• 12:00 :: Ricepaper Magazine with
  Anna Ling Kaye

   Ricepaper’s
  recent Green Issue (16.2) features creative writing and non-fiction
  that revolves around nature, the environment, and landscape. Ricepaper
  magazine is a national quarterly magazine devoted to showcasing Asian
  Canadian artists, writers, performers, and innovators, and is published
  by The Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop. Writers and poets from Ricepaper will read and share their creative writing.

Usually I will spend some time behind the Ricepaper booth as an ACWW director, but I also helped to staff the booth for Historic Joy Kogawa House where I am president. 

Joy Kogawa is
currently in town, and made a late surprise appearance at the end of the
day to attend a talk by Susan Crean – the new
writer-in-residence at

Tetsuro attended JJ Lee's reading and gave BIG RAVES!…. I attended
readings by Jen Sookfong Lee, Wayde Compton, and Susan Crean. 

Kevin Chong signed a copy of his
new book “Beauty and Pity” for me, and I chatted with Evelyn Lau
afterwards (we are having dinner next week, following her reading at
Kogawa House on Sunday).

Bob Sung and Hayne Wai – are both are included in the book
“Chinese Canadian and Aboriginal Pot Luck” (along with ACWW co-president Allan Cho and
myself). Also – I saw local Chinatown historian
Larry Wong, with his new book @ the booth for Chinese Canadian
Historical Society – which I bought from Larry last week.  Larry's book features praise on the back cover, from his childhood and lifetime friend, Wayson Choy.

Myung Lee, publisher of Diverse Magazine, holds up an article about Gung Haggis Fat Choy that I co-wrote with my friend Allan Cho.  Allan also recently submitted
an article about Hapa Palooza, with some quotes from my blog.

When I saw Anna Ling Kaye, I called her over to introduce Marisa Alps,
an editor at Harbour Publishing.  Marisa is a former long time ACWW
director, and formerly shepherded the ACWW Emerging Writer Award.  She
is also a poet, and contributed to “Swallowing Clouds” the first
Chinese-Canadian poetry anthology, edited by Jim Wong-Chu, that sees its
12th anniversary this year.

Then I introduced Anna to Tradewinds publisher  Michael Katz… Michael
was a driving force behind the young adult anthology “Henry Lee and
Other Stories”.  Michael was immediately taken by Anna's young daughter
Pacific, and he pulled the Paul Yee book “Bamboo” out of my hands to
give to Pacific (saying to me “I'll give you another book”).

My friend Tetsuro Shigematsu (and ACWW board director) was especially affected by JJ Lee's reading today.  Tetsuro wrote on this FB that :

Today at Word on the Street, JJ Lee along with Sheryl MacKay
took a reading and raised it to a new level. The shivering audience
laughed and cried, as JJ spoke entertainingly and insightfully about his
new book, The Measure of a Man, a memoir about his stormy relationship
with his father reconstructed around the rebuilding of his father's
suit. Buy this book. You will love it. I guarantee it. And by
guarantee, I mean I will personally buy the book from you if you don't
love it. (JJ ran out of books to sign afterwards, so I couldn't buy one)
But I know because I read an advance copy!