7 Asian Authors You Have To Read

To be blunt, there has been an increasing number of anti-Asian American/Pacific Islander hates crimes in the U.S. Not to mention a reckoning with in the book community about authors who have disparaged Asian authors and/or profited off of Asian themes in their books while not supporting the Asian community.

So I thought it was a good time to share some Asian authors I love and others I want to try! I realized that several of my all-time favorite authors are Asian, so this is basically just an excuse to fangirl.

A quick note – I’m using the term “Asian” as a very big catch-all – some of these authors are Asian American, some are Asian British (is that a term?) and some are straight-up Asian.

FYI – I’m a Bookshop.org affiliate, which means that if you buy some of these books using the links I provide, I make a small commission and you support independent bookstores, at no extra cost to you! Thanks!

Joan He

I read Joan He’s debut novel Descendant of the Crane right when it came out and absolutely fell in love with it. The world, the plot, the characters all captivated me and the writing was beautiful. Although I’m eagerly awaiting a DotC sequel, I was equally excited to hear about her second novel The Ones We’re Meant To Find, about two sisters trying to find their way to each other in a sci-fi, climate-ravaged world. The cover is GORGEOUS and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

12 Books with Bisexual Main Characters You Need to Read

Too often when it comes to LGBT+ books, the “B” is silent. But there are plenty of books with bisexual main characters, and it’s time to make sure they get the respect they deserve! Here are twelve books featuring bi characters, some that I’ve read and loved, and a few that are on my TBR.

FYI – I’m an affiliate of Bookshop.org, which means if you shop using the links on this post, you’ll support me and independent bookstores at no extra cost to you!

The Black Veins by Ashia Monet

This was one of my favorite books of 2020, and I’ll forever be singing its praises. Urban fantasy + found family + road trip + diverse cast = what’s not to love?? Blythe, the main character, is bi, but it’s not a romance book. So if you’re looking for an adventure featuring a character who identifies on the page as bi (along with a lot of other sexualities featured!) this is the one for you.

YA Fantasy

How To Design Your Website for Free

If you’ve been here before, you may have noticed that things look a little different! I updated my website, with the main new addition being a homepage, rather than my most recent posts being the first thing you see when you come to the website. If I do say so myself, it looks pretty good—especially considering I did it 100% on my own, for free.

While someday I’d like to invest in a web designer, that’s not a wise use of money for me right now, and I’m sure many of you are in the same boat. (I mean, you did click on an article about designing your website for free, so…)

I’ll be sharing some basic design ideas to keep in mind when creating your website, as well as some specific tips for author websites.

3 Tips for Writing When You Don’t Have Much Time

In every author’s dream, we have hours upon hours to idle away in a coffee shop, writing and reading and daydreaming about characters.

In reality, however, many of us have day jobs, school, family to take care of, or a dozen other responsibilities that demand our time and attention. This leaves us with precious little time to spend on writing.

I started working full-time almost exactly a year ago, and even before that I’ve always had to fit in writing around a busy life—I wrote the draft of my first book during my last semester of grad school while working two jobs. So I’ve learned to write in short chunks of time, rather than waiting for the ideal day of having a full afternoon to work.

I thought I would share a few tips I’ve learned that have helped me take advantage of those small writing sprints.

Shift your mindset

This sounds easy, but it’s the most important part. Instead of thinking, “I only have fifteen minutes to write,” shift your perspective to say, “I get to write for a full fifteen minutes!” So much of writing is a mind game—it’s all about how you frame things and your attitude going into it. While it’s tempting to complain (even just internally) about not having enough time to write, that ultimately won’t change anything! But being grateful for any time you have to write can change things, as it lets you focus on your work and your creativity instead of being distracted wishing for a better situation.

How To Find the Perfect Designer, Editor, and More: Self-Publishing Guide for Beginners (Part 4)

So, you’ve read the previous post, and you know what you’re going to pay for and what you’ll do yourself. But how do you find someone to hire? How do you make sure they’re any good?

