A Probability of Being

This year, I published the following: short stories:  "Scholar Miaka’s Brief Summary of Memories Imbued in Memory Object Exhibit 132.NW.1."  RECOGNIZE FASCISM . Ed. Crystal Huff. World Weaver Press, October 2020. CW: gendered violence, transphobia, slavery, physical & reproductive violence " In The Glass Hall of Supreme Women ." Fireside Fiction . Ed. Maurice Broaddus. December 2020. CW: body horror, misogyny, fungi non-fiction: " Trials by Whiteness: Definitions of Whiteness and Eurocentrism, and Their Relevance Post-RaceFail " at  Strange Horizons Under a different name, I wrote: " Mid-Autumn Incense " as part of Circlet Press' last Halloween Microfiction series. CW: suicide

'Tis the season, I guess! I always forget about it until I see social media buzz, and I wonder if I ever would get around to making these posts if I didn't see other people get around to it as well.  In 2018 I published two cute stories and one dark one: " When the Bough Breaks " in Mythic Delirium , a story about hostile spirits terrorizing children in a high-rise luxury condominium. "A Field of Sapphires and Sunshine" in Glass and Gardens: Tales of Solarpunk Summers , my second foray into solarpunk. It's about an international student returning home to her family's business, dwelling on a breakup while on her solar-dirigible ride home.  " Magic Potion Behind-the-Mountains " in Beneath Ceaseless Skies , which follows the misadventures of a young magistrate as he struggles to learn the recipe for a magic potion in the rural hinterlands of his assigned county. I doubt these will rouse anything more than a murmur, but I...

I have a new short story out in the Fireside Fiction Quarterly ! They have an amazing selection of short fiction available online, but my story, "By the Storytelling Fire" is only available in the print quarterly, which you can get by subscribing to them for just $10 a month! You can also get it by buying it as a $5 back issue ; I'm in Issue 63. It's a beautiful print issue, with illustrations by fantastic artists and so many excellent writers like Brandon O'Brien and Sheree Renee Thomas! I'm very excited to be part of the Fireside oeuvre ^^ "By the Storytelling Fire" is about two people telling each other fairytales that may or may not be about themselves. One is a remix of Sleeping Beauty, examining consent that is not given in the original tale; the other is a tale of an illegitimate prince who rejects toxic masculinity.  I wrote this for my final week of Clarion 2016, and I'm so glad it's out in the world! I hope you like ...

It's a new year, and I've got new fiction coming up! I'll be in New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color , edited by the inimitable Nisi Shawl! It'll be published by Solaris Books in March!  I encounter LeVar Burton once more as he's written the introduction of this book, and I'm sharing pages with some of the most exciting writers right now, such as  Rebecca Roanhorse , and Darcie Little Badger  and SFF stalwarts such as Tobias Buckell and Andrea Hairston! Here's the table of contents: Foreword, LeVar Burton The Galactic Tourist Industrial Complex, Tobias Buckell Deer Dancer, Kathleen Alcalá The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations, Minsoo Kang Come Home to Atropos, Steven Barnes The Fine Print, Chinelo Onwualu unkind of mercy, Alex Jennings Burn the Ships, Alberto Yáñez The Freedom of the Shifting Sea, Jaymee Goh Three Variations on a Theme of Imperial Attire, E. Lily Yu Blood and Bells, Karin Lowachee Give Me Your Black ...

I don't often get to do readings, and rarely still performances of my own writing, so I'm really excited to announce I've got two shows coming up in November and December! F&B: Voices from the Kitchen   Date: November 8 Time: 6pm - 8.30pm Venue: Brava Theater  2781 24th Street  San Francisco, CA F&B: Voices from the Kitchen is a twice-yearly storytelling showcase hosted by La Cocina SF , a non-profit incubator that supports women of color in entrepreneurial endeavors within the food and beverage industry. Each show has a different theme, and November's theme is "Matriarchy," which is of course my jam! My jam on my bread and butter, my crumpet and scone! I wrote a piece specially for this event, so here's hoping people like it ^^  Writers With Drinks Date: December 8 Time: 7.30pm - 8.30pm Venue: The Make Out Room  3225 22nd St., San Francisco CA Writers With Drinks is the brainchild of Charlie Jane Anders , who ve...

I'm proud to announce that I'm part of Beneath Ceaseless Skies ' Tenth Anniversary Special Issue !  My story, " Magic Potion Behind-the-Mountain ," takes place in a setting that I dreamed up during a bout of dengue fever that a mosquito gave me sometime in 2014. I'd gone home for a high school friend's wedding, was feeling a little ill when I got home, and then had a full-blown fever the next day. Whenever I'm sick with a fever, I mostly just stay in bed and drink a lot of warm water, all though the day and night. And, well, the water goes right through you. But you have to drink it! Hydration is important when you are sick. I wasn't sure if it was dengue, since I tend to get a violent fever once a year or so, but since it was in late December, which is mosquito season, there was a chance that it was. Dengue fever tends to run its course in two weeks. It's referred to as "breakbone fever" because that's what it feels lik...

