FINDING CLEVELAND

Cleveland, Mississippi. My hometown.

The title of this movie recently changed and I love the new title: FAR EAST DEEP SOUTH.  

They're beginning to show it all over the country, including the Oxford Film Festival and of course, several places in California, where the producers live.

If you have a chance, do see it. I can't wait!

Also, this is the story behind MAKING FRIENDS WITH BILLY WONG. So, if you're intrigued by the immigration story of southern Chinese, you may be interested in my book and this movie.

Here's the trailer. Quite beautiful and what a story!


Far East Deep South Trailer from Only Won on Vimeo.

Happy Third Birthday to MAKING FRIENDS WITH BILLY WONG

This morning when I woke up, I realized it's my THIRD book's THIRD birthday.

Happy birthday to you!
 

I spent a lot of time with this book (Okay, true confessions, I spent a lot of time with the others, too. I'm a sloooowwww writer!). 

The history of Chinese immigration to the Deep South before the Civil Rights era surprised a lot of people. Even my Chinese American non-southern friends. 
But having grown up surrounded by the Chinese-owned grocery stores, to me, it was yet another piece of the complicated history of the Mississippi Delta where I was born and raised, a history so intriguing that I wanted to share it. 

And I wanted to tell the story of a girl who's not so brave and spunky and not totally happy to be helping a grandmother she hardly knows.
And yet, she did it. Better still, it all worked out for Azalea.

The tiny beginning of an idea for this book came from my high school friend Bobby Joe Moon. The librarian's perspective, amazingly remembered details and many deep conversations came from a newer friend, Frieda Quon. It was important to get every detail right. I asked a million questions. Frieda became my first reader. Bobby, my PR guy.
I loved that Scholastic let me include photographs shared by the two people who helped me most with getting the details right. 

I also used the remarkable resources and treasures of the Mississippi Delta Chinese Heritage Museum on the campus of Delta State University in my hometown. 

If you're interested, click on that link to the museum and enjoy the photographs. 

For those teachers who might be interested in including this book for your students this year, I have additional resources HERE, 
and a fun Pinterest page, HERE,
AND here.
(Oh, and I love Skyping with classes who've read my books. 

So bring on the cake and let's celebrate books that require a lot of sweat and even a few tears. Let's celebrate the friends who help us, the libraries we love, the editors and early readers.
Cheers!

 

 

Thank you, Martha.

I was on GOODREADS just now to post a review or two. I usually forget to review books, but I know how important it can be to an author so if I love a book, I'm giving it 5 stars and raving.

While there, true confessions, I clicked over to see if anybody had raved about my books. 

Martha, whoever you are, thank you for this lovely comment:

Told in alternating chapters between Azalea's powerful prose and Billy Wong's spare yet insightful poems makes it a gripping read. This friendship story will resonate with tweens, for its honesty and the exciting storytelling of a civil rights struggle. A must read for its relevance today.

It doesn't get much better than that.  Thank you to all the readers who take time to write about our books so thoughtfully.



Also: there's an excellent piece in the New York Times about the Mississippi Chinese community. Frieda Quon, one of my two resources for writing Billy's point of view and a friend and fellow librarian, is quoted and pictured. 

Check out the article and the wonderful photographs, HERE.

Home Going

Is there anything better than going home?

Last week I got to visit my hometown, see old friends, make new ones, celebrate family, and talk to an awesome group of kids about books and writing.

My visit started at St. George's Episcopal School in Memphis. (Thank you to the lovely folks at NOVEL bookstore for the introduction.)
Absolutely fabulous teachers and a librarian I could have sat and talked to all day long. 

I spoke to a large group first. Their questions were so thoughtful.  One asked if I had any "author friends" and if I did, what did we do. This question always cracks me up. 
I mentioned a few, recommended some excellent books. When I said, Barbara O'Connor, there was an audible gasp.  

Check out the library display. Their class was in the middle of reading THE SMALL ADVENTURE OF POPEYE AND ELVIS.  

