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For Brooke Bolander, who said “I was feeling blue about life, and then I remembered there is a chair made of awesome and friendship slowly but surely traveling towards my destination.”

What does this chair
of awesome
and friendship
look like?

Is it made of flowers?
Is it made of thorns?
Is it made of truffles?
Is it made of corn?

Does it have
Ten wings?
Or nine arms?
Or eight eyes?

Does it
Snort with glee?
Or wink with charm?
Or act surprised?

Can I sit in it?
Stand on it?
Hold onto it?

Can I bring
a friend
or two
or twenty?

Will it protect me
from monsters,
from nightmares,
from THEM?

Will it teach me
to sing
or hide
or defend?

And at bedtime,
when we’re ready to sleep,
will this chair stay with me
until dream’s end?

I’m so honored and grateful that my local newspaper The Palo Alto Weekly has featured an article about my book launch party today at Kepler’s Books.  Thank you, A&E editor Nick Veronin for your awesome interview!

Read my Palo Alto Weekly interview on why I decided to write books for children.

Books were my best friends
as a child. I write to make best friends
for future shy kids.

 

It’s Poetry Friday and thank you to this week’s host Robyn Hood Black for an interesting article about the Poetry Friday science anthology!

Coincidentally continuing the science theme, I’m dedicating my Poetry Friday post to the lunar eclipse that happened earlier this week.  I stayed up late to witness the shadow crossing over the moon and the full eclipse was a fuzzy orange blur to my naked eye.  It was a really cool experience, especially since full lunar eclipses are rare; we’re lucky that this is the first of four expected within the next couple years.  So in today’s post I’m sharing two poems referencing to the moon:  “Night Thoughts” by Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai and my original poem about the Chinese moon guitar, “The Face of My Ruan” from my new picture book Summoning the Phoenix: Poems & Prose about Chinese Musical Instruments.  Please note that I discuss these poems a little more in depth in a couple guest blog posts linked below.

The first poem I learned by heart from my parents was a poem written over one thousand years ago in China by one of the country’s most famous poets, Li Bai (701-762).

Here is the poem in Chinese:

夜思

床前明月光
疑是地上霜
舉頭望明月
低頭思故鄉

Here’s my translation (co-translated with C.L. Jiang) of the poem into English:

“Night Thoughts” by Li Bai

Before my bed I see moonlight so white
I think it is frost on the ground.
I raise my head to look at the moon so bright
I bow my head, yearning for my hometown.

If you look closely at the original Chinese poem, the phrase “bright moon”  (明月) appears twice, first time in the first line and second time in the third line.  After much discussion with my co-translator, I made a conscious decision not to repeat “bright moon” but to change my translation fit the context for a Western reader.  I substituted “white” for “bright” because I thought “white” would make more visual sense for “frost on the ground.”

Read the rest of my analysis at my guest post in celebration of National Poetry Month at Emily Kirsten Anderson’s Blog.

My translation of “Night Thoughts” and a recording of the choral music I composed using the English text was published as part of A Pentatonic Moon at Interfictions.

Now I’d like to share a poem from my picture book Summoning the Phoenix about the ruan, also known as the moon guitar.

The Face of My Ruan

My ruan has two eyes
the shape of birds
flying
while I pluck
a melody.

My ruan has a nose
of four strings
stretching
up to the flower
carved at ruan’s top.

My ruan has no mouth,
only my arm
strumming
a chord
in harmony.

Though the poem itself doesn’t directly address the moon, illustrator April Chu does include the moon in her stunning artwork of the above poem:

You can read a little more about my thoughts about this poem in my interview at The Ink Splat.

And in honor of National Haiku Day (which was yesterday), here’s a bonus third poem I wrote today about the lunar eclipse:

yellow moon sickles,
glows, reborn like a phoenix
into a blood moon

I love including haiku in my blog posts.  You can also read my write up in prose and in haiku about the first of four book parties celebrating the launch of Summoning the Phoenix in the San Francisco Bay Area.  If you live in the area, you are invited to three more book parties in three more weekends!

Thank you for reading!

I am so grateful to the wonderful staff at Borderlands Books & Cafe In San Francisco for hosting my first book party for Summoning the Phoenix!  Not only did they volunteer to host a book event, but they also proactively invited my book’s illustrator April Chu to have her very own art show displayed in the cafe!

Borderlands is where

you can browse books and art,

sip coffee and tea.

Above is a photo of the Borderlands Books window display taken by Jessica Dolcourt, an old friend I hadn’t seen in person in years. This photo was the first of a number of wonderful unexpected gifts that day.  I’m grateful for the unplanned awesomeness that happened to me during the day of the party:  Meeting up spontaneously with the soulful, fun Sophia who had traveled from LA and who actually had time in her packed schedule to come to my party!  April’s brilliant idea of “Summoning the Phoenix” wine!  Raffle prizes out of my backpack!  Singing Jasmine Flower Song in Mandarin for the first time in public with Mary & having beautiful instrumental backup!  Below are me singing with Mary Tusa with Christine playing the pipa and Ellen playing the yanqin.

