Here are some excerpts from the project’s press release:

Two hundred of Australia’s top literary works will be linked to a range of related material such as newspaper articles, biographies and photos as part of a ground-breaking project to make it easier for people from across Australia and around the world to study and enjoy Australian literature….

The first 200 titles… were selected by a group of senior Australian authors on the Australian Society of Authors’ Council…

View the list here.

The list is comprised of works the ASA Council’s authors considered should be encountered by students at Australian schools and universities and by international universities offering Australian literature courses….

[Zoë Rodriguez, Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund Manager] distinguishes this list from a static or wholly definitive anthology. ‘This list is not a closed set – it is just a beginning…’

Learning that Look Who’s Morphing had been included on that list of texts was a definite surprise and I feel pretty chuffed that it’s in such company. But even more surprising is some extra news: the book will be part of a Reading Australia trial of 10 titles for secondary schools.

Back in 2010, Look Who’s Morphing was included in the State Library of Victoria’s Summer Read program, which meant that the book found its way onto the shelves of various public libraries across Victoria, including libraries in municipalities where the book might not otherwise have been found. (Learning that I had achieved some market penetration in the Melbourne suburb of Watsonia is something I will not forget in a hurry.) I felt fortunate that the book was included in that program and it also felt a bit surreal.

But it seems more surreal still that this poly-morphing-ly perverse book will now have an even stronger chance of being read by secondary school students. I would have really appreciated finding a book like this one when I was in high school, that’s for sure. I am aware that Look Who’s Morphing has had some wonderful supporters who have been quietly working behind the scenes to promote the book to new audiences, including secondary schoolers. You know who you are and thanks so much for your support!

So, at long last, it’s time to give Look Who’s Morphing a spin to a Bay Area audience and see what happens. Here are the details:

East Baydar Literary Cabaret

8 June 2013, 8pm

La Peña Cultural Center
3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA

Tickets: $12 advance sales; $15 at the door

Info: info@lapena.org or phone 510-849-2568

Hosted by Michelle Tea and featuring:

• Ingrid Rojas Contreras, a Colombian writer living and working in San Francisco
• Brian Bauman is a playwright and artistic director of Perfect Disgrace Theater
• Marci Blackman, an award-winning novelist
• Tara Jepsen, a writer, comedian, performance artist and filmmaker who has toured numerous times with performance group Sister Spit
• Janani, ”a South Asian electron spinning around the Bay Area making art and scholarship”
• Tom Cho.

Check out more detailed bios for the performers here.

I’ll be giving a 10 minute reading. I haven’t decided what I’ll be reading yet so if you have any suggestions, please let me know!

Check out all the mixtapes (tapes by David Shields, Pip Smith, Blake Butler and me) right here!

I’ve also embedded my mixtape below. (Note: A special reward awaits those who listen all the way to the end of the mixtape. We writers know that endings are important.)

Tom Cho – A Mix for the Lifted Brow by The Lifted Brow on Mixcloud

PS I’ve actually been doing some writing about music lately, which I’ve enjoyed very much. It’s part of the latest piece of fiction that I’ve been working on. My treatment of a particular musical phenomenon that I describe is probably my favourite part of the piece. More news about that piece coming soon… or soon-ish!

Dire Literary Series: Reading #146

Fri 3 May, 8pm

The Out of The Blue Gallery
106 Prospect Street
Cambridge, MA

$5 donation

The event starts with four 15-minute open-mic slots at 8pm (sign up begins at 7pm), followed by the features:

• Bridgit Brown (Boston-based writer and former Fulbright scholar whose work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Color Magazine, Black Perspectives Now, Somerville Review and many other publications)
• Kim Triedman (Boston-based, award-winning poet and fiction writer who has written two poetry collections and a novel)
• Tom Cho

[Click here for the Facebook event link, which contains more bio details for the features]

Please spread the word!

PS Future readings! I have some potential readings in the pipeline, including a probable gig in NYC on 14 July and hopefully readings in Vancouver and in Madison, Wisconsin. My next confirmed reading is in one of my favourite cities: Berkeley, California. On 8 June, I’ll be doing a reading for the East Baydar Literary Cabaret at the La Peña Cultural Center. This event is curated by Michelle Tea as part of RADAR Productions and I’ve been looking forward to it for months!

Relief: when what you’ve written the night before passes the morning after test. Still the hardest section of this chapter to write though.