In case you missed it, Strange Horizons published my review of The Wandering Earth, Liu Cixin's short story collection translation into English for non-Sinophone readers . Thanks to the Reviews editors for letting me have a crack at it!

My latest short story, "A Field of Sapphires and Sunshine," is now out in GLASS AND GARDEN: SOLARPUNK SUMMERS from World Weaver Press ! If solar-powered airships, crocodile farms, and happily-meddling family members sound like your jam, buy the book and support the anthology!  I'm also participating in a series of blog posts at the World Weaver Press blog ! So watch that space for me!

The Table of Contents for my next upcoming story is now up ! Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers edited by Sarena Ulibarri will be out from World Weaver Press this summer!  My story "A Field of Sapphires and Sunshine" is about a student returning home from her cheap American education after a breakup stemming from irreconcilable differences. It has solar-powered airships, traditional Malay architecture, and a crocodile farm! Lots of girlfriend talk, a relatively healthy mother-daughter relationship (HA! not a Disappointing Child story this time!!), and budding romance are all in this story set in a far future where rich people done fucked up and are reaping the seeds they have sown. 

Mythic Delirium 4.3 is now live! I'm honoured to be the featured story for January 2018, kicking off this Gregorian year on a good note, even if the story itself is quite dark.  " When the Bough Breaks " combines different things I learned in childhood--rhymes and stories of forest spirits--with the memory of the Highland Towers collapse in 1993. Parts of the plot were also directly inspired by dreams I had during a brief period when I kept sleeping wonky, waking myself up with pins and needles in my back.  I'm not used to writing horror, and it is indeed one of my least read genres: when it comes to good horror, I scare easily. Growing up in Malaysia we have a lot of ghost stories and a laundry list of ways to not piss off forest spirits, and our spirits tend to be less jump-scare and more ambient creepiness, so I thought I would try my hand at it.  I hope you like it!

In 2003, my aunt, who hitherto had been my favourite aunty, pulled me aside to tell me about how my mother had complained about my choice of major (English). She said to me, "you  cannot  write." Not as in "I forbid you to write" but as in "you don't have the talent/knack/skill to write." My mother was very adamant against my discipline of choice. I went to Canada to start my English degree without her blessing--but you really only need the support of the parent with the pursestrings to help, which I had. I flew out of KLIA with my best friend, her parents, and my dad. In 2010, that supportive parent came to Canada to help me move from Nova Scotia to Ontario, on a three-day road-trip. This was a little after I received my first short story acceptance. My mother, by that time, was resigned to my career choice, and her only feedback was to get a PhD after the Masters since that just seems to be a natural course of action. (I hadn't actually consid...

'Tis the season!  I was not very prolific in 2017, because I spent a lot of it finishing my dissertation, but I still managed some things! "Eruption" in Anathema Magazine #2  is a letter of a long-dead woman to her younger brother, who himself is in the twilight of his life, recounting the bloody history of their community. I jokingly refer to it as my #killallmen story but I was inspired by Robert Sapolsky's observations of the Keekorok Babboon Troop . In addressing the very concept of genociding an entire gender in order to start fresh, I also had to think through trauma, from abuse, war, systemic oppression, and how to dramatically transform all of that in a single generation.  "The Reset" in  Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation , edited by  Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Christopher Wieland, published by Upper Rubber Boot Press is not available for online reading, but if you would like to read it, email me. I considered the conseq...

Mythic Delirium has just announced their mock cover for their 4.3 issue! The art is by Ruth Sanderson , based on Beth Cato 's poem "The Body Made"!  My short story "When the Bough Breaks" will be available in the January 2018 segment of the web issue. It is based on the Highland Towers collapse of 1993, in my home state of Selangor, Malaysia. This was the first major catastrophe I can remember being widely-televised--Berita Terkini, which usually ran for about 5 minutes every couple of hours, kept popping up on seemingly every single commercial break at this time as more survivors and dead were found.  In this short story, I tried to evoke the feeling of creepiness that some luxury condos in natural areas have, partly as a result of not being wholly lived in quite yet, partly because wooded areas have landed spirits who are often not happy that humans are moving in! The characters run a gamut of different races and ages. One of the opening scenes is...

by Alan Bao It's the day of the Hungry Ghost Festival! I went to the Thien Hau Temple on Sunday with my friend S. Qiouyi Lu and Nilah Magruder . There were monks chanting for most of the holiday weekend. It was also very hot, because there was a heat wave in Southern California (and about 7000 acres were burning near LA).  Coincidentally, it's also the first Tuesday of the month, which means my Lightspeed Magazine story " The Last Cheng Beng Gift " is now up for free reading!! I also talk about writing the story in the Author Spotlight . 