Those are rambler models on the library shelves!

Of course, I just HAD to go upstairs to see that the entire hall in front of their classroom was a Coon Dog Cemetery. Straight from the book! 
I believe their teacher even told me she'd visited it, in person, over the summer. 
Did I say these are dedicated teachers?

Such fun kids!

The Group!

Talking about writing THE WAY TO STAY IN DESTINY, 

which is on Tennessee's Volunteer State Book Awards list this year.

After a drive through the Delta and a quick stop to hang out with my sister and her family, it was off to Delta State University, Cleveland MS, for the Mississippi Delta Chinese Heritage Museum's HOME-GOING weekend.

 (Cotton waiting to be picked. Most of it was gone though.)

(Books waiting to be bought. Most of them were gone, too!)

I finally met my Facebook friend Jeu Foon, originally from Forrest City AR, now a California boy, a great writer himself, with such interesting childhood memories.

And Holly Yu, a writer from Rhodes College, Memphis. I met them at the Home Going.  

There were 350 people there to celebrate their heritage and their southern connections.

Here's Jeu, inside the museum, highlighting my book. 
(Thanks, friend!)
 I used the oral histories there to research MAKING FRIENDS WITH BILLY WONG.

I ate well, talked a lot, made a road trip to Dockery Farms on a blue-sky Delta day.

What a great trip!

And I'll not even complain too much about having to de-ice my car! 

Though I am happy to be home.

The History We Don't Always Know

  

While researching my own novel, MAKING FRIENDS WITH BILLY WONG, at Delta State University's Chinese Heritage collection, I heard a lot about this story. 

This new book is just out today!



Here's a bit from the publisher's description:

A generation before Brown v. Board of Education struck down America’s “separate but equal” doctrine, one Chinese family and an eccentric Mississippi lawyer fought for desegregation in one of the greatest legal battles never told.

On September 15, 1924, Martha Lum and her older sister Berda were barred from attending middle school in Rosedale, Mississippi. The girls were Chinese American and considered by the school to be “colored”; the school was for whites. This event would lead to the first US Supreme Court case to challenge the constitutionality of racial segregation in Southern public schools, an astonishing thirty years before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.

The Kirkus review is HERE.

An AMAZON link is HERE.

It's a really fascinating story that happened in Bolivar County, Mississippi. 

Mississippi Delta Chinese Heritage Museum

What an amazing weekend!
From the lectures to the ribbon cutting, the friends who returned and the ones who live in Mississippi and worked so hard to make this weekend perfect- outstanding in every way.

(Don't you love that logo?)




Here's a link to some of the highlights from the blog of Dr. John Jung. 
Be sure to click on the link at the end of his post and scroll through the pictures. You'll feel like you were there!
http://mississippideltachinese.webs.com/apps/blog/show/42500939-ms-delta-chinese-heritage-reunion-oct-24-25-2014 

This is one of my favorite pictures from the weekend-- of my friend Bobby Joe Moon and my parents' friend, Mrs. Jane Dunlap.

She's been instrumental in beautifying our little town and personally oversees and tends the gorgeous roses near the Railroad Museum.

When I told Mrs. Dunlap how much I loved seeing her roses every time I come to visit, she said, "Go out there and talk to them and tell them you love them!"

So I did.

Bobby and one of the weekend's organizers, Frieda Quon, filled me in on the details and encouraged me to attend. And am I ever glad I did! Although I'd read Dr. Jung's book, I learned so much about the history of why we had many Chinese groceries in the Delta and about the significant contributions made by these hardworking families.

If you're in the Delta, plan a stop on the campus of Delta State University and take time to visit the museum. 

 (This one's for my many friends who've recently taken up MahJongg.

 I may have to learn. A beautiful display, don't you think?)

Sometimes research is so much more than that. It's uncovering stories and digging deeper, yes. But it's also about people. This Homecoming week was all about friends- old and new- and family. I loved it.