Category Archives: Personal History

Barnes & Noble Preorder Sale – 4/23 – 4/25/2025

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The summer before I went away for college, I worked at the B&N in Shrewsbury, NJ. I loved that job! I took care of the scifi and fantasy shelves — I even did a little ordering by the end of my tenure. 🙂

The mystery section wasn’t mine, but I read quite a bit out of there — Robert B. Parker, Dick Francis, and the alphabet mysteries of Sue Grafton starring Kinsey Millhone, who was definitely on my mind when I thought up a female gumshoe for my twosome of mystery novels, Skin Deep and Deep Roots, which have gotten a lovely makeover.

The books come out in less than two months, from Datura Books! Special preorder sale at B&N until 4/25.

In Largehearted Boy: Sung J. Woo’s playlist for his novel “Deep Roots”

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I’m not sure what I like more, having a book out or having the opportunity to create a playlist for it. Many thanks to Largehearted Boy, a.k.a. David Gutowski, for hosting my song list on his beautiful site!

Sung J. Woo’s playlist for his novel “Deep Roots”

Publication Day for Deep Roots!

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“Why has this food-providing human placed this non-edible object between us?”

Today is the official publication day for Deep Roots, my fourth novel. Friends and family have told me they have already received their pre-ordered copies over the weekend, so I guess the publication day is actually kind of useless. But hey, it’s still the official day, and it got me in a thinking mood, or more accurately, a calculating mood:

14 years
4 novels
1,249 pages
360,726 words

That’s my career so far as a novelist, in strictly numerical terms. The word count is suspect, of course, since I used Microsoft Word’s Word Count feature from the final drafts and added them up. But what’s a few hundred words here and there?

A few positive bits worth mentioning:

  1. got nice pre-publication reviews from Shelf Awareness and Booklist
  2. audiobooks will be made of both Deep Roots and Skin Deep

I’m quite excited about #2. The actress Jennifer Sun Bell will be narrating; she read Min Jin Lee’s Free Food for Millionaires, so I’m fortunate to have such a professional lending her voice. The audiobooks will be widely available (via OrangeSky Audio, a subsidiary of Spotify) next month.

Amazon | B&N | Bookshop

More Modern Love Illustrations…a Dozen. Yes, a Dozen!

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It’s one thing to have people read your story — but to have it illustrated? For me, there is no higher praise. These following artists took my words and turned them into their own works of art.

Huge thanks to Grant Shaffer (https://www.instagram.com/nyseecomic/) for sharing these with me. And thank you, each and every one of you beautiful artists: Abigail, Adrien, Cecil, Fiona, Francisco, Dora, Junhan, Kayla, Maggie, Sarah, Sol, and Andrea. I’m just floored.

https://www.instagram.com/ajbillustration/
https://www.instagram.com/cecil_dove
https://www.instagram.com/fiona_morgan_art
https://www.instagram.com/franciscotroy
Jingying Zhang (Dora)
https://www.instagram.com/junhan_art
https://www.instagram.com/kaylaforart
https://www.instagram.com/paper_maddie
https://sarahschlick.com/
https://www.instagram.com/solpi_illustration
https://www.instagram.com/yeeechengarts/

Modern Love Illustration, Take 4

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So you may recall that a little while back, a third artist had painted their take of my Modern Love essay. Now there’s a fourth — and all I can say is wow. I’ve always been jealous of artists, their ability to say so much through a single visual statement. This is by Rumi Hara (@rumi.hara – https://www.instagram.com/rumi.hara/). Wow. Thank you, Rumi!

@rumi.hara – https://www.instagram.com/rumi.hara/

The Old Man and the Gamepad

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Well, it’s happened — I’m now a gamer. Thank you, pandemic! Look what you’ve made me do.

But seriously, it’s good news — it’s really just another experience in fiction. Last year I wrote about how I just drove around the world of GTA V. But then I played it — to completion! And now I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time in 15th century Italy, thanks to Assassin’s Creed.

Read: The Old Man and the Gamepad (or listen to me read it, if you wish!)

On Medium’s #StopAsianHate: The Lingering Sting of ‘Konichiwa!’

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I wrote an essay on Medium’s #StopAsianHate — the header graphic is rather forceful, but it does symbolize what happened two years ago, when my wife and I were visiting Copenhagen. Usually I write, “Enjoy!” with just about everything I write, but for this one, “Be informed!” is probably more appropriate.