I usually feature contemporary writers in this column, but for a change I thought I would include a writer who has influenced me more than any other.Eileen Chang was born in Shanghai in 1920 and died anonymously in California a day before my birthday in 1995. Her fiction … [Read more...]
Mingmei Yip
I first came across Mingmei Yip after reading her second novel, Petals from the Sky (Kensington, 2010). I was astonished to see that she had taught at my alma mater, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. It's not everyday that I come across an author who used to teach … [Read more...]
Sonali Dev
It seems like just yesterday that I was standing outside Anderson's Bookstore in Naperville, Illinois, when a woman stopped me and introduced herself. It was Sonali Dev, author of the just-released novel, A Bollywood Affair (Kensington, 2014).We spoke chatted about writing, … [Read more...]
Lee Kofman
I first came across Lee Kofman thanks to a mutual friend in China, Stuart Beaton. Based in Australia, Lee was born in the Soviet Union and grew up in Israel. She's the author of three novels in Hebrew and now of a fabulous brand new memoir in English, The Dangerous Bride: A … [Read more...]
Amy Sonnichsen
Amy Sonnichsen isn't just the author of the forthcoming middle grade novel in verse, Red Butterfly (Simon & Schuster, 2015). She is also the mother of five and a former China expat (she lived in Tianjin for almost a decade). But she also grew up in Hong Kong! How cool is … [Read more...]