Creative Writing

Memoir

DEATH WATCH is a 60,000-word memoir about the familial intrigue that takes place after my father's stroke, which leaves him in a coma and results in a 24/7 around-the-clock watch at his bedside. The cut-throat competition to be the last person to be with him before he dies and the dynamics of having seven girls and only one boy in the subsequent generation are telling of Chinese-American culture but resonate with the universality of death politics. This is a cross between Amy Tan and Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking.

Nonfiction

Travel Writing
Travel Consulting
Travel Photography

Fiction

HIKARU OF MONSOON is a 50,000-word young adult fiction that edges on fantasy. The main character, Hikaru, is a 16-year-old high schooler who has just immigrated to California from Japan. He is also secretly a superhero and seeks to continue being a superhero in America but encounters discrimination and cultural differences in the American superhero society. Hikaru is forced to accept that he cannot be a superhero in the same manner as before, but he decides that he will pursue his dream and make a new superhero path. This is a Japanese Power Ranger coming to America.

SECOND LIFE is a 70,000-fiction novel about the instant message correspondence of two 30-year-old women who manage to support one another despite the geographic distance between them, one living in the USA and the other in Germany. They have never met in person but that doesn't prevent them from sympathizing with one another and perhaps even encourages them to reveal things they never could in real life. This is an adult version of Lauren Myracle's popular young adult novels, ttyl and ttfn, that demonstrates the benefits of online friendships.

FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING is a 60,000-word novel about five boys who discover the depth of their friendship one summer vacation. Their trust in one another results in tentative same-sex relationships that are driven more by curiosity and insecurity than lust. They try to figure out the difference between being best friends and lovers and deal with the imbalance that is often felt in an odd-numbered group, in which one person always feels left out.

FOREVER AND FORNEVER is a 50,000-word young adult fiction novel about five boys who went to different colleges meeting after their first semester of college. Without the daily interaction, their friendships don't seem as close and seem based on the past. Thomas loses faith in their friendship and foresees them parting ways in the future so he wants to break it off sooner than later to minimize the pain, especially since he's beginning to wonder if he has a crush on Siegfried. Roy feels like everyone has grown up except him because he's attending a community college instead of a 4-year university. Shun discovers that Shawn didn't call him when he came to town to see his girlfriend.

Children's Book

MAKING FRIENDS: A GAME OF CHANCE is a 1,290-word picture book about a Chinese-American child who moves from Minnesota, where there are few Asians, to California, which is more diverse. She discovers that making friends is not as easy as she'd expected because she can't speak Chinese so is excluded from that group. Her brother encourages her to keep meeting new people because making friends is like a game of chance, the roll of a die. She meets some kids who are interested in fantasy books and games, and she decides that it's ok to try to befriend them even though they're all ethnically different. This is a multicultural new-kid-on-the-block story.

If interested in any of the above manuscripts, please contact me.