Ferry Tale reviews + a video update!

My new book, a love story set in Hong Kong, has been out for one week. Thank you to everyone who grabbed a copy! The reviews are starting to come in, and I wanted to share some of my favorite excerpts:

“A fun, fizzy story that takes readers from the smoggy ferry decks to the spectacular harbor views of the InterContinental Hotel’s Lobby Lounge. Young’s fondness for her adopted home of Hong Kong comes through on every page of this cheerful and charming romance . . . as effervescent as champagne.” –Maura Cunningham

“Young evokes the vibrancy and sense of possibility in her adopted home Hong Kong. Her characters are each cast with their own unique mix of endearing qualities and weaknesses. Through alternating viewpoints, you’ll barrack for Katrina and Sam as they tackle their demons and learn more about themselves and each other in the process. Ferry Tale is an enjoyably sweet and classy romance – set in the digital age, but not lost in it.” – Booklover Book Reviews

Get the book on Kindle here, or buy the paperback!

I'll be reading from Ferry Tale at a love-themed event at Aesop on Hollywood Road on February 24th. Come along if you can!

In the meantime, I've also posted a video update about my ongoing writing journey. It has been 18 months since I quit my day job! Check out the update here:

Year of Fire Dragons is out on Kindle!

Year of Fire Dragons, the book I started writing around when I started this blog, is finally available on Kindle! Thank you for sticking with me on this publishing journey for so long. The gorgeous paperback has been in Hong Kong bookstores since November, but now you can read it no matter where you live!

If you already have the book, please consider leaving an honest review on your online retailer of choice some time this week. This will help give Year of Fire Dragons the best launch possible.

Here's a bit more about it!

Year of Fire Dragons: An American Woman's Story of Coming of Age in Hong Kong

In 2010, bookish 22-year-old Shannon follows her Eurasian boyfriend to Hong Kong, eager to forge a new love story in his hometown. But when work sends him to London a month later, Shannon embarks on a wide-eyed newcomer's journey through Hong Kong – alone.

She teaches in a local school as the only foreigner, explores Asia with other young expats and discovers family history in Hong Kong, all while trying to hold on to her thwarted romance. The city enchants her, forcing her to question her plans. Soon, she must make a choice between her new life and the love that first brought her to Asia.

Buy it in paperback or as an e-book!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Book Depository

You can read some sample chapters on my publisher's website. The publisher also offers free shipping on the paperback within Asia!

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!

29 Things

At the beginning of last year I wrote a post with 13 things I did in 2013 and 14 plans for 2014. I prefer lists and planning to making resolutions. 2014 was kind of a banner year, so I figured I should start this year with a similar post. First, here are the 14 things I planned to do in 2014, and their results:

1. Launch the expat women in Asia anthology (with the help of the amazing contributors). Done! Here is How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? 

2. Finish polishing Seabound, book 1 in my post-apocalyptic adventure series. Done!

3. Write and revise the second draft of Seaswept (book 2). Done!

4. Write the rough draft of book 3 in the Seabound series. Done! (This was my 2014 NaNoWriMo project)

5. Write the second draft of the Seabound prequel, Burnt Sea. Nope. I ended up doing draft 3 of Seaswept instead. Burnt Sea is on my to-do list for January.

6. Polish and submit essay/e-book about paying off student debt. Done! Published as a Kindle Single called Pay Off: How One Millennial Eliminated Nearly $80,000 in Student Debt in Less Than Five Years

7. Publish third secret pen name e-book. Nope. The secret pen name shorts fell by the wayside. I wrote the beginning, but haven't been back to it in a while.

8. Write and publish fourth secret pen name e-book and publish a 4-book compilation. Nope. See above.

9. Submit my Hong Kong travel memoir to traditional publishers. Done! Now published by Blacksmith Books as Year of Fire Dragons: An American Woman's Story of Coming of Age in Hong Kong. It's available in Hong Kong bookstores and online. The e-book is coming soon!

10. Choose a new pen name to use for Seabound and distinguish my SFF writing from my creative non-fiction/Hong Kong/expat-related work as Shannon Young. Done! Meet my alter ego Jordan Rivet here.

11. Begin publishing my Seabound series (publishing path TBD). Done! I decided to self-publish Seabound (as an e-book and paperback) without ever submitting it the traditional way. I think it's the way forward for fast-paced genre fiction.

12. Build up savings now that I am debt free. Done! I quit my job to write full-time starting in August. I should make it another six months before I'll need an income again.

13. Learn to ski (in Canada at Chinese New Year). Done, but it was completely terrifying. I need a lot more practice.

14. Decide how to proceed with A Kindle in Hong Kong. Sort of. I've been posting a lot less, and I've decided not to accept books for review anymore. I like being able to read without as much pressure to review. I'm also bookspotting less often since I no longer commute to work. I'll continue to post whenever I have something to say. I also now have a column called Diary of an Expat Writer on The Displaced Nation where I post monthly updates.

