London calling

Next week I'm flying to London for the first time in four years! As many of you know, I met my husband in London during a semester abroad over seven years ago. For a long time I thought we'd be moving there permanently. As we get even more settled in Hong Kong that looks unlikely, but I'm very excited to return for an extended visit. 

Our schedules have worked out so that I'll be able to attend the first day of the London Book Fair on April 14th. If any of you are planning to be there, please let me know!

In the meantime, I've been hard at work on a short project under the name Shannon Young and the soon-to-be-released sequel to Seabound under the name Jordan Rivet. I was also recently interviewed about my work under two names by gbtimes. Read the article here!

We're also getting closer to the wide release of Year of Fire Dragons, the travel memoir featuring my move to Hong Kong and my love story. It's available for pre-order now, and the e-book will launch in June. You can find the gorgeous paperback in Hong Kong bookstores already! To read some sample chapters, check out my publisher's website!

GOOD CHINESE WIFE by Susan Blumberg-Kason

THE GIST:

A young American woman meets and quickly marries a man from central China while living in Hong Kong. Soon, she discovers she doesn't know him as well as she thought.

THE VERDICT:

If you occasionally read the comments of this blog, you'll probably recognize the name Susan Blumberg-Kason. She is a huge fan of books (both fiction and non-fiction) about China in general and Hong Kong in particular. Susan lived in Hong Kong as a young woman, right before the Handover. Now, I'm excited to participate in the blog tour for Susan's own memoir, Good Chinese Wife. It's the dramatic story of Susan's marriage to a dashing musician from central China named Cai who turns out to be a moody and tumultuous partner.

Good Chinese Wife explores the rapid breakdown of a marriage between two people from different cultures who don't quite manage to communicate. They can speak each other's languages, but Susan and Cai can't break through barriers of culture and insecurity to make their marriage work. Hints of infidelity and emotional abuse begin to emerge, but Susan is caught between her desire to be considerate of Cai's worldview and her need to protect herself. Their troubles are compounded when their son is born and they move to San Francisco, where Cai experiences depression and culture shock and Susan finds herself the sole breadwinner for not just her husband and young son, but also her in-laws and the occasional unwelcome houseguest.

A very important part of this story is that Susan acknowledges her own mistakes while describing an untenable situation. She recognizes that she was rash and naive in jumping into her marriage with Cai. She was starstruck by his good looks, charm, and the fact that she was in love with Chinese culture already. She's also frank about the way she was treated as she describes her journey through insecurity to the point where she would finally stand up for herself and her son. Although the account is painful at times, it's a revelatory look at what can happen when two people (regardless of culture) have very different expectations for their life together. This is an honest and vulnerable memoir that will appeal to people who are interested in cross-cultural relationships, especially those between Asian men and Western women.

THE LINK:

Susan Blumberg-Kason's website features reviews of many Hong Kong and China-related books.
Susan also has a story in my anthology How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? True Stories of Expat Women in Asia that serves as an epilogue to this memoir.
You can find links to the other blogs in this tour at Speaking of China. Many deal specifically with relationships between Asian men and Western women.

THE COST:

$9.99 for the Kindle edition

THE QUESTION:

How do you think marriage expectations differ between Chinese and American culture? Do you think the troubles of this story are primarily due to cultural differences or due to the personalities of the couple involved?

Dragonfruit Round-up 5: Pamela Beere Briggs, Jennifer S. Deayton, Neha Mehta, Dorcas Cheng-Tozun and Shannon Dunlap

We have been introducing the contributors to the Dragonfruit anthology in reverse order for the past 26 days on our Facebook page. In case you missed any of them, here are the final 5:

Pamela Beere Briggs, author of The Truth about Crickets (Japan)

Born in Japan, Pamela Beere Briggs spent her first decade in Kobe. She moved "home" to Napa, California in 1968. Realizing years later that "Napa" is "Japan" spelled backwards without the J describes her memory of leaving: turned around with a missing piece.

She went on to become an award-winning documentary filmmaker and has written essays for a variety of publications. She is currently working on three World War II novels for middle-grade readers and blogs with her teen daughter at Two in the Middle.

You can also find Pamela on Facebook.


Jennifer S. Deayton, author of Bread and Knives (Hong Kong)

Jennifer S. Deayton is a writer and filmmaker who lives in Hong Kong. You can find her work on NatGeo, Discovery TLC and at the recent Los Angeles New Media Film Festival. She writes about music and motherhood at The Rock Mom, where she indulges her love for indie pop music and '70s & '80s R&B and has a laugh about the perils of parenting. She's recently completed her first novel.

