Please read this excellent article about the dramatic rise of costs in publishing by a truly great indie press. When you buy a book, 'you are buying a stake in the survival of our world of letters'.

Getting messages like this is so cool —and hearing my book was on a shelf at @stanfordstravel.bsky.social is just the BEST! “I found your book in the travel book specialists Stanfords in Covent Garden—I'm enjoying it immensely and it's really getting me psyched for my trip to Vietnam in November.”

Or maybe it’s just fiction. Or maybe a ‘homage’ is the word I should have used.

A short piece of creative nonfiction inspired by Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem Tu Do Street, which evokes the racial tension, fractured intimacy, and uneasy mingling of soldiers and locals in wartime Saigon. connla.substack.com/p/a-brief-re...

An old story of mine about "Salt & Pepper" touched on this war within a war that black American soldiers experienced in Vietnam—the story Spike Lee SHOULD have told: connla.substack.com/p/the-story-... For example: "Confederate flags flew at base camps right after Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot."

Growing up in Lousiana ,Yusef Komunkayaa (b. 1947) would have experienced segregation in the US. He then served in the US army only to experience (American) racial division again, just in Vietnam... In one of his poems, he has a flashback **in** Saigon – "White Only signs & Hank Snow [music]."

The cover of "Dien Cai Dau", a collection of poetry (published in 1989) about the war experience in Vietnam from the perspective of an American black man. The phrase 'Điên Cái Đầu' means crazy in the head.

From an old Tumblr (remember that?) post -- 'the Good Old Days' of Saigon are always slipping away, over and over, again and again.

Lots of talk about Robert Redford films that have been lost in his large filmography. For my money this is one of the best, Peter Yates’s THE HOT ROCK (1972). A caper or heist film? It doesn’t really matter. The point is it’s great & has one of coolest robbery crews ever assembled on celluloid

On a Sunday evening cycle, I rediscovered this small outdoor Catholic Church (more of a shrine, perhaps) that honors St. Vincent (Thánh Vinh Sơn). The last pic is a screenshot of my Insta post that gives a little more info. #hiddencorners #saigonstories #HCMC #hochiminhcity #saigon

Always nice to see a thoughtful review of my book pop up on Amazon or GoodReads. #fallingforsaigon #vietnam #hochiminhcity#saigon

Xin Tron Niem Thuong - Ha Chanh [Vietnam, Easy Listening/Lounge (1975?)] https://redd.it/11s9o3m https://youtu.be/E6nzUBQAFVs

One of those "it's hard to be shocked in 2025, but...." stories. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

If anyone on here is in Ho Chi Minh City and would like to grab a copy of my book, I’m told there’s a bunch in Old Compass Cafe on Pasteur Street — cash only for books, the owner told to say!

If you're overworked and distracted and need some very short stories in your life, I'm recommending this collection -- the first section has nine interconnected stories about five elderly ladies that have lunched together every month for decades. #booksky #shortstorycollection

A love letter to Saigon’s past and present, Connla Stokes' FALLING FOR SAIGON invites you to get lost in its streets, taste its flavours, and—just maybe—fall for it, too. Find out more at brixtonink.co.uk/books/fallin...

A young Oliver Stone in Vietnam's An Khe a.k.a Sin City. Located by Camp Radcliff it was a secured in-country R&R zone for American military. It was also an experiment: "Division commanders cooperated with local Vietnamese pimps to ensure that brothels provided the desired services to U.S. troops."

Delighted to have blurbed this superb new edition of Bede Scott’s atmospheric novel of 1950s Saigon, Too Far From Antibes (Penguin Books Southeast Asia)….

If I ever opened a cafe in Saigon — or a Saigon-style cafe elsewhere — I’d call it the Wonky Canopy. PS: the plant weighing down this canopy is (I am told) Rangoon Creeper (or Combretum indicum)

“There is no single Taiwan story, much as various groups have continually tried to stamp one imprint on its past and future. It is a glorious cacophony.” Michelle T. King reviews two new books on Taiwan’s modern history. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/one-island-many-histories/

𝗙𝗜𝗥𝗦𝗧 𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦—now accepting submissions. By Asian films, we mean works produced in Asia—ranging from the traditions of Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Korean, and Southeast Asian cinemas, to the emerging voices in Central & West Asia—& also films by Asian diasporic... chajournal.blog/2025/08/20/i...

“AS WE DROVE into downtown Saigon, through a traffic jam, I had the fresh shock of being in what looked like an American city, a very shoddy West Coast one…” The writer Mary McCarthy on visiting a congested Saigon in 1967. She was less than impressed by what the Americans had done to it.

I see that ‘Train Dreams’ — a book so rich with vivid descriptions of American landscapes that you can easily imagine* it would inspire a filmmaker/screenwriter to try and adapt it — has indeed been adapted for the screen. Will stream on Netflix in November. * easier imagined than done of course!