I didn't carry out my secret pen name plans and I ended up working on a different Seabound Chronicles draft than the one I planned to do in #5. Overall, though, I'd say 2014 was a pretty successful year. I also spoke at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival and got an audiobook deal for Pay Off, so I'd say that makes up for #7 and #8.

Now it's time to make plans for 2015! Here are 15 things I plan to do this year. My primary goal is to complete and publish the remaining three books in the Seabound Chronicles by the end of the year. Let's break that down a bit.

1. Rewrite Burnt Sea (the Seabound prequel).
2. Finish revising Seaswept (Seabound Chronicles 2).
3. Publish Seaswept in e-book and paperback.
4. Rewrite Seabound Chronicles 3.
5. Finish revising Burnt Sea.
6. Publish Burnt Sea in e-book and paperback.
7. Finish revising Seabound Chronicles 3.
8. Publish Seabound Chronicles 3 in e-book and paperback.
9. Write a memoir about growing up in a homeschooling family of nine kids, possibly of Kindle Single length, under the Shannon Young name.
10. Promote Year of Fire Dragons in Hong Kong and during the US/e-book launch.
11. Write a brand-new novel for NaNoWriMo, probably under the Jordan Rivet name.
12. Begin production of a Seabound audiobook.
13. Write one more secret pen name short, just for fun.
14. Read Infinite Jest (which has been on my Kindle for a long time) and all the paperbacks I have purchased or been given this year.
15. Make enough money from writing to avoid returning to my day job.

Thank you for all your support this year. I'm looking forward to a great (and busy!) 2015.

What are your plans or goals for the year?

A Tale of Two Book Launches

Available for pre-order on Amazon

In a strange turn of events, I am in the process of launching two books this month. One is the Hong Kong travel memoir I have been talking about since this blog began, now titled Year of Fire Dragons: An American Woman's Story of Coming of Age in Hong Kong. Though I haven't yet held the book in my hands, it has been printed and will be appearing in Hong Kong bookstores any day now. I've written a bit more about this book's journey in my new column on The Displaced Nation.

If you are in Hong Kong, I would be honored if you would attend the launch event, which is part of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival. It will take place at 10 am this Sunday at the Duke of Windsor Building on Hennessy Road in Wan Chai. You can buy tickets here. The event will feature two other wonderful Hong Kong-based authors, Jason Y. Ng (No City for Slow Men) and Maria Chaudhuri (Beloved Strangers). I hope you can be there!

The other book I am launching this week is totally different. It's a post-apocalyptic adventure set at

$2.99 on Amazon

sea that began life as my NaNoWriMo project in 2012. It's available as an e-book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo, and the paperback will be for sale by the end of the month. This book is so different from my other work that I am publishing under a pen name, Jordan Rivet, for which I maintain a separate blog. If you happen to enjoy dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction, please check out Seabound. To celebrate this launch, I am digging into another NaNoWriMo project: writing Book 3 in the Seabound Chronicles by Jordan Rivet.

Thank you all so much for your support and encouragement. I'll have more to say about Year of Fire Dragons soon, but in the meantime I just wanted to let you know about this surreal moment in my publishing life. 

I just cut my hair and quit my day job to become a full-time writer!

Yesterday, I left my day job to become a full-time author. For now, at least, this is a six-month trial. I'll give it a go and then reassess around Chinese New Year. After paying off my student loans, I'm really excited to be able to take this risk. I decided to celebrate the change by cutting over 18 inches off of my hair and announcing my new pen name!

In addition to my work as Shannon Young, I will be writing post-apocalyptic adventure novels set at sea under the name Jordan Rivet. The Seabound Chronicles launches this fall. Please join my email list if you'd like to know when the first book is out!

I'll also be doing a cover reveal and an exclusive $0.99 early release sale for subscribers.

Thank you all so much for your support and encouragement!

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 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.

Bookspotting and some responses to PAY OFF

Yesterday I spotted a man at a cupcake shop reading a Kindle. I was on my way out of a bookstore after purchasing a paperback edition of The Mysterious Benedict Society (a gift; I rarely buy paper books for myself anymore). This morning, a man was carrying Be Excellent at Anything in Central station. Another man was reading Hotel Kerobokan on the train. Finals season is in full swing, so I've also spotted mathematics textbooks and huge stacks of notes all over the place.

My Kindle Single is hanging out in the top 5 of several best seller lists on Amazon and has received a handful of 5-star reviews. It was #1 in Kindle Singles: Essays & Ideas for approximately two hours this weekend!

There have been some nice mentions on Twitter:

Just finished "Pay Off" by @ShannonYoungHK it's a must-read for any college-bound student! #graduationgifts #studentloans
— Moriah Rees (@MoriahRees) June 3, 2014

Reader Ann wrote this response from a parent's perspective.

And this tweet from a student made me smile:

Just read "Pay Off" by @ShannonYoungHK and can't decide if I'm hopeful for the future or scared shitless
— Melissa Orlandini (@mlovball8) June 4, 2014

In other news, there's still time to enter the Goodreads giveaway for How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? True Stories of Expat Women in Asia. The book launches a week from today!

What are you all up to? What are people reading in your town this week?