— Tom Cho (@tom_cho) March 10, 2013

First up, I’m giving a reading as part of the regular series Readings at The Common. Readings at the Common is a neighbourhood reading series, held on the first Wednesday of the month at 8pm. The venue is cozy, minimalist, intimate, and candlelit. I’ll be reading for 10 minutes.

Readings at The Common: March 6 Edition

Wed 6 March, 8pm
The Common, 1071 College St. West, Toronto

Featuring:

• Irene Marques (poet, novelist, and short story writer who writes in English and Portuguese)
• Angel Beyde (author and multidisciplinary artist)
• Tom Cho

For more details, please visit the Facebook event.

I’ll also have 2 copies of Look Who’s Morphing for sale, but if I happen to run out, Glad Day Bookshop in Toronto is currently stocking copies. Speaking of which…

The following Wednesday, I’m giving a longer reading at Glad Day Bookshop, apparently the world’s oldest LGBTQ bookshop. Also on the bill is Matthew Trafford, a local, award-winning fiction writer and an improv performer. Here are the details from the event blurb:

Surreal stories with Tom Cho and Matthew Trafford

Inventive short fiction writer Tom Cho arrives from Australia in a dual reading with Toronto’s own Matthew Trafford that will mess with all you hold dear!

Wed 13 March, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Glad Day Bookshop, 598 Yonge St, Toronto

There’s also a Facebook event link here.

PS Coming up: possibly a reading in Vancouver on 28 March and possibly a reading in Montreal before that, confirmed readings in Boston on 3 May and Oakland on 8 June, and perhaps others to be added! If you want to book me for a reading or you have contacts who I should approach, please get in touch.

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I recently found out that I was turned down for a residency. Damn. I really wanted that one. The focus and structure of that particular residency is so suited to my project.

That said, it has undoubtedly been easier dealing with that rejection while being on another residency. I am currently on Toronto Island doing a residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point. I love it here and I get to spend the whole month at this facility. The building was once an old school. Here’s my little writing cave:

And here’s a glimpse of what’s outside:

If that picture looks a little grainy, it’s because it was taken from inside my room, behind the flyscreen of the window. I have not actually left this building for almost a week and that has been fine by me.

I have come to realise how much I value the monastic nature of how I approach a self-directed writer’s residency. Eating and sleeping aside, my task is simply to write. Of course, much hangs on that word “simply”. I have never had a residency that wasn’t an emotionally mixed affair: an experience of the pleasure of having no task other than to simply write and the excruciation of having no task other than to simply write. Because simply writing is not simple. Yes, sometimes the words do connect up in a happy way and this makes me feel in a happy way. But frequently, there are many unhappy ways that lie on the way to getting to a happy way.

Take, for example, my previous residency at Vermont Studio Center. My intention had been to do some research and to make a start on a new piece. I did actually do my research but, instead of writing a new piece, I found myself questioning various structural and other macro issues relating to my manuscript. Eventually, I decided to not only restructure the manuscript but to do a major revision of one of the pieces that I’d already written — and all this after more than a year of not writing any new work too. It felt like I was going backwards. Worse still, I didn’t even get to finish revising the piece. But then — and here is something I have been thinking a lot about lately — sometimes one doesn’t know what progress is supposed to look like.

After my residency in Vermont, I was anxious to resume revising that piece and to attend to some of those other macro issues. This why I’m here on Toronto Island. And after a week here, I’ve been building on what I’ve since realised was crucial work done in Vermont. I feel that I’m making progress… whatever progress is supposed to look like.

]]> http://tomcho.com/post/more-results-just-in/feed 0 http://tomcho.com/post/results-just-in http://tomcho.com/post/results-just-in#comments Sun, 24 Feb 2013 22:51:08 +0000 Tom Cho http://tomcho.com/?p=1297

It’s official. I’m writing a novel.

— Tom Cho (@tom_cho) February 24, 2013

Look Who’s Morphing has been shortlisted for awards and come close to winning, but never actually won. Can this piece from the book go one better? The piece means a lot to me. I would love it to win the competition.

I’ve enjoyed the more public nature of this competition – it’s more fun than waiting on the secret discussions of a judging panel. And it’s especially fun when your judge is First Dog on the Moon. Check out his report here!

[Source]

Also making a guest appearance in the major revision of this piece: everyone’s favourite monolith.