I’m honored to be the editor for the Go Home! Anthology. Today, I’m thrilled to announce our contributors. Their beautiful words will be with you in 2018. Some of the names you will recognize—we reached out to writers we admired. Some will be new to you—we want to showcase rising talents. Some were new to us—we met their voices through our open call.

I have been an editor on two lit mags, and a reader for NPR. I’ve read much brilliant unpublished work. I have never cried so much as reading our open call submissions. That’s not to say all the stories and poems were sad, but they had vigor and truth.  We couldn’t include many of the stories that broke me in half. Please keep sharing your words.

Our Lovely Lineup 

Mia Alvar

Gina Apostol

Muhammad Amirul

Chaya Babu

Gaiutra Bahadur

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

Wo Chan

Alexander Chee

Karissa Chen

Marilyn Chin

Muna Gurung

Kimiko Hahn

Mohja Kahf

Alice Sola Kim

Jason Koo

Amitava Kumar

Chang-Rae Lee

T Kira Madden

Rajiv Mohabir

Fariha Róisín

Jennifer Tseng

Sharlene Teo

Esmé Weijun Wang

Wendy Xu

Loving tea is a writer cliché of which I am guilty. There’s nothing like getting up to make a cup of tea when fleeing a seemingly unfixable sentence. In particular, I drink a lot of Japanese tea. I end up describing the difference between the different types fairly frequently, so I thought I’d define a few common ones here.

I end up describing the difference between the different types fairly frequently, so I thought I’d define a few common ones here.

Matcha (抹) is powdered green tea. This is the tea that appears in the tea ceremony. It is also the tea used to make green tea baked goods, ice cream, macaron, etc. In its unsweetened form it is slightly bitter, but very invigorating.

Sencha (煎茶) Most of the time when you have something described as “green tea”—it’s Sencha. The leaves and the tea produced are green.

Genmaicha (玄米茶) is green tea combined with toasted rice. The flavour is similar to sencha but with a nutty overtone.

Hōjicha (ほうじ茶) is made by roasting the tea leaves. When you brew the tea, it is brown and tastes lovely and toasty. It has less caffeine than matcha or sencha.

Sobacha (そば茶) is buckwheat tea. It contains no tea leaves at all. This is a very nutty flavoured tea. It is wonderful warm in winter or chilled in summer.

(When I get time, I’ll try to write to you about Kyobancha, mugicha, and jasmine tea.)

Which is your favourite?

So my book is coming out in the UK in 3 weeks. I’m pretty excited about that. There won’t be parades. The air won’t smell different. Yet, I’m full of humming hope. But I’m also scared. I don’t know what will happen. Will anyone read my book? Will they like it? To distract myself, I’ve been taking an etching class.

There is a moment when doing a hard-ground etch when you drop your plate into an acid bath. The acid eats away at where you’ve scratched your lines. It is impossible to know exactly how your drawing will come out. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the acid bites where it shouldn’t and leaves dark splotches. But if you don’t put the plate in the acid, you won’t have an etching at all. So you’ve got to dare to do it.

I’m often suspicious of metaphors using visual art. It’s too easy to make it a stand in for writing. Visual art has its own powers and vocabularies. It has a physicality to it. It is so much more than a metaphor. But for now, I’m clutching my copper plates and my simile and trying not to be too afraid.

Hello beautiful writers,

I am editing an anthology of Asian and Asian American writing that I would love it if you were part of. You’ll be published alongside amazing writers like Alice Sola Kim, Alexander Chee, Gina Apostol, and Jennifer Tseng. (I’m getting happy just thinking about it.) Details below:

Inky Dumbbell has a new interview up with Paul McVeigh who is a terrific writer. His short fiction has been commissioned by BBC Radio 4 and has appeared in several anthologies. He is the Director of the London Short Story Festival, and Creative Director of Word Factory, the UK’s leading short story literary salon. And he has a novel coming out… so generally whoah.

He talks about how to write emotions that feel real, but overwrought. He talks about the process that works for him. AND he has some super smart things to say about the importance of touch.

P.S. Apologies. My voice is a little bit snuffly as I had a cold. But it is worth it for Paul’s general awesomeness.