Luke is fifteen and meeting the parents of the girl he loves. His non-local Standard English looks like it's working in his favor. #WIPsnips #doctor #writesky

Luke learns about stereotypes of Asian men from Sharon, a woman he's dating in New York. It will later turn out that she has a few preconceptions of her own. #WIPsnips #type #writesky #asian-american

There's a pocket of racist mainland white kids in the high school who hate local Hawaiian culture. My MC thinks, "even the food?!" #WIPsnips #delicious #writesky Happy Holidays, everyone!

I'm surprised I have today's word. This comes from a short SF story I have decided to revise. Oarry is holding the equivalent of a potlatch. His guests are invited to take any belonging of his they want. In return, they will owe him a favor. (Happy Holidays, everyone.) #WIPsnips #goblet #writesky

My MC, at the very beginning of my novel-in-process. It's 1980, in a Honolulu disco. #WIPsnips #stone #writesky #Honolulu

The main character of my WIP discovers a world of music beyond Top 40 as well as a social skill that will serve him well. "Jock" refers to disc jockeys at a college radio station. #WIPsnips #angle #writesky

People of a certain age who lived on Oahu in the 1980s will be very familiar with late night pancakes at Eggs'n'Things. From my WIP titled #Kotonk. #WIPsnips #silver #Honolulu

I just hired a @reedsy.bsky.social editor to strengthen the query, synopsis, and first ten pages of my Matsura novel. Fingers crossed. 🤞

My ugly-duckling-turned-swan MC learns something unflattering about himself. #WIPsnips #high #writesky

Luke, my MC, is a reporter for a NYC weekly newspaper. The murder he's writing about is based on an actual 1988 crime in Brooklyn's Chinatown (Sunset Park) in which a Chinese-American high schooler was robbed and killed. His parents didn't speak English. #WIPsnips #request #writesky #asian-american

While trying to find a literary agent to go to bat for my Matsura novel, I am pivoting to my second WIP, #Kotonk, a novel set in Honolulu from 1972-1987, and NYC from 1987-1991. It's very strange writing historical fiction about an era I actually lived through.

The Matsura novel is done; now, it's time to secure representation.

It was quiet. The forest was surprisingly devoid of bird calls, of noises from insects or frogs. I did hear a water rivulet trickling nearby, but not my own footfalls, which were silenced by the #blanket of pine needles below them. #WIPsnips #FrankMatsura #historicalfiction #asian-american

Happy Hanukkah to those who celebrate it. May your faith bring you light during these dark days.

I grieve for those killed in Sydney. I glimpsed anti-Semitism in NYC in the 80s but it was always on the down-low. I never imagined this descent into open, murderous anti-Semitism, not in my lifetime.

After a discouraging series of rejections in 2025 from literary agents, it may be time to pay for an editorial assessment and query letter review @reedsy.bsky.social

Just for the hell of it, I asked ChatGPT to design a cover for my novel. A professional graphic designer would do better, but it's not bad. After all, it might be the only cover I ever get to see.

Foreshadowing. #WIPsnips #pipe #historicalfiction #writesky #asian-american

This #WIPsnip is a bit long, but it's from a scene in which #FrankMatsura does a little social jiu-jitsu when confronted by racists in a small frontier town. The "captain" he's speaking to will turn out to be an an important character. #fourth #amquerying #writesky #historicalfiction #asian-american

The death of a worker at the Alaskan salmon cannery was not an accident, as the boss said it was, a Chinese co-worker hints to #FrankMatsura. #WIPsnips #empty #writesky #amquerying #historicalfiction #asian-american

#FrankMatsura takes his Christian chastity very seriously, but love and desire overwhelm him when Noriko offers herself. This snip is from the only sex scene in the novel. #WIPsnips #hook #writesky #amquerying #historicalfiction #asian-american

I just found a box with things I wrote in high school and undergrad. Cringe doesn't adequately describe it.

#FrankMatsura is not proud of his samurai father's actions after the samurai were banned. #WIPsnips #city #writesky #historicalfiction #asian-american #amquerying

A mountain man tells #FrankMatsura that he has no duty to return to Japan to fight in its war against Russia. #WIPsnips #belong #amquerying #historicalfiction #asian-american

I just finished The Martian Contingency by @maryrobinettekowal.com. I've read all four of the Lady Astronaut series. I love being inside Elma's mind. She's imperfect and knows it but is constantly striving to be a better person and better member of her community.

