It’s my pity party and I’ll cry if I want to
Currently struggling with writing the ending of this story. Dolly Parton’s version of “I Will Always Love You” is my mournful soundtrack.
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Tom
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Tom
Publishing… The Whole Shebang
Oops. I forgot to mention here that I’m speaking at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival tomorrow. (It wasn’t part of a prank – I genuinely forgot.)
I’ll be speaking for half an hour about applying for arts funding. Here are some details for the event:
Publishing… The Whole Shebang
A day-long overview of the complete spectrum of the publishing industry. (More info here in the official event description)
Featuring Peter Donoughue, Bob Sessions, Michael Heyward, Sue Hines, Aviva Tuffield, Toni Jordan, Christopher Milne, Tom Cho, and Clare Forster
Fri 27 August, 10am-5pm
Wheeler Centre, 176 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
$100 / $90 (buy tickets) -
Tom
Getting closer
I’ve written 3605 words so far for this story, the first one in the new book. It is certainly one of the most difficult pieces I’ve ever written. I should have noticed a red flag of warning when I began reading all those articles about the indescribability of God. Oh well.
Anyway, today, I think I finally finished one of the really pivotal parts of the story. Let’s just say that I’m closer to finishing this story – and thus closer to God – than I ever thought possible.
P.S. Here’s an image that has informed this story. It’s from the film Shrek 2.
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Tom
Ever had a really ambitious idea for a book?
Sick of struggling with this short story but then... it's really hard to describe God. At any rate, my mission today: to get closer to God.Some hours, later…
Update:
About to go home. Am still working on the same damn paragraph, but I've passed the 3000 word mark and, more importantly, I am closer to God. -
Tom
Byron Bay Writers Festival (the short-short version)
I’ve been so busy getting ready to move house that I forgot to mention – I’m going to the Byron Bay Writers Festival. I was initially scheduled to appear on panels on Friday 6 August and Saturday 7 August, but house moving has unfortunately interfered with that. However, I will be going up for the Friday of the festival.
Here’s what I’ll be doing:
9.15am – 10.15am, Friday 6 August, Blue Marquee, North Beach
Our whizzing, whirling world: can writing reign supreme? With Tom Cho, Angela Meyer, Peter Skrzynecki. Chair: Susan Wyndham12.15pm – 1.15pm, Friday 6 August, ABC3 Marquee, North Beach
Briefs: celebrating the short form. With Tom Cho, Cate Kennedy, Karen Hitchcock, O Thiam Chin. Chair: Chris HanleyIt’s a shame I’ve had to cut my festival participation short but I’m glad that I’ll be there for at least one day. If you’re in the neighbourhood, please come along and say hi.
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Tom
I’m Chinese-Australian but…
Jose Borghino recently wrote a review of Wordlines, a new anthology of Australian writing edited by Hilary McPhee. I read this review today. Admittedly, I was reading the review with some self-interest because I have some pieces in this anthology (and, as it turns out, Borghino said something nice about them too: “Tom Cho’s surreal and delirious Three Dinner Pieces had me in fits of laughter”). However, what really prompted me to sit up was Borghino’s comment about Nam Le’s contribution to the anthology. Le’s piece in the anthology is Cartagena from his collection The Boat. The piece is set in Medellin, Colombia, and it is about a 14 year-old hitman named Juan Pablo Merendez. Borghino says:
Unrelenting in its depiction of violence, but with a romance, idealism and even innocence that constantly reminds us that Juan Pablo and his gang are mere children, Le’s prose maintains an intensity and an authenticity that would be noteworthy from a Colombian or an Hispanic writer. From a 30-year-old Vietnamese-Australian, it is astonishing.
What I want to ask is: why is it really so astonishing that a young Vietnamese-Australian can write convincingly and intensely about this Colombian scenario? Which is to really ask: Is it me or is there something faintly patronising about this compliment, as well-intentioned as it is?
While I’m at it, there’s this one part of Eleonor Limprecht’s review of The Boat for The Sun-Herald (accessed from the Australian reviews archived at Nam Le’s own website) that I want to point out:
Le’s subject matter is global. But he manages to involve us so deeply with the characters in each of his stories that we are left immersed in the strange, realistic worlds he creates and the vulnerable, lonely people who populate them… Truly, it is a welcome change from the pigeonholed ethnic author writing only about the world from which he has come.
This latter comment is all the more ironic because it nonetheless pigeonholes ‘the ethnic author’ at the same time as praising a departure from this stereotype. In other words: one hand giveth, the other taketh away.
Anyway, I’d best get back to writing my own fiction. (I’m Chinese-Australian but the story I’m currently writing is set in Sicily.)
Tom
An imaginary Q&A
About a week ago, I was asked – along with some other authors – to respond to an interview question for a feature story in the A2 section of The Age. The question was: “What question or questions do journalists never ask you, and what would your answer be?”
I don’t know if my response (which was a little off-beat) ever made it into the story, but I thought I’d share it here:
Q: Tom, as a journalist, I’d like to help you re-invent your persona as an author. What kind of author would you like to style yourself as today?
