Signs of Spring
What we're reading and how we're reconnecting (AWP, here we come!)
After a challenging winter, the days are getting longer and the retreat of omicron means we can finally start making plans again. Several members of Seventeen Syllables will be traveling to Philadelphia for AWP later this month, and we hope to see you there–in person or virtually.
Although it’s wonderful to have something to look forward to, joyful anticipation feels out of place when we’re witnessing the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the unfolding humanitarian crisis as millions of refugees flee the violence. As immigrants and the descendants of immigrants, we are intimately familiar with the trauma of war, colonization and displacement, and we empathize deeply with those affected. Donating to relief efforts, writing to our representatives, expressing solidarity on social media… it feels so insufficient. Faced with the pain of losing home, family and freedom, we must remember that words and art can be a lifeline.
Brian Komei Dempster
February was a month of family health challenges, and I am grateful that we made it through to the other side. It’s also when we commemorate the annual Day of Remembrance in the Japanese American community. I commend the poets, writers, and artists who keep this legacy alive through words and images. An event organized by my poet-friend Brandon Shimoda at Colorado College, which featured our mutual friend Brynn Saito and others, was a moving experience.
Another momentous occasion was the publication of Garrett Hongo’s incredible memoir The Perfect Sound. Several of us have had the privilege of studying with Garrett in various workshops. A few of us attended his recent virtual book launch and conversation with fellow literary trailblazer Maxine Hong Kingston hosted by City Lights. I encourage you to check out their meaningful exchange and purchase Garrett’s new book.
I am also excited to share recent and upcoming events for my second poetry collection, Seize (Four Way Books, 2020):
Olivia Braley wrote this tremendous review of Seize in Southern Humanities Review, which demonstrates a nuanced understanding of the book’s craft and themes. Warm thanks to her and Caitlin Rae Taylor for their support.
On March 5, I was thrilled to read with my friend, the fabulous poet Jennifer Franklin, for the Connecticut Poetry Society (CPS). Jenny and I are also giving craft talks for CPS on March 12. Gratitude to Luisa Caycedo-Kimura and CPS for hosting us.
On March 19, I will engage in a dynamic virtual conversation and reading with Brynn Saito organized by Joy Yamaguchi for the Japanese American National Museum. Entitled Art, Identity, and Legacy, our dialogue will reflect on the legacy of Japanese American wartime incarceration, anti-Asian attitudes and violence, and artmaking as an empowering force.
To close out the month, I am on a virtual panel at AWP: “The Thing With Feathers: Poetry of Witness to Illness, Disability, and Trauma.” What an honor to team up with Jenny F., Fred Marchant, Oliver de la Paz, and Michelle Whittaker. You can join our session on Friday, March 25 at 1:45 p.m. ET.
Lillian Howan
On my twilight walks, I sometimes catch glimpses of owls, dark wings gliding silently. Due to lupus, my chronic autoimmune disease, I’ve found that I have to avoid the sun as much as possible, so I walk around only at sunset and evening.
At first, this restriction was frustrating, but I’ve found that the transitional world between day and night is filled with life. Through the darkening sky, birds fly overhead to their nighttime roosts. Owls awaken, hooting from the high branches of cedars and redwoods. Bats emerge, flitting, elusive. There are deer and fearless raccoons, and the neighborhood cats begin their private nighttime assignations.
Like the discovery of the world of dusk, the following have brightened, for me, the dark, sorrowful world events of the past week:
Karen Tei Yamashita’s epic, kaleidoscopic novel I Hotel is the March selection of the California Book Club. I’m grateful to have been invited to write a part-memoir essay on I Hotel for Alta Journal and the California Book Club.
Karen Tei Yamashita will be in conversation with John Freeman for the Alta California Book Club on March 17, 5 pm PST. Register here: https://altaonline.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LmVLUotFS06pkKT0geFd1Q
I’m deeply honored to have been accepted to speak at the Literature and Politics in Oceana conference in Tahiti at the Université de la Polynésie Française in November 2022. The conference will honor the 30th anniversary of Chantal Spitz’s groundbreaking novel L'Île des rêves écrasés, translated as Island of Shattered Dreams. Chantal Spitz, legendary author of indigenous Ma’ohi descent, will be honored at the conference.
I’m grateful to be part of a brilliant AWP panel, Choices and Challenges in Writing Diaspora, together with fellow Syllable Grace Loh Prasad, as well as Victoria Buitron, Michelle Chikaonda, and Sunisa Manning. This virtual panel will be on Friday, March 25, 3:20-4:20 pm. I won’t be attending this AWP in person, but I encourage you to see the panels and readings of fellow Syllables, Grace, Brian, Caroline, and Marianne. Thank you to Grace for designing this marvelous flyer for our AWP panel.
Last but not least: my novel The Charm Buyers is in Powell’s City of Books! I discovered this when I was visiting my daughter Vanina who lives in Portland. When I first saw the book spine, I thought that I was hallucinating, but there it was: The Charm Buyers on the bookshelf of Powell’s–a dream come true!