Just finished @maryrobinettekowal.com's The Martian Contingency, last in the Lady Astronaut series. I really admire MRK's use of the language to evoke a classic SF tone, but more I love how she shows the cultural complications of US history. maryrobinettekowal.com/writing/the-... #Reading #Sci-Fi

#FrankMatsura knows he's dying, but nonetheless remains hopeful, especially since he's now found a reason to live: Noriko. #WIPsnips #number #amquerying #writesky #historicalfiction #asian-american

After Noriko leaves, #FrankMatsura feels desire—and wishes he didn't. #WIPsnips #dedicate #writesky #amquerying #historicalfiction #asian-american

In this thread I'll review every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. This will be going on for a while, feel free to mute it.

#FrankMatsura was conscripted into the First Sino-Japan War and was traumatized by orders he followed in China-- executing bound Chinese prisoners. #writingprompt

#FrankMatsura feels lonely and isolated. When he dies, he will be forgotten quickly, he thinks. (He's wrong about that.) #WIPsnips #impede #writesky #historicalfiction #asian-american

#FrankMatsura, a veteran of the First Sino-Japan war, faces his own prejudices against the Chinese. #WIPsnips #system #writesky #historicalfiction #asian-american

The opening paragraphs from my novel about #FrankMatsura. It's 1901 in Sitka, Alaska. #WIPsnips #special #amquerying #historicalfiction #asian-american #writesky

It's 1903. A forward-looking #FrankMatsura meets a man who bemoans the fading of the American frontier. #WIPsnips #progress #writesky #amquerying #historicalfiction #asian-american

I was out of town for a week and was unable to enjoy my fellow writers' #WIPsnips, but I'm back and am looking forward to reading them again.

Ulysses, a young Chinese-American cook, explains to Frank his position in a #capitalist society, and why he doesn't need to give two-weeks' notice. #WIPsnips #week #FrankMatsura #writesky #historicalfiction #asian-american

Noriko tells #FrankMatsura to step up and engage with his community. #WIPsnips #writesky #historicalfiction #amquerying #asian-american

I am experimentally adapting my unpub #FrankMatsura novel into a play. It isn't very good, but it's helping me to see spots in the novel that need improvement. So, a useful exercise! #writesky #amquerying

#FrankMatsura, alone in his cabin, briefly lapses into self-pity for his shortened life. Samurai, BTW, thought of themselves as cherry blossoms, destined to live only briefly before falling. #WIPsnips #ancestor #writesky #historicalfiction #asian-american #amquerying

The American frontier was more diverse than it is in the public imagination. White people came from different countries, didn't all speak English, didn't all get along. There were various sexualities & genders. There were Black pioneers. And not all Asians worked the railroad. #writesky #amquerying

I don't know if any literary agent will see what I'm trying to do. Like Anne Tyler and Hemingway, I want to write simple, clear, declarative sentences. I want my prose to be transparent and unshowy, like a good haiku, through which the reader can experience my narrative. #writesky #amquerying

#FrankMatsura was betrothed to Noriko, but had to abandon her when he was diagnosed with TB. Years later, she comes to Okanogan to visit for two days and then leaves. (Don't worry— she'll be back.) #WIPsnips #spell #writesky #amquerying #historicalfiction #asian-american

Not in my query: my novel is partly about how a person who is othered because he is culturally different will sometimes claim that otherness as essential to his identity and will unwittingly create and embrace the cage that isolates him. #FrankMatsura #writesky #amquerying #historicalfiction

#FrankMatsura could be pretty silly. It's one of the things I like best about him, and it's one of the hardest things to depict. #WIPsnips #writesky #amquerying #asian-american #historicalfiction

Synonym. Some Japanese might take exception to this characterization, but I think in 1901, it was more true than not. Maybe not today. #FrankMatsura #WIPsnips #writesky #historicalfiction #asian-american #amquerying

"If we do not allow ourselves to be shocked by this kind of racism," we are accepting it as a fact of life." Do not allow hatred to be normalized.

When I was a teacher, I knew what assumptions my students made when they looked at me. I applied that perspective to the first chapter of my novel. #FrankMatsura. #WIPsnips #hat #writesky #historicalfiction #asian-american #amquerying

Shishido tells #FrankMatsura to stop wasting his time washing dishes in Seattle and strike out for the country. #WIPsnips #total #writesky #historicalfiction #asian-american

Compassion is not letting them walk over you- it’s standing without hate even as you say no. #Lovingkindness (Mettā) #Equanimity #Right-Speech #poem #poetry #buddhism

Lit agents interested in #historicalfiction that challenges the image of the American West as a racially bilateral milieu, I have a novel for you. There were Asians on the frontier. Based on a historical figure. #FrankMatsura #amquerying #AsianAmerican