You can follow Jennifer on Twitter @arockmom



Neha Mehta, author of Bangkok Through the Eyes of an Indian Girl (Thailand)

Neha Mehta is a freelance writer. She has a master's degree in Mass Communication and Journalism and has worked with several newspapers and magazines. She has written articles for several medical portals like MedGuru and MedIndia. While living in Bangkok, she worked as a lecturer at Assumption University of Bangkok and was associated with Bangkok-based magazine Masala, which caters to the Indian community in Thailand. She now lives in India.

Dorcas Cheng-Tozun, author of The Weight of Beauty (China)

Dorcas Cheng-Tozun is a writer, editor, and blogger whose essays and short stories have appeared in over a dozen publications in the US, UK, and Hong Kong. "The Weight of Beauty" is an excerpt from her full-length memoir about her experience as a Chinese American woman in modern industrial China, which turned her perspectives on her family, her culture of origin, and her own sense of identity upside down and inside out. She is a winner of The Well's recent Call for Stories writing competition. In between blogging about her adventures as a new mom, Dorcas is a regular contributor to Asian American Women on Leadership and managing editor of the blog Estuaries. She is represented by Carrie Pestritto of Prospect Agency.

Prior to becoming a writer, Dorcas worked as a nonprofit and social enterprise professional for over ten years. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and adorable hapa son.

Learn more or read her other works at her website.

Shannon Dunlap, author of Forwarding Addresses (Cambodia) 

Shannon Dunlap is a writer of fiction and creative nonfiction.

While living in Cambodia, she was a regular columnist for The Phnom Penh Post and created the blog Forwarding Addresses with Jason Leahey. They now edit the blog PitchKnives & Butter Forks, telling stories of food from the seed to the platter. In one recent post, Shannon tells the tale of her favorite Cambodian dish.

Shannon is a graduate of the MFA program at New York University. She currently lives in Brooklyn and is working on a novel for young adults.

You can find buy your very own copy of How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? True Stories of Expat Women in Asia at the following links:

Amazon (paper and e-book)
Barnes & Noble (paper and e-book)
Smashwords (e-book)
Apple (e-book)
Book Depository (paper)

Dragonfruit Round-up 4: Stephanie Han, Suzanne Kamata, Sharon Brown, Jenna Lynn Cody and Kaitlin Solimine

We are introducing the contributors to the Dragonfruit anthology in daily features on the Facebook page. In case you missed reading about any of these cool women, here are the next 5: Stephanie Han, Suzanne Kamata, Sharon Brown, Jenna Lynn Cody and Kaitlin Solimine.

Stephanie Han, author of Happy Anniversary (Hong Kong)
Stephanie Han (MA, MFA) is City University of Hong Kong’s first PhD candidate in English literature (PhD conferred August 2014 "Writing Beyond the Nation: Globality and the Asian American Novel, 2000-2010). Her fiction and poetry have appeared in DisOrient, The Kyoto Journal, Louisville Review, The South China Morning Post (Fiction Award), Nimrod International Literary Journal (Katherine Ann Porter Prize), Santa Fe Writer’s Project (Fiction Award), Women’s Studies Quarterly, Cha Online Journal (HK), Ampersand Review and other publications. Her short fiction has been anthologized in the following: Strange Cargo: Emerging Voices (PEN-West; 2010), Cheers to Muses (Asian American Women Artists; 2007) and How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit (Signal 8 Press; 2014). Her critical work has appeared in Contemporary Women's Writing (2013) and The Explicator (2013) In 2014 her fiction will appear in the anthologies The Queen of Statue Square and The Tao of Parenthood. She is currently seeking a publisher for her recently completed poetry collection entitled "Expatriate".

For further information you can visit StephanieHan.com


Suzanne Kamata, author of Love and Polka Dots (Japan)

Suzanne Kamata is the author of the novels Losing Kei (Leapfrog Press, 2008) and Gadget Girl: The Art of Being Invisible (GemmaMedia, 2013), as well as the editor of three anthologies, including Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering (Wyatt-Mackenzie Publishing, 2011). She is currently working on a mother/daughter travel memoir, for which she was awarded a grant by the Sustainable Arts Foundation. She lives in Shikoku, Japan, with her family.