Oh, jasmine flower,

I sing of your beauty,

but I’d never pluck you.

We had a very warm and kind and patient audience.  With set up and such, we began about 15 minutes late, which was fine, since it gave people time to arrive, eat at the cafe, and settle.  We started with a very nicely intimate 10 or so (which was exactly the amount who RSVP’ed to my book party – yay!) then quickly expanded to fill the corner of the cafe with at least 40 folks in the end.  People just kept trickling in, and we ran out of chairs (again I was expecting 10, maybe 15 people max).  While April spoke, I quickly arranged more chairs for her family, who walked all the way from the BART station to Borderlands.  And there was an awesome cake.

My dream of being

published is holding my book

and eating its cover!

Because the list of my friends who showed up was actually containable within my head, here’s a long list of thank yous. Thanks to the fantastic Borderlands staff who worked hard on the day of my book party:  Alan, Jude, Jeremy, Devony, Z’ev. Thanks to my new musician friends Christine & Ellen and their father Mike, who drove them over an hour one-way and let them miss their symphony rehearsal so that they could play beautiful music at my first book party.  Thank you to Duny of the wonderful California Youth Chinese Symphony for recommending them to me.  Christine & Ellen, are so talented and I wish you all the best! (photo below by Sunil Patel) Thanks to my friends who went out of their way to make my party more awesome:  Mary (for custom cake & beautiful song), Sophia (for helping with my hair and for spontaneous camcorder awesomeness), Kate (kindly buying last-minute earplugs for one of the musicians), Sunil (keeper of my not-so-awesome extra camera), new friend Toby (bartender & pusher of books), and Anna (who designed and made my very PINK costume inspired by the Tang Dynasty).  (Photo below by Sophia Chang) Thanks to my friends who rushed from rehearsal and in-between events and who I know were subjected to great stress to make it to my party:  Megan, Na’amen, Carrie, Eithne, Ciara, & Ciara’s guy. Thanks to my friends for your wonderfully warm presence: Jim, Kristin, & Kristin’s mom; Steven & Linda; Christian, Jennifer & Kennard; Aaron & Maria; Chris, perhaps my newest friend, who I could tell knew all about Chinese music; and Kelly, the one at Borderlands who has known me the longest.  Below is a photo of me with author friends Jim Averbeck and Kristin Elizabeth Clark attempting to play the xiao, photo taken by Kristin’s awesome mom. Thank you, April’s friends & family, for your fabulously positive energy and to random woman who kindly offered me a strawberry right before my book party. Thanks to everyone I know who has worked at Shen’s and Lee & Low and helped me on my book:  Renee, Louise, Hannah, Keilin, Amanda, Alyssa, John, Randy, and Lee & Low co-founder Craig. Thank you, dear friends, who actively reached out to me within 24 hours before my party, wished me luck, and posted pictures of my book, all acts of kindness that helped add to my pre-party excitement and assuage my pre-party nervousness: Jessica, Erin, Dora, Mike, Mike, Andy, Fran, Fran, Shan, Linda Joy, Linda, Valerie, Andrea, Kevin, Nick, Zak, Deirdre, Ilene, Bea, Cassandra, Vicky, Rita, Dana, Dana, Debbi, Kris, Christine, Mallika, and finally Shweta & Nathaniel, who live in Scotland & ordered their books through Borderlands to be personally inscribed and autographed by me and by April.  FYI, I autograph all my books with a Chinese chop that I had personally designed and hand-carved while I was in Beijing, China.   (photo below by Megan Kurashige) And finally, thank you, Seanan McGuire, whose fabulously fun book events opened my eyes to the possibility that a book launch can truly be a PARTY. (photo below by Sophia Chang) I’m so grateful that my party at Borderlands was a wonderful experience.  But it’s not over yet!  There are still THREE more parties in the San Francisco Bay Area with LIVE MUSIC, FREE raffle, FREE crafts for kids.  Join us as we continue the Party Around the San Francisco Bay!

Saturday, April 19th, 2:00-4:00 PM

Kepler’s Books, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, California ***Welcome special guests the NerdVana Podcast*** RSVP to Kepler’s in Menlo Park on Facebook

Sunday, April 27th, 2:00-4:00 PM

Books Inc., 1760 4th Street, Berkeley, California ***Our only party in the East Bay*** RSVP to Books Inc. in Berkeley on Facebook

Saturday, May 3rd, 3:00-5:00 PM

Hicklebee’s, 1378 Lincoln Avenue, San Jose, California ***In celebration of California Bookstore Day*** RSVP to Hicklebee’s in San Jose on Facebook

***Don’t use Facebook?  RVSP using the form on my home page.

 And for those of you who cannot make it to my party yet still want to buy SUMMONING THE PHOENIX and get it inscribed or personalized (like To Mary) and autographed by me and by April, Borderlands Books has a free service where they are happy to obtain those personalized signatures and mail them to you! Thank you, everyone, for your well wishes!

