Bloom Archives - BookDragon

Last Boat Out of Shanghai by Helen Zia + Author Interview [in Bloom]

10 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese, Chinese American, Nonfiction, Repost

“We have to learn from history and stop repeating its mistakes” As the child of two Chinese refugees, Helen Zia can personally speak to the effects of displacement, separation, adaptation, and reinvention. In her memorable career as activist/journalist/writer/Asian American icon, Zia turns inward for the first time in...

The Farm by Joanne Ramos + Author Interview [in Bloom]

19 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost, Southeast Asian American

“I cared more about making the reader uncomfortable than happy, because … discomfort makes you question and think” She began her American life as a six-year-old immigrant from the Philippines. She entered adulthood with a Princeton pedigree which well-served her lofty finance career. She was a...

Miracle Creek by Angie Kim + Author Interview [in Bloom]

21 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

“I’m still getting used to the idea of being a writer”: Q&A with Angie Kim True confession: A few years ago, our mutual friend, the writer Marie Myung-Ok Lee (not a Bloomer – Marie had a first-ever YA fiction multi-book deal with a major publisher in...

That Time I Loved You by Carrianne Leung + Author Interview [in Bloom]

26 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories, Young Adult Readers

“It is always funny to me when I show up to readings and people expect me to be my characters”: Q&A with Carrianne Leung She arrived in Toronto at age 6, when her family immigrated from Hong Kong in the mid-1970s. At 7, they moved to...

Famous Adopted People by Alice Stephens + Author Interview [in Bloom]

27 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, North Korean, Repost

FAMOUS ADOPTED PEOPLE, A Story “In My Bones”: Q&A with Alice Stephens “Everyone, it seems, is telling our story but us,” observes Lisa Pearl, the Korean-born, Bethesda, Maryland-raised transracial adoptee protagonist in Alice Stephens’ debut novel, Famous Adopted People, which hits shelves on October 16. The author, who describes...

Everything Here Is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee + Author Interview [in Bloom]

30 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, South American

Until she found her agent in 2015, Mira T. Lee thought of her writing as a “dirty little secret.” Although she started publishing short stories almost a decade ago, she didn’t start writing “seriously” until 2012, buoyed by an Artist Fellowship from Mass Cultural Council: “I...

The Hidden Light of Northern Fires by Daren Wang + Author Interview [in Bloom]

19 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Author Interview/Profile, Black/African American, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

I’ve been hanging with a few serious Civil War buffs the last couple weeks (one of whom is a licensed historical tour guide and descended from a Civil War lieutenant colonel) and I haven’t yet met an “expert” who’s heard this strange tale about tiny...

The Last Days of Café Leila by Donia Bijan + Author Interview [in Bloom]

01 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost

Café Leila & Beautiful Ruins: Q&A with Donia Bijan “Strange things happened when I returned to Tehran in 2010 after thirty-two years in exile,” writes Donia Bijan in her recent essay, “The Women’s Hour.” Traveling with her sister, she found her childhood home – the hospital their father built...

Author Interview: Lisa Ko [in Bloom]

05 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Q&A with Lisa Ko: Trying and Failing and Trying Again Lisa Ko’s parents often reminded her how lucky she was to grow up in a mostly-white suburb outside NYC. Ko is the daughter of ethnic Chinese parents who were born and raised in the Philippines and...

Author Interview: Don Lee [in BLOOM]

26 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Japanese American, Korean American, Repost

Q&A with Don Lee: False starts, being radical & letting go of the small stuff More than four years have passed since I chatted with Don Lee for Bloom. The paperback version of his 2012 novel, The Collective, was about to come out. We were talking...

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui + Author Interview [in Bloom]

13 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonfiction, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

Q&A with Thi Bui: Writer, Illustrator, Teacher On the cover of Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir is a perfect quote: “A book to break our heart and heal it,” blurbs fellow Vietnamese American refugee and 2016 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction...

Author Interview: Jimin Han [in Bloom]

02 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost

The Small Revolutions Make Way for the Big Ones Recent Korean history seems to be getting quite the literal spotlight from both sides of the globe – by native Korean and Korean American writers alike. In Human Acts – Han Kang’s follow-up to her Man Booker International...

Author Interview: Min Jin Lee [in Bloom]

21 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Korean American, Repost

On History, Survival & Intimacy Becoming a bestselling author took Min Jin Lee 11 years – and so much more of her life. She quit lawyering, but without that income, tuition for an MFA proved impossible. So she found every bargain opportunity in New York City to...

Dragon Springs Road by Janie Chang + Author Interview [in Bloom]

21 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

Ever since she was a child, Janie Chang was steeped in family tales she inherited from her parents about the generations that came before. For decades, she remained the family’s repository until, at age 53, she presented the world with her debut novel, Three Souls,...

Author Interview: Shobha Rao [in Bloom]

07 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian, South Asian American

The Recovered & The Unrestored Let me begin with a reader’s confession: Without a doubt, Shobha Rao’s debut, An Unrestored Woman, is the best short fiction collection I’ve read this year. These dozen stories are savage and empathetic, brutal and lyrical, mournful and celebratory as well. At...

Author Interview: Vanessa Hua [in Bloom]

25 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

On Secrets and the Long, Long Process Journalist Vanessa Hua spent the last couple of decades filing articles from around the globe – China and Ecuador, Burma and Panama, and beyond – which surely gave her the worldly familiarity that resonates throughout her fiction debut, Deceit...

Author Interview: Pamela Erens [in Bloom]

04 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Black/African American, Caribbean American, Fiction, Haitian, Haitian American, Jewish, Korean American, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

While Pamela Erens might not yet be a household-name author, she’s hardly a stranger to literary recognition. Her 2007 debut, The Understory – about a solitary, unemployed lawyer who’s about to lose his home – was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the...

Author Interview: Viet Dinh [in Bloom]

23 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Indian, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, South Asian, Vietnamese American

For the seriously literary, his name and work will be familiar. His short story, “Substitutes,” earned him an O. Henry Prize in 2009. Other short works have been published in Zoetrope: All-Story, Threepenny Review, Five Points, Fence, to name a few. He has a page...

Author Interview: Lynne Kutsukake [in Bloom]

07 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Japanese, Japanese American, Repost

“Enemy aliens” is an all too familiar label, although just who gets thusly labeled seems to change with the political winds. With such an aggravated election year, these two words won’t be disappearing from the media anytime soon. Beyond our northern border, our Canadian neighbors did...

Author Interview: Jung Yun [in Bloom]

29 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost

Jung Yun’s Twitter profile reads: “Fiction writer. Late bloomer. Better late than never.” Indeed, more than four decades passed before she earned that “fiction writer” mantle, but clearly the careful gestation paid off. So wowed was Yun’s publisher, Picador, with her first novel that hundreds of...

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