Suzanne's most recent release is a novel called Screaming Divas (Merit Press, 2014) about an all-girl rock band.

You can read more about Suzanne's work at her website and follow her on Twitter @shikokusue

Sharon Brown, author of Our Little Piece of Vietnam (Vietnam)

Sharon Brown is a freelance writer and editor. She published her first essay on life abroad in Forced to Fly II and is currently working on a book about expat life in Vietnam. Sharon has lived and traveled throughout Asia and Central America. She currently resides in the DC metro area in the US with her husband and two small children.

However, Sharon's latest news is that she will be moving to Myanmar in July.

Sharon blogs at A More Conscious Life

Visit the Dragonfruit Facebook page for more of
Jenna's amazing photos of the King Boat Festival

Jenna Lynn Cody, Author of Gods Rushing In (Taiwan)

Jenna Lynn Cody grew up in upstate New York, but has lived abroad for most of her adult life. After a semester in India and a year in China, sheattempted to settle down in the USA. Unable to sit still, however, she took off again for Taipei, Taiwan, where she has lived for the past seven years with her husband, Brendan. She works as a corporate trainer and blogs at Lao Ren Cha.
There's a review of Dragonfruit focusing on Jenna's essay by Taiwanxifu here and two albums featuring her photography on the Facebook page.

Kaitlin Solimine, author of Finding Yuanfen on a Chinese Bus (China)

Raised in New England, Kaitlin Solimine has considered China a second home since 1996. She's been a Harvard-Yenching scholar, Fulbright Fellow, and Donald E. Axinn Scholar in Fiction at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. She wrote and edited Let's Go: China (St. Martin's Press) and her first novel, Empire of Glass, won the 2012 Dzanc Books/Disquiet International Literary Program award. Her writing has appeared in Guernica Magazine, National Geographic, Kartika Review, China Daily, and more. She also had an essay in recent China expat anthology, Unsavory Elements.

Kaitlin is a co-founder of the curatorial website, Hippo Reads. 


Thank you all for your continued enthusiasm for the Dragonfruit anthology! To get your copy, visit one of the following retailers:

Amazon (paper and e-book)
Barnes & Noble (paper and e-book)
Smashwords (e-book)
Apple (e-book)
Book Depository (paper)

Dragonfruit Round-up 3: Catherine Rose Torres, Christine Tan, Michelle Borok, Barbara Craven and Eva Cohen

I'd like to introduce the next five contributors to the Dragonfruit anthology. If you haven't been following along, we are featuring one writer per day on the Dragonfruit Facebook page. There are some pretty cool women writing about Asia at the moment, so I hope you'll find lots of extra reading material here:

Catherine Rose Torres, author of How to Marry a Moonie (South Korea)

Catherine Rose Torres's prose has appeared in anthologies and periodicals in the Philippines, Singapore, and the United States, including The Philippines Graphic, TAYO Literary Magazine, Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction, and Motherhood Statements. Her work as a diplomat has taken her to postings in New Delhi and Singapore, together with her husband, Sohn Suk Joo, a Korean scholar and translator, and their son, Samuel. She is at work on her first collection of short stories.

Recently, Catherine's YA novel manuscript Sula's Voyage was chosen as the first runner-up in the Scholastic Asian Book Award 2014.

You can read her story, The Mariposa Gang, here and another one called Blown Glass here. 


Christine Tan, author of An Awkward Phone Call (China)

Christine Tan has lived in Canada, Malaysia, Singapore, and England. A graduate of the London School of Economics-Fudan University program inGlobal Media and Communications, she has written for CNN Travel, Matador Network, chinaSMACK, and the Atlantic. She recently permanently relocated to her hometown of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia after a decade abroad. She and her husband are now expecting their first child! Christine is also at work on a memoir, tentatively titled A Skeptic's Guide to Love and All That Stuff.

Formerly blogging at Shanghai Shiok!, you can find Christine online here.

And on Twitter @christinehtan and Facebook


Michelle Borok, author of Giving in to Mongolia (Mongolia)

Michelle Borok lives in Darkhan, Mongolia with her husband, daughter, Tibetan Mastiff and a huge family of Mongolian in-laws. She writes about her life in Mongolia on her blog, Wonton Cruelty.

She is an editor at Mongolia's first English language newspaper, the UB Post, and also writes for Asian-American arts and culture site, Giant Robot.

