Blog
Magic, Monsters, and Mayhem
AAPI Book of the Day – American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
I read this book back in 2007 when it came out. It was groundbreaking stuff, a coming of age story mixed with the Monkey King. Gene Luen Yang really tackles the hard stuff about growing up an ABC kid in America and the burning desire to fit in. It's wonderful to see...
Asian Heritage Month Book of the Day – Zachary Ying and The Dragon Emperor
It's amazing to me that when I was kid, all I had was 5 Chinese Brothers (which meant a lot to me despite the modern lens of seeing how problematic it was) but now I can literally talk about 30 books for the month of May. I love middle grade and Xiran Jay Zhao's book...
Booksellers, the Lifeblood of Publishing at CALIBA 2023 Spring Forum
Yesterday I thought I thought I would be all fired up because of seeing EBONY GATE in print, and I was, but turns out what really fired me up yesterday was meeting so many booksellers, meeting other authors, and just being surrounded by people who love books. The...
SFWC is a wrap!
This was my second year speaking at panels for San Francisco Writer's Conference. I love the venue and the high energy level of the attendees is infectious. In 2022, I spoke on the following at SFWC: So You Want to Write Science Fiction (San Francisco Writers...
2022 – Julia’s Year in Review
Reading: In 2022, I read a lot. That’s not a surprise. I have been doing that year after year without prompting or goals. My kindle app says I have been reading on it for 165 weeks in a row, which is over 3 years. This year, it says I read 65 books. That number does...
The Art of Ebony Gate
I wrote a mega post about DragonCon and decided I should break it up into chunks. The big thing that stood out for me during this event was THE ART. I couldn't get over the art. There were four floors of Art and assorted cool things at the America's Mart and then...
Meet Your Fighter – Akhil the Lightbringer
As Roxy struggles through her Trials to join the Seattle Slayers, she is guided by some of their finest. Meet Akhil the Lightbringer. "He set down the cleaver and fanned out his hands about shoulder-width apart. He began humming and I found myself relaxing. The...
Chinese Fairy Tales – Powerful and Sweet
When I was a kid, there were only two children’s books that I owned which had stories featuring Chinese kids. One was The Five Chinese Brothers, and the other was The Cricket Warrior. I still own copies, decades later. When I look at the Five Chinese Brothers today...
Seattle Slayers – Meet Your Fighter Kotori
Meet Your Fighter, Kotori. They call her the Fox. She's an illusionist and she hates rookies. She's Roxanne's new sensei. This is how Roxy meets her: I felt a little sick to my stomach. “Cage fights to the death? That’s your entertainment?” Samuel snorted. “This? This...
Seattle Slayers – Meet Your Fighter Dario the Direwolf
Meet Your Fighter - Dario the Direwolf In the perpetual Twilight of Seattle, shifters honor survival of the fittest and Market Freedom. Dario has a major transformation there and becomes the Direwolf Roxy meets during the trials to become a Slayers initiate. For a...
Seattle Slayers: Meet Your Fighter Harald of the Reach
Meet Your Fighter Harald of the Reach. He is the Son of Sten, Prince of the Mountain Fae, Guardian of the Northern Pass, and generally as full of himself as his titles are long. If Roxy thought a perfectionist fae from the Hinterlands was going to be a pain, Harald is...
Seattle Slayers: Meet Your Fighter Cordelia of the Hinterlands
Meet Your Fighter, fae princess Cordelia of the Hinterlands. She is one of the first people Roxy meets on her quest to join the Seattle Slayers. Cordelia does everything right. She fights like every motion is effortless, she can handle close quarters in a melee round...