A book promotion 101 lesson from Oprah herself — You know what they say about best laid plans? Well, that goes double when Oprah calls. Even when she doesn’t call you. Last week I was thrilled to be asked to “chat” onstage with novelist and physician extraordinaire Abraham Verghese for the series Live Talks Los Angeles. Though I’d never…

Author of East-West novels and all sorts of nonfiction, ghostwriter, MFA advisor, former painter… and current photopainter! — Novels! If you love novels about Americans in Asia and Asians in America and the families that form between them, you may have read my fiction. In the 1990s I published two novels, Face and Cloud Mountain, based on my family’s mixed-race history and my examination of my own Chinese-American identity:

Indexed Quick Links here: — My Bio Race, Family, & Relationships Books, Writing & Creativity Psychology, Health & Wellness Photo Essays

How I met my husband (regardless of what he may tell you) — I’m holding a snapshot my mother took of me at the Ming tombs on the day my husband claims we met. Having just visited the excavated Dingling burial chamber — a dank underground mausoleum that the Red Guard trashed and emptied during the Cultural Revolution — I was making my…

Wit, irony, and the imperial minister’s poignant gesture that helped forge my family —

The subconscious has its own way of saying goodbye My mother died one year ago today, yet she remains deeply present in my life — largely through our dreams together, which seem to be multiplying. Most of these nocturnal reunions skip into oblivion as soon as I wake. …

Stop waiting and whispering, and dance! — It was like something whispering at us to hurry, to stop wasting time, and I would like to have danced with you through the back door, out into the garden, down the street, over the line of the horizon. Oh, my dear. I thought we would have more time. —…

An Interview with the founder of Questions Unasked — Some families are rich in natural storytellers who keep their clans’ oral histories alive. Most of us today, however, are too busy and distracted by modern life to sit and listen to our elders, and we often don’t realize what we’re missing until it’s too late. To help families prevent…

Yung Wing, my grandfather, and the seeds of revolution against the China’s last empire — In 1900 my grandfather Liu Chengyu became one of China’s first pro-democracy activists when he joined a student-organized plot to blow up an imperial armory near his home in Wuchang. The plot was exposed and several of my grandfather’s young collaborators were beheaded, while he escaped into exile. …