The September issue of Lightspeed Magazine is now available for purchase ! I'm really excited about it for several reasons. First, the incredible cover by Alan Bao: It's a smaller version of the illustration he did for my short story, "The Last Cheng Beng Gift"!! It's my first ever story to become the cover story for a magazine, and hopefully it won't be the last!  Secondly, I share an incredible table of contents... I'm in this issue with stories written by Genevieve Valentine and Tobias S. Buckell (who writes incredibly fun Caribbean space opera!!) and the non-fiction is by some of my favourite fiction writers, Amal El-Mohtar, Theodora Goss, and Joseph Allen Hill!! Not only that (sub-second-point??), while my story goes live in the first week of September, my Clarion classmate Giovanni de Feo's story, "Ugo" goes live in the last week of September! That's like, a werejelly sandwich!!! Gio read his draft of "Ugo...

Today marks the first day of Hungry Ghost Month. On the 15th day of the 7th lunar month, which is September 5 this year, Chinese people, at least in Malaysia and Singapore, will celebrate the Hungry Ghost Festival.  The Hungry Ghost Month is when the gates to the Underworld open, giving the ghosts reprieve for a time to wander the earth, and visit the living. Because ghosts don't eat in the Underworld, they are, as one might expect, hungry, so now is a really good time to feed the supernatural myriad. We will leave food out with our prayers overnight, inviting the ghosts to eat. It's good karma to feed the hungry, whether alive or dead. It's also a very exciting time! There will be a lot of live shows, and the first row of chairs will be empty to make way for the ghosts so they can watch. Back In The Day the shows used to be traditional Chinese opera; nowadays they can be more contemporary entertainments, like live performances or stripper shows (because, you kno...

Sometime in the summer of 2015, I was tinkering with a story idea and asked my dad, "if you could go back thirty years and remembered everything that happened, what would you do?" I was thinking something along the lines of, what stock markets would he invest in, or what different career moves would he make. But no, he said something completely different, way more personal, and laughed. Then relented and said he'd pay more attention to my grandparents, his parents, to make sure they didn't suffer declining health as soon as they did.  My response to this question, and the little exchange we had after, is in my upcoming story "The Reset," in Sunvault: Tales of Solarpunk and Eco-speculation , forthcoming from Upper Rubber Boot Press . The story starts thus: "It is now five years after the Reset. I have stood trial for my complicity in it and come away innocent." I drafted "The Reset" in a single day. I had the kernel of an id...

Anathema Magazine #2 is now up, which means my latest short story, "Eruption" is now up and available for reading online!  I wrote "Eruption" in Week 3 of Clarion, under Andy Duncan. For some reason all the stories that day were somewhat of a similar theme: mine is essentially a misandrist utopia (I call it my #killallmen story); another classmate wrote a misandrist dystopia (in which boys are locked in a giant enclosure for a certain time); and a third wrote a somewhat misogynist attempt to establish a utopia free of women (but in ways that also harmed young men). It was a day .  This story combines two ideas I had floating about: the story of a woman slowly succumbing to mental degradation, which surfaces a lot of terrible memories about the founding of her city, and a story of an underground slave people rising up to destroy their oppressors. It is inspired partly by this 1906 illustration by William Balfour Ker  and a dream I had: with added ...

What with stress, depression, anxiety, dissertating, diabetes, and WisCon, I haven't had energy or time to think beyond a day. But getting to WisCon41 was wonderful because it is so life-affirming, even if I managed to do exactly zero panels and spent most of my time either sleeping, walking, eating, socializing, or working on my dissertation in the lobby. Which as it turned out was a good thing.  Amidst all that, THE WISCON CHRONICLES VOL 11: TRIALS BY WHITENESS was out! I found it first in Room of One's Own, and at the Aqueduct Press table! It's beautiful! It's shiny! It turned out even better than I expected!! And more importantly, IT IS NOW AVAILABLE!!! Here are my brilliant brilliant contributors!!  WisCon40 GUEST OF HONOR SPEECHES Nalo Hopkinson Justine Larbalestier Sofia Samatar OUR IMMEDIATE VICINITY WisCon40 Opening Ceremonies: WisCon is my Family Reunion -- Kat Tanaka Okopnik All Our Relations -- Nisi Shawl Who Is Safe? -- Beth P...

I'll be on a panel to discuss science fiction and multiculturalism next week! Here are the details: Science Fiction For Everyone: A Multicultural Discussion Date : April 25, 2017 Time : 2.30pm Venue : Tech 110, Los Angeles Harbor College Moderator : Denise Dumars Panelists: Steven Barnes , SF writer, NAACP award-winner Bryan Thao Worra , Laotian-American writer and president of Science Fiction Poetry Association Gregg Castro , Salinan-Ohlone activist and SF consultant Michael Paul Gonzalez , Dread State co-editor Stephanie Brown , Mills MFA, Clarion 2010 grad This event is hosted by the Cultural Equity Workshop of the LAHC! I'll have copies of The Sea Is Ours for sale, and should be able to spend some time signing.  (I'll also be at the campus early-ish, since the kind hostess arranged a ride from Riverside for me. If anybody wants to say hi earlier, take me to a place with good eats, or a quiet place to work, that would be appreciate...