This morning, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that The New Filipino Kitchen, where both my father and I appear, has been selected as a favorite cookbook of 2018 by the San Francisco Chronicle. Prior to this recognition, the anthology/cookbook has received some well-deserved buzz from Publisher's Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal, among other places. We have just received our complimentary copies in the mail, so I can personally attest that the book lives up to the hype! You can read the full review from SFChronicle ​here and get your own copy (which would also make the perfect Christmas present for a friend or loved one) here. 

I am pleased to announce that I will be an artist-in-residence for six weeks at the KHN Center for the Arts in Nebraska in the spring of 2019. They previously hosted me for four weeks in 2012, and I loved the experience (I wrote the beginnings of my first novel during that period) so I decided to reapply this year, after finishing my PhD. I plan to spend those six weeks writing more stories about Filipinos in New Zealand and Texas, and hopefully the beginnings of a new novel. More about my upcoming residency here, on their website. 

After experiencing victim-blaming and invalidation from a Filipino student club in New Zealand when I shared with them my essay entitled "My 'Get Out' moment as an overseas student", I decided to use my anger productively by writing about the incident, explaining how it's a perfect example of internalized racism and self-inflicted microaggression. Entitled "When One's Anger is Justified, but Silenced: Tone Policing in Filipino immigrant Groups", my essay has found a home in the ANGER issue of Brain Mill Press's Voices Series. The purpose of this issue, according to the editors, is "to showcase essays and poetry featuring well-aimed anger from femme writers, writers of color, LGBTQIA+ writers, First Nations writers, and disabled writers". I'm honored to have my work included in such an important series. I would love to thank the editors for allowing my voice (and anger) to be heard! You can read the essay here, and the full issue here. 
*Update (November 13, 2018): This piece was reprinted in yomyomf.com, an Asian-American pop culture site.