A short and wonderful book that I would happily read every year. #booksky #rainydayreads

The new Pandan Weekly (issue #3) is out. I have a story in it —and there's lots more (fiction, essays, poetry) from Southeast Asia in there. And it's all free to download. So, why wouldn't you .... pandanweekly.substack.com/p/zine-issue-3

My book is also available for Kindle via Amazon these days. But local bookstores (anywhere outside of Vietnam) can order it too.

I realy liked the descriptions of roaming around the city without an aim, which I did quite often, especially at my first time, around 2015, staying in (I think) ward 7, wich was everything, but not touristical at that time. Buying a ca pha with a huge ice cube from a roadside stall first thing in

My book is also available for Kindle via Amazon these days. But local bookstores (anywhere outside of Vietnam) can order it too.

The new Pandan Weekly (issue #3) is out. I have a story in it —and there's lots more (fiction, essays, poetry) from Southeast Asia in there. And it's all free to download. So, why wouldn't you .... pandanweekly.substack.com/p/zine-issue-3

It seems the book and film are both ‘much loved’ — a rare case of the film matching up to the book. What other ‘book-film’ double act has managed this?

Weekend plans part one: 'Closely Watched Trains', a short novel written by Bohumil Hrabal (published 1965).

Accidental discoveries (I only have an image of the cover, don't have the actual book).

The August-October edition of the Mekong Review is now out and about….

I launched my Substack four years ago with a cynical broadside against the rise of Instagrammable poetry, and on behalf of Raymond Carver fans everywhere, after noting one of his greatest closers had been turned into a feel-good affirmation on Insta... (1/3) connla.substack.com/p/its-august...

Book reviewers and blurb writers love the word PROPULSIVE, don't they? Especially when it's a short story collection. #booksky #bookreviews

And who couldn't be gripped by some PROPULSIVE stories!? It's an absolute guarantee that any English language review of a collection of INTENSE tales set in South America will use the word.

Book reviewers and blurb writers love the word PROPULSIVE, don't they? Especially when it's a short story collection. #booksky #bookreviews

Any guidebook writers/ reporters based in HCMC and familiar with the bar/ resto/ hotel scene? A contact is seeking someone to update their online city guide.

“Man of ideals that I am, perhaps my greatest ambition is really no more than to keep sitting at this table in this café.” ~ Fernando Pessoa*, The Book of Disquiet * A man after my own heart.

“Man of ideals that I am, perhaps my greatest ambition is really no more than to keep sitting at this table in this café.” ~ Fernando Pessoa*, The Book of Disquiet * A man after my own heart.

Our short story prize is open for submissions again! Please share this widely - and please send us your stories: www.galleybeggar.co.uk/prize Closing date 8 November!

Bede Scott’s Too Far From Antibes came out from Penguin SE Asia in 2022. I raved about it in the SCMP - it’s out again with a new cover and a blurb by some hack - and if you like noir/Ambler/Greene/Simenon/1950s Saigon then you should get this novel….. (amp.scmp.com/magazines/po...)

Image by Lê Minh Trường, 1969, Titled: "Hành quân mưa (Marching in the rain)." vietnamtheartofwar.com/2019/01/10/l... Taken somewhere in the Trúờng Sơn mountains, north of the DMZ in Quang Binh province.

I also enjoyed this book. I can see Anna and Tom in Asia: Ho Chi Minh City, Chiang Mai, or Bali; believing they have found the perfect place to exist, only to slowly lose interest, as it continues to evolve and friends move on, their lack of a meaningful cultural connection eventually laid bare.

Proud to know that if anyone does bother to Google ‘Somerset Maugham Vietnam’, my satirical hit piece is first up.

Another clip from 'This Is Saigon' (1967), which has a wonderful segue from the Saigon zoo to the bar scene.... (link should take you straight to 7.55) youtu.be/4JO5YmwOoDg?...

Approximately 20,000 tourists came to Saigon in 1967, this ABC news piece tells us, even though it had few tourist attractions, was more 'smog-bound than LA', looked like a 'Mack Sennett chase' and was routinely described as 'choked, paralysed, chaotic, frantic'... www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JO5...

"Good Morning Vietnam" A short clip from a 1967 ABC news programme titled 'This is Saigon', featuring the original military DJ that inspired the film starring Robin Williams: youtube.com/clip/Ugkx2lS...

New episode up now. The Ballad of Halo Jones by Alan Moore and Ian Gibson, with guest Simon Guerrier in conversation with Una McCormack, Andy Miller and Nicky Birch. @0tralala.bsky.social @unamccormack.bsky.social @birchos.bsky.social @iammilliam.bsky.social www.backlisted.fm/episodes/244...

Spotted in a library in Tralee, county Kerry, Ireland. Delighted to see this — honestly never even imagined that the book would appear in a library. I hope it gets read!! #fallingforsaigon #vietnam #library #travelwriting