…ou want to see—eyes that feel too wide, skin that feels too pale, an odd, distant smell wafting from the compartment’s ambient system that is neither incense nor garlic, but something else, something elusive that you once knew. You’re dressed, already—not on your skin, but outside, where it matters, your avatar sporting blue and black and gold, the stylish clothes of a well-travelled, well-connected woman. For a moment, as you turn away from the m…

…venir, because it gets eaten and doesn’t clutter the house). As usual when coming back from a VD, I then had the zombie shuffle, accompanied by a desperate need to sleep, because I had a wedding on the following weekend. Not much productivity; though I did set a world record by selling “Immersion” a scant few weeks after the workshop was over! That’s all from me. Happy five years, Villa Diodati–you’ve been awesome so far, and I have no doubt there…

…Grandma for that one 🙂 Two plus sides: I’m slowly starting to make myself understood by other people; and as a related issue, I’m also reading much faster (obviously, since Mom doesn’t scream every two words that I got the pronunciation wrong). Not really perfect yet, but he, I’ll take what I can get. Funny stuff: I used to have an awful lot of trouble with the descending accent (the one in “nào”) because I confused it with the neutral; now I *st…

…US confirm or infirm that?). Also. Wow. Now that I’m looking at the whole list I’m becoming quite depressed about some aspects of genre. I think I need a stiff tea… Feel free to comment/discuss/disagree below, I’m off to write some novel chapters… [1] Aka: globalisation and the disparity of power it brings, but that’s a whole other blog post! [2] The encroachment of humanity on, say, fae lands goes back to one of the points above: it presents an e…

…got for me, which is fairly good at family interactions. (and yes, “older sister” and “younger sister” are two different words in Vietnamese, so you’re out of luck if you only remember one of them…). I don’t do this very often, but I deliberately picked the names for the story: Galen is the physician, the man who thinks he can fix everything. Tam is Tấm, from the fairytale Tấm and Cám–the resourceful girl who always gets her way in spite of everyt…

…at’s heavily annotated, and it was really interesting to see the notes and compare with the text (not, you know, that I understood more than a few words here and there, but I could see some of how it was all pieced together). Huỳnh Sanh Thông’s scholarship is fairly impressive, and it’s full of fascinating tidbits (also very fascinating to see how the novel echoes the original Chinese work while clearly forging its own specific identity). Also, ev…

…lture” (when in truth I know almost nothing about North America!). This assumption comes about because the hegemony is so huge and pervasive that it becomes, itself, an invisible mass and the default assumption. Mostly, if you write in English and aren’t breaking into malapropisms or broken syntax constantly, you’re immediately assumed to be “one of them,” part of the western paradigm. (also, because I know this is going to come up at some point,…

…“Chở củi về rừng”: “carrying wood into the forest/jungle”. Doing useless things (like “carrying coal to Newcastle”, an English proverb I learnt at the same time as the Vietnamese one). Hahaha, that one is hilarious. In other news, I have 3k words on the novel. One of my fave characters just showed up (great cook, good sense of humour, major temper. What’s not to love). Just one more scene, and I’ll be done with chapter 1!…

…ors and the bodhisattva Quan Am to find strength; but that it would always come back to that core of dark thoughts within you, that fundamental fright you carried with you like a yin shadow in your heart. I know, of course, where it started. I took you to the ship–because I had no choice, because Khi Phach was away on some merchant trip to the Twenty-Third Planet–because you were a quiet and well-behaved son, and the birth-master would have attend…

…stick in the mouth of the dead, the references to two of the great rivers of Vietnam, etc.) -The Million Writers Awards longlist is now up (many thanks to Jason Sanford and the tireless judges). It includes “Exodus Tides”, published in IGMS (and, by a happy coincidence, collected in my forthcoming ebook sampler Scattered Among Strange Worlds); and many other familiar names from Ken Liu to Mari Ness. Also includes “Ghostweight” by Yoon Ha Lee, one…