Her writing has also appeared in Roads & Kingdoms and They're All So Beautiful, a forum on race and dating.

Barbara Craven, author of Kampong House (Malaysia).

Barbara Craven lived for three years in Malaysia on a tourist visa. She has published over one hundred articles and short stories in the United States, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Her publishers include airline magazines, newspapers, lifestyle magazines, and literary journals. "Kampong House" is the true account on which the first chapter of her unpublished novel, One More Border to Cross, is based. She resides in Olympia, WA, United States.



Eva Cohen, author of Jewish in China (China)

Eva Cohen is a journalist, photographer, blogger and artist who currently lives in Los Angeles. She is originally from Canada, and spent three years inEast Asia in Nanjing, Beijing and Hong Kong.

Her China journey began as an English teacher at a college an hour outside of the Nanjing city centre where she was the only foreign female for miles around. Prior to moving to China, she had studied Chinese for three months once a week after work, but the amount covered in that time (pretty much just how to say "Hi, my name is," and "I am Canadian") is what a foreigner needs to learn within a day of landing in China.

Eva's goal in moving to China was to find a media-related job, so she traveled to Beijing over a weekend while teaching and got a position as a producer and host at China Radio International. The job and the cultural differences with party abiding Chinese citizens was very stressful, and the regimented way state media was run was not for her, so her next move was to Hong Kong to work for the Financial Times Group's Mergermarket (since sold to private equity).

In Hong Kong, Eva met her husband, an American-born Hong Konger, at a bicycle film festival - a film festival about bicycles. While they have recently relocated to Los Angeles, Eva's current job is as a multimedia reporter for the Hong Kong conglomerate Next Media Limited, and the division she works for, TomoNews, is based in Taiwan, which has given her the opportunity to travel there for work.

In Eva's story included in the anthology, "Jewish in China", she focuses on exactly that: what it was like to show up to Nanjing unsure of how Chinese people would react to a religious affiliation, and to realize it would hold so much more than she expected. The deep respect given by so many she met feels especially potent this year to her with the rise in global anti-Semitism; shootings at Jewish centers in the U.S. and Europe, among other tragedies.

Eva would like to thank everyone for reading this anthology, as she believes giving a voice to women is extremely important, and the stories she is included with relay such interesting stories by strong, smart and motivated ladies.

For more stories and photos from Eva's Asia adventures, check out her blog evacohenmedia.com. She can also be followed on Instagram and Twitter @VivaciousEC

You can find the Dragonfruit anthology at the following links:

Amazon (paper and e-book)
Barnes & Noble (paper and e-book)
Smashwords (e-book)
Apple (e-book)

And for a shameless plug, if you'd like to read my Hong Kong escalator love story, I'm running a Kindle Countdown Deal at the moment. The Art of Escalator Jumping is $0.99 until July 8th (which also happens to be my birthday). The normal price is $3.99.

Dragonfruit Round-up 2: Edna Zhou, Nicola Chilton, Philippa Ramsden, Saffron Marchant, India Harris and Jocelyn Eikenburg

We are continuing to feature one Dragonfruit Anthology Contributor of the Day on the Facebook page. Here are the next six contributors!

Edna Zhou, author of Token (China)

Edna Zhou is an American sports journalist and serial expat who first moved abroad at 18, then just kept moving. She has lived and worked in China, Singapore, Paris, and Italy, and is always thinking about the next place to call home. For now, she lives in Shanghai.

Edna writes about her adventures at Expat Edna

You can follow her here, too: Expat Edna on Facebook

Nicola Chilton, author of Five Weeks On (Japan)

Originally from Yorkshire, Nicola Chilton studied Spanish and Latin American studies at University, and spent a year wandering the mountains and jungles of southern Mexico pretending to write a dissertation. After returning to England, and as the English autumn weather set in, distant shores called again and she set off to work in Japan for a year. That one year became eight, followed by another four in Hong Kong, and another four in Thailand where she is currently based. Born with itchy feet, if not travelling, Nicola is always thinking of travelling. A keen writer and photographer, she has notebooks filled with scribbles from Iceland to Pyongyang by way of Moscow and Mumbai, and has a collection of photographs on display at Samsara Cafe & Meal, a 100-year-old wooden house on the banks of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok.

You can follow her travels on Instagram at @nicolachilton.

