A quick roundup of recent happenings:

1) UPI Asia recently reviewed the novel:

While Everything Asian is a story of the immigrant experience in which culture clash plays a strong role, it strays from the typical (adult) view and goes both small and large: small in the sense that protagonist Joon (David) Kim is just twelve and large in that the novel’s second story points towards a bigger picture. Peddlers Town is its own community — shop and restaurant owners coming and going as the Kims work their way towards the American Dream.

[read more]

2) My Significant Object ended up selling for $52, which is no small potatoes.  In fact, I think I can buy at least a few hundred potatoes for that amount.  My hearty thank you to the story lover and eBayer who purchased the little bird and the little story.

3) I have two readings coming up this weekend, one in Baltimore and one in DC.  If you happen to be in the area, come on by and say hello.

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]

Two nice bits of news today:

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.

A quick update:

1) 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.

2) 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.