In this post, I’ll let you know what to look for, what to avoid, and also whether or not I think it’s a good idea to hire a friend!

Sensitivity Readers

What they do: If you’re writing any characters who have an identity you don’t share (race, disability, LGBTQ+, etc.), I strongly recommend you hire a sensitivity reader. This is someone who has that identity and can let you know if anything you’ve written might be problematic or harmful.

How To Write Better Dialogue: 3 ways to practice and 2 common mistakes

Unless you’re writing an experimental, edgy book that has zero direct dialogue, your book will probably heavily rely on having characters speaking to each other. It can be easy to take dialogue in a book for granted, especially because when it’s well done, we often don’t even notice it. Unlike a brilliant plot or a beautiful description that stand out when they’re perfection, dialogue is amazing when it feels so natural that we almost forget to admire it.

But a crucial piece of improving your writing is learning to write dialogue well. It’s tricky, because dialogue in books, although it needs to feel natural, is actual very different than how people talk in real life. When talking off the cuff, people repeat themselves, use the wrong word, use filler words, use hand gestures to explain vague concepts, and more. So much of our everyday speech is mundane. In a book, however, if you write like that, readers will get bored, annoyed, or frustrated—or a combination of all three. But if you write using huge words and eloquent sentences and no contractions, in most cases it will come across as stiff and awkward. Finding this balance is key, and I’ve got three exercises you can do to improve your dialogue writing skills, as well as two common mistakes to avoid.

The Best Books of 2020

Every sentence I start to write to describe 2020 either sounds trite, or is a massive understatement. So I’ll just let you fill in your own sentence about how 2020 sucked. I’ll let you know that, in additional to all the national and global dumpster fires, I also hard some hard things in my personal life. All that to say, books were often my one source of comfort this year. There were long stretches where the only thing I could read were funny fantasies or fluffy romances. There were times when I forced myself to read hard, difficult books about the racist foundations of the U.S., to confront what my ancestors had helped build. And there were moments where even reading took too much energy, and I just scrolled on my phone for hours. Whatever 2020 looked like for you, I’m glad you’re still here. I hope you’re still reading and still creating. Here are some books that got me through 2020, and I hope you’ll enjoy them too. (As always, these are books that I read this year, not necessarily ones that only came out this year!)

How to Start a Bullet Journal, Even if You’re Not Artsy

If you’re convinced that you can’t do bullet journaling because you’re not artistic or don’t have the time for complicated spreads, I got you. My bullet journal set up is super simple, requires zero artistic talent, and is all about functionality.

Before I continue though, let me answer: what is a bullet journal? WHY is a bullet journal? I think the best resources is to check out this video by Ryder Carroll, who came up with the system to help him stay on track as a person with ADHD. I always find it really encouraging that the original method is SUPER basic. Yes, Instagram has turned it into something all about the ~aesthetic~ but if you don’t want to take it that route, you don’t have to! Bullet journal is a way to quickly and simply plan your day, remember tasks for the future, and make notes on things to do. It’s sort of a diary, to do list, and calendar, all combined into one.

Four Lessons I Learned When Self-Publishing

As of today, my book The Mistletoe Connection has officially been out for over a week! *cue confetti* Although I’ve been doing a deep dive into the process of self-publishing in a series here on the blog, I thought I’d also share a shorter post about what I’ve learned through this process. Would I do it again? What would I change? Keep reading to find out!

How to Make Time to Write

When people hear that I’m publishing a book, one of the most common questions I get is “How do you find time to write??” It’s not really one of the questions I expected to hear so much once people in my real life found out I’ve written a book, but I realized that’s mostly because it’s a question I dealt with back when I first started writing seriously.

Whenever you decide to write a book, one of the most important things you learn is to write consistently (not necessarily every day!) This means that you have to learn how to find time to write. Of course, it really is like that classic saying—you don’t find the time; you make the time. And I certainly have had to be intentional about making time to write, especially since I started working full-time this year. So in today’s post, I’m sharing some tips that have helped me find time to brainstorm, write, edit, and publish a book this year!