Philippa Ramsden, author of Moving to the Tropic of Cancer (Burma/Myanmar)

Philippa Ramsden is a Scottish humanitarian and development professional. She had been to Asia only once when she stepped off a plane in Kathmandu in 2000 to take up a new job, with no idea what to expect--and has been in Asia ever since. She has lived and worked in Nepal, Mongolia, India, Sri Lanka, and Burma/Myanmar. Currently, Philippa is working on a memoir of her life as an expat with cancer in a tropical country. She is also working on a collection of short stories, poetry, and other snippets about life in this part of the world.

Philippa blogs at Feisty Blue Gecko and tweets @feistybluegecko

You can read more about Philippa's writing journey in this blog post and find her on Facebook.


Saffron Marchant, author of Cross (Hong Kong). 

Saffron Marchant read English Literature and Language at Oxford in the early 1990s. In 2007 she began to study Creative Writing at Hong Kong University, and eventually graduated with distinction from its inaugural Master of Fine Arts. In the intervening years, she studied and practiced law in London, Paris, and New York, but now terms herself a "recovering solicitor." She lives in Hong Kong with her husband, son, and daughter.

India Harris, author of The Rainiest Season (Philippines) 

After seven years and two adventurous crossings of the Pacific Ocean on a ten-meter yacht, Canadian India Harris sailed into the Philippines in 2001, fell in love with the country, and became a landlubber. When not at her seaside home which she shares with a menagerie of pets, India can usually be found in some other exotic part of the world with her camera. She has also lived in Tokyo, Paris, and Hawaii.

Lately, India has been busy with photography. She'll be on safari in Botswana in September, a polar bear trip in Churchill, Manitoba in November, and in 2015 will be doing a Hawaiian volcano/nature trip plus mountain gorillas in Uganda and Rwanda.

You can follow India's photography and travels at indiaharrisdotcom and visit her Facebook page.

Jocelyn Eikenburg, author of Huangshan Honeymoon (China)

Jocelyn Eikenburg is the writer behind Speaking of China, a unique blog focused on love, family, and relationships in China which was inspired by her own marriage to a Chinese national. Her essay "Red Couplets" was published in the anthology Unsavory Elements and other true stories of foreigners on the loose in China. A Cleveland, Ohio native, Jocelyn discovered her passion for the written word while living and working in China, and has resided in the cities of Zhengzhou, Hangzhou, and Shanghai.

Jocelyn put together a photo essay to go with Huangshan Honeymoon.

And follow Jocelyn on Facebook and Twitter @jossailin.

You can find How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? True Stories of Expat Women in Asia at the following links:

Amazon (paper and e-book)
Barnes & Noble (paper and e-book)
Smashwords (e-book)
Apple (e-book)

Dragonfruit Round-up: Kathryn Hummel, Coco Richter, Ember Swift, Leza Lowitz and Susan Blumberg-Kason

This week on the Facebook page for How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? we are featuring one anthology contributor per day. In case you missed any, here are the first five!

Kathryn Hummel, author of Charting Koenji (Japan).

Kathryn Hummel writes non-fiction, fiction and poetry, often combined with her photography for digital performance. Her diverse work has been published throughout Australia, New Zealand, the US, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Qatar, Nepal, Bangladesh, and India. As well as holding a PhD for studies in narrative ethnography (more info here), Kathryn was a writer in residence in 2011 for the Cafe Poet Program (Australian Poetry) and for the Forever Now project (Aphids and Vitalstatistix), featured during Adhocracy 2013. In the same year, Kathryn won the Dorothy Porter Award for Emerging Poets in the Melbourne Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Awards, was nominated as one of Fair Clout Poetry’s ‘Top 3 Most Compelling Writers’, and for the Pushcart Prize XXXVII. A collection of her poetry will be published by the Walleah Press in 2014.

Kathryn's latest update is that she'll be touring Bangladesh and India from November 2014-January 2015 to read and perform poetry in collaboration with local artists, courtesy of a Writers' Travel Fund grant from the Australia Council for the Arts.

Read more about Kathryn and her work at ArtSlant. You can find Kathryn's blog here.

Coco Richter, author of Waiting for Inspiration (Hong Kong). 

Coco Richter is from the US, where she practiced law for 18 years. She moved to Hong Kong in 2008 with her family and now writes fiction. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Hong Kong in 2011. Her writing has previously appeared in multiple editions of Imprint, the annual anthology of the Hong Kong Women in Publishing Society.