On a more somber note, Vanina’s fiancé Daniel works out of Portland for a company based in Kyiv. All his fellow co-workers are from Ukraine. The past weeks have been difficult for Daniel and Vanina as they await word from Daniel’s co-workers, whose lives have been uprooted. I’ll conclude here by sharing this book review of Andrey Kurkov’s Grey Bees by @vishytheknight, translated by Boris Dralyuk
Caroline Kim
It’s been awhile since I’ve been on the East Coast but I’ll be going to AWP later this month. As a first timer, I fully expect to be overwhelmed and discombobulated. But I’m also excited to meet up with friends and attend readings again. I’ll be on a couple of panels too:
Publishing Your First Story Collection (with Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry, Matthew Lansburgh, Rachel Swearingen, and Jen Fawkes), Thursday, March 24, 9:00-10:15am, Room 119AB, Pennsylvania Convention Center
Expanding the Fictional Terrain: Four Writers, Four Collections, Four Awards (with Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry, Michael X. Wang, and Rachel Swearingen), Friday, March 25, 1:45-3:00pm, Room 125, Pennsylvania Convention Center
I’ll also be appearing as part of the Annual Rock and Roll Reading on Saturday, March 26, off-site at Tattooed Mom, 530 South Street, Philadelphia. Don’t you want to go to this bar just for its name? Organized by Daniel Hoyt, a dozen or so of us will be reading work the length of a rock and roll song. Sweet and short.
I haven’t been writing short stories lately, but I do have a story coming out in the next issue of Story magazine. I’m especially excited about this one–first because Story is one of my favorite lit magazines, and second, because the subject matter–motherhood –is one I want to explore more in the future. This one was difficult for me to write and took several years and many, many drafts.
Other than that, I’m still doing a lot of research and pecking away at my novel set at the turn of the century in Korea.
Marianne Villanueva
My last acceptance was from The Museum of Americana, last year. I continue to send out my work on a regular basis. I have one favorite story that I even considered making the title of my new collection. It is fantasy: a wayfarer on a ship called the Cyclops discovers a lost city. This story has continued to haunt me since I first found a very old mariner's book in a cottage in the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, Ireland.
For the month of April, I will be at an artists residency in River Mill, Downpatrick, Northern Ireland. I've only been to Northern Ireland once before: to Rostrevor, years ago. I was supposed to go to River Mill in 2020 but… the pandemic happened. Two years later, here we are! It’ll be my first foray back to that part of the world. I'm excited to reconnect with friends in Northern Ireland!
I've decided that my new collection will be all speculative fiction, which is a huge step for me! I selected my strongest fantasy pieces and found that the ensuing collection was 203 pages. I’ve never tried to submit just my speculative fiction before, thinking it would be best to make my new collection a mix of traditional and speculative fiction. But earlier this year, I decided to just go for it. I have submitted the collection to a few small presses, and I also continue to submit the individual stories. I've gotten a couple of nice rejections, surprisingly for my most improbable pieces. My speculative fiction is experimental and language-driven, I don't even know if I should try agents at this point.
Jay Ruben Dayrit
I have a story that has been workshopped three separate times by three different groups of writers over literally two decades. Each time, people have assured me it’s quite clean and ready to be published. And yet, it has been rejected 33 times to date. Some of the rejection letters included helpful notes; the editor-in-chief of Nimrod, Eilis O’Neal, was kind enough to offer, “I like the dark undertones of the story and it surprised me by ending on a rather hopeful and upbeat note. But the beginning was slow and the tension could be upped substantially.” I agree, but not enough to do much about it. My revisions have been minimal, at best.
Fellow Seventeen Syllables writer Marianne Villanueva advises her students to overhaul a story after it has been rejected 20 times. Another former member, Sabina Chen, said that when she revises, she prints a hard copy, deletes all existing digital versions from her computer, and retypes the entire story. Doing so gives her fresh insights. The very thought of this gives me anxiety, but 33 rejection letters are a pretty clear call to action. Okay, I’m going to print a hard copy and delete all existing digital files. I promise I will. Really, I will. Maybe I’ll print two hard copies, just to be safe.
Grace Loh Prasad
Late last year I was approached by a young curator, Rachel Poonsiriwong, who’d read some of my work and wanted to know if I was interested in writing an essay for an exhibit she was curating. We corresponded a bit and I was immediately drawn to the themes she wanted to focus on: migration, diaspora, family, community, intergenerational trauma, and healing. The exhibit, Water Is Thicker Than Blood, was shown at Root Division, a gallery and arts resource center in San Francisco. I really enjoyed discovering artists like Lydia Nakashima Degarrod, Ghazal Ghazi, Jennifer Lugris, and Deepa Mahajan, whose work really resonated with me. My essay appears on page 15 of the exhibition catalog.
With spring in the air, I’m excited to participate in the new Words & Stories reading series organized by The Writers Grotto. This literary happy hour will take place on Fridays in March at Salesforce Park–a wonderful outdoor venue and an oasis of greenery in the Financial District/SOMA. I’m part of the lineup on Friday, March 18, 5-6pm. Free and open to the public!
I’m also proud to share that I have two events on the schedule at #AWP22 in Philadelphia. Although both of my events are virtual/pre-recorded, I plan to attend in person and reconnect with many dear writing friends. If you’re going to AWP either in-person or virtually, please join me for these two exciting programs:
Choices and Challenges in Writing Diaspora (with Sunisa Manning, Victoria Buitron, Michelle Chikaonda, and fellow Syllable Lillian Howan), Friday, March 25, 3:20-4:20pm ET, Event #F243
Writing Ourselves into Existence: Taiwanese American Voices (with Yi Shun Lai, Grace Hwang Lynch, and Lisa Chiu), Saturday, March 26, 12:10-1:10pm ET, Event #S176
And finally, just for fun… on January 24, I posted a few rows of colorful squares on Twitter: “Not a Wordle. This is how many tabs I have open on my work computer.” My tweet referencing the popular daily word puzzle went viral and soon there were hundreds of “not Wordle” memes on Twitter. More than 70 major companies and brands used the format including McDonald’s, Domino’s Pizza, The Weather Channel, Pittsburgh Steelers, DC Comics, Food Network, Major League Soccer, Getty Museum, Jeopardy!, Seinfeld, AFL-CIO, Microsoft, Amtrak, and Oxfam. One week later, the creator of Wordle sold it to The New York Times for a reported $1 million.