up in a week or two.

whatsyourexit2) On May 2010, a nonfiction piece I wrote for KoreAm Magazine will be included in a New Jersey anthology aptly titled What’s Your Exit? From the website:

Punk rock-spirited independent publisher Word Riot Press will release What’s Your Exit?: A Literary Detour through New Jersey in May 2010.

The anthology, edited by Alicia A. Beale and Joe Vallese, will include feature new and previously published work from over 40 writers.  Among the book’s contributors are Joyce Carol Oates , Tom Perrotta, Robert Pinsky, Jason Biggs, J. Robert Lennon, Alicia Ostriker,  Paul Lisicky , Louise de Salvo, Donna Steiner, Joe Weil, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Lee Klein, Suzanne Paola, James Richardson, Susan Fox Rogers, Gerald Stern, JC Todd, BJ Ward, and Sung J. Woo.

It goes without saying, it’s an honor to be included with so many talented writers.