Coco is also a talented editor with a knack for encouraging fellow writers and helping them improve their craft.






Ember Swift, author of Chinese Stonewalls (China).

Ember Swift is a Canadian musician, songwriter, performer, and writer. She has released eleven independent album recordings since 1996, one live DVD project, and continues to perform regularly in both North America and China. Now based in Beijing with her Chinese husband and two children, she maintains three popular blogs through her website and is a contributing writer for Women in China Magazine, Herizon's Magazine, Mami Magazine, Beijing Kids Magazine, China.org, and InCulture Parent, an online portal for cross-cultural parenting.

Ember recently made two appearances on Chinese prime time television show "Mama Mia".

Leza Lowitz, author of Here Comes the Sun (Japan).

Leza Lowitz is a writer and yoga teacher in Tokyo. Her debut young adult novel, Jet Black and the Ninja Wind (Tuttle, 2013), received the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature in the Young Adult category. Leza's Yoga Poems: Lines to Unfold By was a #1 Amazon bestseller. Portions of her memoir in progress appeared in the New York Times online, The Huffington Post, Shambhala Sun, Best Buddhist Writing 2011, and Yoga Journal.

Leza's latest news is that she has sold World English and Japanese-language rights to her memoir, Here Comes the Sun, to Peter Goodman of Stone Bridge Press.

More about Here Comes the Sun:
Leza, who founded the popular Sun and Moon Yoga Studio in Tokyo, relocated to Japan from the USA over ten years ago, met the man of her dreams and yearned for a child. But when attempts to become pregnant fail repeatedly, Leza begins to question whether motherhood is in the cards for her, and if she can finally heal the wounds that have kept motherhood at bay. After much soul-searching, Leza comes to a deeper understanding of what motherhood truly means, and at the age of 44 she and her husband, the award-winning writer Shogo Oketani, begin the process of adopting a child in Japan, where bloodlines are paramount and family ties almost feudal in cultural importance. The memoir will be published in spring 2015.

You can found out more about Leza and her work at her website. She is represented by Kelly Falconer of the Asia Literary Agency

Susan Blumberg-Kason, author of Ninety Minutes in Tsim Sha Tsui (Hong Kong).

Susan Blumberg-Kason is the author of Good Chinese Wife (Sourcebooks, 2014), a memoir of her five-year marriage to a musician from central China and how she tried to adapt to Chinese family life as a wife, daughter-in-law, and mother. She is also the books editor of Asian Jewish Life magazine and can be found online at Susan Blumberg-Kason Remarried, Susan lives in suburban Chicago with her husband, three children, and a clingy cat.

Susan maintains an active presence in the Hong Kong/China book world. Many of you have probably read her reviews and noticed her encouraging and enthusiastic voice. She truly loves the region and the authors who write about it. We are all looking forward to the launch of Susan's own memoir on July 29th!

You can find How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? True Stories of Expat Women in Asia at the following retailers in paperback and e-book formats.

Amazon (paper and e-book)
Barnes & Noble (paper and e-book)
Smashwords (e-book)
Apple (e-book)

Launch Day for How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? True Stories of Expat Women in Asia

Today is the official launch of the expat women anthology! It has been such an honor to work on this project, and I'm excited for you guys to finally read it! Thank you for all of your support and enthusiasm since I first put the call for submissions on this blog. The book is available at the major online retailers in both e-book and paperback form. Here are the relevant links:

Amazon (paper and e-book)
Barnes & Noble (paper and e-book)
Smashwords (e-book)
Apple (e-book)

You will also be able to find the anthology in select Hong Kong bookstores soon. We will hold a launch party this fall. More details to come!

For the next 26 days, we will feature one contributor per day on the Dragonfruit Facebook page. Tune in to learn more about their interesting and varied work!

How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit?
True Stories of Expat Women in Asia
Edited by Shannon Young

In this collection, twenty-six women reveal the truth about expatriate life in modern East Asia through original works of memoir and creative non-fiction. Their experiences are varied and unique, demonstrating that expat women's lives go far beyond the stereotypical. The writers hail from a dozen different countries and walks of life. Some are well-known; others are fresh voices adding nuance to the expat conversation. Through deeply personal accounts, they explore what they have learned about themselves and the world through their lives abroad. Together, they create a portrait of the modern expatriate experience that will both resonate and inspire.