Naomi Kinsman, YA author and Regional Advisor of my local SCBWI chapter, has an amazing day job. She runs this wonderful nonprofit called the Society of the Young Inklings, which encourages and nurtures kids in their creative writing.  They also have a monthly newsletter called The Ink Splat that features a Q&A from a children’s author.

For the Ink Splat during the month of April, Ink Splat editor Kalyn Josephson interviewed me about two of my great passions, music and  poetry.  I share the poem I revised the most from Summoning the Phoenix as well as my thoughts about the link between music and literature and some advice on revising.

Read my interview “Making Music” at The Ink Splat!

Music transcends most
cultures, gender, race. If one
can speak, one can sing!

 

I’m so delighted that Debbi Michiko Florence has chosen Summoning the Phoenix as her April Spotlight for DEBtastic Reads.  In this interview, I share a little more about how my editor and I came to this hybrid poetry & prose format for Summoning the Phoenix. What I love about her Spotlight series is that Debbi gives away her review copy to a reader who really wants it.  All you have to do is leave a comment at the Spotlight and Debbi will give Summoning the Phoenix to one lucky commenter!

Read the April Spotlight for Summoning the Phoenix on DEBtastic Reads!  Don’t forget to comment!

The best editors
will work with you ’till your words
sparkle, flow, and shine.

My publisher’s wonderful marketing staff connected me with YA author, anthologist, and poet Emily Kristin Anderson, who invited me to participate in her National Poetry Month blog series.  In my article, I start discussing how I translated the first poem I had ever memorized as a child (夜思 or “Night Thoughts” by Li Bai, one of China’s most famous poets who lived during the Tang Dynasty).  Then I transition into how my early love of Chinese poetry influenced me while writing poems for Summoning the Phoenix.

Read Summoning Li Bai & see more of April Chu’s wonderful art!

Thank you, Emily, for including me in your celebration of National Poetry Month!

Childhood poetry
living in my memory
guides my artistry.

 

 

 

I have to prepare for my first book party tomorrow (SUNDAY) at Borderlands Books 2-4 PM in San Francisco’s Mission District. But I need to continue National Poetry Writing Month, so I’m offering yet another Twitter Poem, adding line breaks.  This is my response to a Tweet from Sofia Samatar when she asked in general what is now the title to this poem.

Who Are Your People?

My people are poets
& singers, teachers
& readers, dancers
& dreamers,

& all those
who choose
to fight hate
with hugs.

Happy Blog Birthday to This Little Ditty, this week’s host for Poetry Friday!  Today I want to address formatting a poem.  When I write prose, fiction or nonfiction, I usually don’t care about what my words look like on the page.  But when I write a poem, I really, really care about how it looks on the page.  Shapes of stanzas matter.  Left justification of a word vs. centering vs. right justification — each time formatting decision is a conscious choice.  Punctuation matters; a comma has a different meaning from a semi-colon or a hyphen or an em-dash.  Line breaks matter.  Where I choose to break a line will change the context and content of the entire poem, even if I don’t change the words.

Earlier this week Mary Robinette Kowal featured my guest post about my picture book Summoning the Phoenix on My Favorite Bit, and in my article, I describe how my poem “Magical Melody” changed format to fit the gorgeous and stunning artwork by April Chu.

Reposting my poem “Magical Melody” in its original format.  It’s a list poem, where the format is key, to evoke the shape of a bird’s wing:

 

I had worked several revisions for this poem (adding and taking away punctuation, adding and modifying descriptive clauses, different stanza groupings) before paring it down to this list and this shape.

Again, April’s artwork is stunning, and I analyze her art in detail on My Favorite Bit. In the end, there wasn’t enough space in her art to preserve the original format of my poem.

Function should dictate
form, yet sometimes form’s beauty
makes function follow.

Ultimately, I decided that it was better to change the shape of my poem to fit April’s amazing art.  Here’s how the poem changed:

 

 

In this case, the art was so worth the effort of changing the format of my poem.

I’m delighted to share that Summoning the Phoenix is now available for purchase online!

 

Last year at Worldcon in San Antonio, one morning I helped a blind man find an interesting-to-him session.  Then I helped Nancy Kress find the Green Room.  Because I was trying helpful to people I had just met, I was late for a reading, but the reading was good.  After the reading I ran into Sunil Patel, who introduced me to some of his friends, including Mark Oshiro.  Mark and I instantly bonded over our love for all things Tamora Pierce.  So my morning of helping others ended happily in finding new friends!

Mark also known as Mark Does Stuff.  He makes these wonderfully entertaining videos of him reading books for Mark Reads and videos of him reviewing television series for Mark Watches.  Mark is hilariously witty, a great reader, and I love watching his videos.  Usually he reads novels, so I’m absolutely delighted that today he’s reading my picture book Summoning the Phoenix as part of Mark Reads!

Watch and listen to Mark Reads Summoning the Phoenix Part 1

Watch and listen to Mark Reads Summoning the Phoenix Part 2

FYI, Mark is available for commissions for Mark Reads and Mark Watches.  Consider commissioning a video!  At $20 for 30 minutes, it’s worth every penny.

Watching someone read
your words out loud is awesome:
shifts your perception.