A: Sometimes I feel torn between dispelling romanticised ideas of the artistic life and in fact mischievously adding to the romantic idea of being an artist. For example, although part of me wants to champion the idea of being ‘accessible’, I also have fantasies of being a more mysterious author – an author as elusive as the characters in my stories. My characters, as fictional creations, can be viewed in less literal terms. Maybe I envy them for that.
Some authors do acquire a mystique of being unknowable. Maybe the most common technique to get it is by being famously prickly – grumpy and even intimidating. I recently spoke about this to my publisher. We jokingly agreed that I’m not old enough to develop a “grumpy old man” persona. At any rate, I’m not sure I can pull off grumpiness whilst still being loveable. And I probably do want to be loveable. So, in my fantasy world, I would be asked a question such as “What are your artistic influences?” and I could reply “You know what? That’s actually a very personal question so I’m going to pass on answering it” and everyone would say “Awww. Tom Cho is so mysterious and it makes us love him all the more. Yes, let’s not know his artistic influences. Good on him.”
Tom
My Yes function
Doing some research for this story I’m working on. This is from William James’ (1960) The Varieties of Religious Experience. James is discussing different mystical states of consciousness and he notes the intoxicating effects of alcohol:
The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. It is in fact the great exciter of the Yes function in man.
William James, your delightful description excites my Yes function.
Tom
L’esorcista!
A little while ago, some of the pieces from my book Look Who’s Morphing were translated into Italian. The translator, Elena Carletti (a wonderful intern at Giramondo Publishing), has also been very proactive in submitting these works to Italian literary journals. Coming up soon, two pieces will be published – along with some photos showing a few locations where I like to write – at a journal called Storie.
But even sooner than that, an online journal, Il Paradiso Degli Orchi, has just published my piece The Exorcist, now known as L’esorcista. Check it out:
P.S. I grew up in a neighbourhood that had a strong Italian community and I learnt Italian at school so I recognise some of the words in the piece – especially, I admit, the swear words. (The swearing works well in Italian.)
Tom
Finding a way in
Beginnings are usually intimidating -- in life and in the world of writing. When it comes to writing, the blankness of the screen or page can visually impress upon you that you are lacking -- lacking words, lacking foresight into the nature of the outcome, lacking the gumption to even begin.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve started writing the very first piece for my new book. During this time, I have encountered every day that punishing sense of lack. How to begin? How to find a way in? The spatial concept of ‘in-ness’ seems appropriate here. It can feel to me as if I am required to penetrate through something so densely intimidating that I can only imagine it as three-dimensional. I shall imagine writer’s block as literally a block, then.
In reality, there are many ways in. And, in my case, one of my ways in involved returning to what seems like a native vocabulary for me as an artist: popular culture. This clip among others helped:
Tom
Sometimes writing has to make way for living
It’s been a sudden development but I’ll be moving house in a few weeks. And now I also have the flu. And my computer is sick too.
In short, I’m not able to write fiction at present – and this comes at a time when I really want to, when the piece I’ve been working on has started to come good.
Yep: sometimes writing has to make way for living.
Tom
Winter Stories
I have a reading coming up. There’ll be mulled wine. Sounds good, eh?
Asialink Winter Writing Series presents
Winter Stories
Thursday 15 July, 6:00pm-7:30pm
Sidney Myer Asia Centre
Cnr Swanston Street and Monash Road
University of MelbourneOn a cold winter’s night, gather close for some good old-fashioned story-telling with all the right ingredients: mulled wine, spiced chai and a range of great tales from the region. Winter Stories places five of Australia’s punchiest fiction writers in a comfy armchair, hands them a microphone, and lets them take you away.
Follow an all-women landmine clearing team through the fields of northern Cambodia, fish up the past with a Japanese abalone diver and a Buddhist monk, and walk the French-inflected streets of colonial Hanoi.
Featuring: Laura Jean McKay, Catherine Cole, Xenia Hanusiak, Kalinda Ashton, Pip Newling and Tom Cho.
Winter Stories includes the launch of The Perfumed River, a new anthology that offers diverse perspectives on Vietnam. Work from the anthology presents a portrait of a unique nation’s cultural strength, built from struggles through colonization by the French, occupation by the Japanese, the American War, and the transition to a modern tourist economy.
Tom
Felt a bit stressed today about some forthcoming life changes… and yet I also did some of my best writing in ages. Morphing makes for good writing.
Tom
Launching Voiceworks magazine tonight
I’m launching the latest issue of Voiceworks magazine tonight at Bella Union Bar at the Trades Hall (corner of Lygon and Victoria Streets, Carlton). The gig goes from 6-8:30.
Voiceworks provided me with my second ever poem publication and one of my earlier short fiction publications. There are a few lit journals in Australia that I have particular affection for and Voiceworks is one of them. It’ll be good to hang at a Voiceworks gig again.
P.S. Here’s how my launch speech begins:
Whitney Houston once sang: “I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way.”
Learning to love youth arts is the greatest love of all.
Edit: Coming soon-ish… my full launch speech.
Tom
Tonight, I turned into an angry Asian. Watch out, Ouyang Yu. I'm gonna steal your claim to fame.