Kindle Single - Pay Off: How One Millennial Eliminated Nearly $80,000 in Student Debt in Less Than Five Years

I'm excited to announce that my Kindle Single on student debt was released on Friday. Naturally, this means I've been refreshing my Amazon ranking on an hourly basis. Over the weekend, the book reached the Top 10 on several best seller lists, including Kindle Singles: Essays & Ideas and Kindle Singles: Memoir.

I'm also a little nervous about this book. It's a sensitive topic. While I hope people will find my analysis fair, I know it has the potential to attract negative comments as well. It will be interesting to see what happens as the reviews come in (so far so good)!

The other reason I'm nervous is that I write exactly how much money I made over the last five years, what my rent has been, and my SAT scores (among other things). It's scary to reveal so much personal information, but I felt it was necessary if this book is to be a candid portrait of a student debtor and a useful resource.

It has been great to work with the folks at Kindle Singles, including my editor--who recognized the appeal of a student debt success story and helped me with the tone--and the cover designer--who does amazing work. I hope that the story will be both encouraging and informative for graduates and their parents. I'd appreciate it if you could share this with any of your friends who are struggling with student debt, especially in the US.

Cover design by Hannah Perrine Mode

Pay Off: How One Millennial Eliminated Nearly $80,000 in Student Debt in Less Than Five Years
By Shannon Young

In 2009, amid the global financial crisis, 21-year-old Shannon Young graduated from college with a degree in English and more than $80,000 in student debt. Less than five years later, she was completely debt-free. This is her story – a cautionary tale with a surprisingly hopeful outcome. Filled with practical advice and personal experience, Pay Off is an invaluable resource for anyone coming into or out of student debt.

$1.99 on Amazon

BABY AND A BACKPACK by my friend Jane Cornelius

I first met Jane Cornelius at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival in the spring of 2011. She was sitting in the front row at a talk for aspiring writers, wearing a huge pair of zebra patterned glasses and taking feverish notes with an oversize pen. I was a volunteer--my strategy for attending as many events as possible without having to pay for tickets--and I'd recently admitted that I was also an aspiring writer.

I don't remember everything the speaker said, but I remember Jane. She was eager to soak in as much advice as she could, asking smart questions and making it clear that she was writing actively, not just dreaming about it. At the end of the talk, the speaker suggested that members of the audience connect with each other, perhaps to form writers' groups. I ended up collecting the email addresses. When I sent out a tentative query to this bunch of strangers about possibly meeting up to talk about writing, Jane was the first to respond.

Jane, another writer named Betsy, and I met at a coffee shop at the bottom of Lan Kwai Fong that has since been replaced with another clothing store, and talked shop. Jane was nearly finished with her second manuscript, a memoir of the year she was abandoned by the father of her child and decided to travel the world with a newborn baby. As she talked about her adventures in Bali, Australia, Hawaii, California, and my home state of Arizona--all with a baby in tow and almost no money--I could hardly believe it. Hers was a life of true adventure. She had a real, high-stakes story--a story that was worth writing.

Soon, I'd get to experience the vibrant, whimsical writing style that is all her own. I'd get to see the determination with which she approached her writing career. And I'd even get to participate as we became critique partners. She asked for help with grammar mechanics and polish; I asked for help with plot and with cutting the boring stuff from my writing. It is thanks to her that my own travel memoir (forthcoming from Blacksmith Books later this year) eventually became interesting and honest enough to send to publishers. Even when Jane moved on to Shanghai, we sent chapters and encouragement back and forth.

Over time, I learned that Jane's life of adventure also had a more difficult, tragic backstory. I got to read her first manuscript, a childhood memoir of when she grew up in the English countryside with a legally insane mother, a pro-wrestler father, and a stepmother who was the Bunny Mother of the Playboy Club. When an editor suggested that Jane combine the two manuscripts, I got to read them again as she weaved her stories into one.

Now, Jane's memoir Baby and a Backpack has been published by The Five Mile Press in Australia. She's on a whirlwind tour of bookstores and media, and I couldn't be more excited for her. Baby and a Backpack is also available worldwide for Kindle, so I recently got to read the story again in its finished form. It packs the same emotional punch even after multiple reads, and I recommend it unequivocally. This is a wonderful book about motherhood, travel, and finding a home in a wild, crazy world. And through this story, you get to know the quirky, inspiring, and brave Jane Cornelius, a woman I am proud to call my friend.