immigrant | LGBTQ Reads

Today on the site, we’re thrilled to welcome Grace Kwan, whose debut short story collection, Prelude & Other Stories, which was published by Life Rattle Press on June 1st and contains short stories short stories based on the author’s own life and coming of age as a bisexual Chinese-Malaysian-Canadian immigrant. Grace has provided us with an excerpt, so check out the cover and blurb below, then dig in!

Prelude & Other Stories by Grace Kwan

This collection of short stories transports the reader to the sizzling heat of Kuala Lumpur’s streets, to crimson sunsets at Vancouver’s bayside, and to the drizzly shores at Bible camp. The narrator, a young Chinese-Malaysian-Canadian girl, grapples with a simultaneously claustrophobic and distant relationship with her mother as she navigates her own teenage obstinacy, queer identity in the face of religion, and the universal pursuit of fitting in.

Buy it: Amazon | Kobo | Direct from Author (personalized!)

And here’s the excerpt!

People love to tell me about how young and beautiful my mom looks for her age, with her dyed brown hair and dark chocolate eyes—and of course, her dancer’s physique.

“Are you sure you’re not sisters?” they’d ask.

I’ve never paid much attention to the comments, until now. My mother’s beauty strikes me like an epiphany—the way she carries her slender frame across a room, the way she disciplines her thick hair into a ponytail at the nape of her neck every morning, the way her cheekbones sit high and proud on her face.

Once, in the car with a handful of my classmates on our way back from a field trip in grade eight, my friend Bailey and I contemplated life after high school. I couldn’t see myself marrying or having children at all, but Bailey liked the idea of settling down. Jeremiah Crane, sitting beside me, pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his pimpled nose, ran a bony hand through his orange curls, and announced, “If I were to marry, I’d get an Asian wife.”

“…Why?” I demanded after a long and scandalized silence.

“I don’t know, I just can’t picture anything else. I think their culture just makes them more…gentle, submissive…”

I could see the East Asian woman Jeremiah conjured with his words: demure and fine-boned, with alabaster skin and creases in her eyelids. Bailey, who was Filipino, huffed in disbelief. I stared out the window at the blur of grey asphalt. If I looked at Jeremiah then, I thought I might burst a blood vessel—his or mine, I didn’t know.

I see the two men examining a bouquet of white roses nearby. I want Mom out of their line of sight.

“Are you ready to go?” Mom asks, eyeing the toy Anne hugs to her chest.

“Yeah, yeah,” I mumble, taking the bunny from Anne and shoving it back on one of the shelves. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Grace Kwan is a Sociology MA student at Simon Fraser University. Her articles and personal essays on race, media, and culture can be read on Necessary Fiction, Plenitude Magazine, and other online publications. She’s also a regular contributor for Camp Thirlby.

I’m thrilled to be revealing the cover of one of my most anticipated YA debuts of 2019 on the site today, and once you read a little more about The Grief Keeper by Alexandra Villasante, you’ll see why it’s such a timely and definitely tear-jerking Must Read:

Seventeen-year-old Marisol has always dreamed of being American, learning what Americans and the US are like from television and Mrs. Rosen, an elderly expat who had employed Marisol’s mother as a maid. When she pictured an American life for herself, she dreamed of a life like Aimee and Amber’s, the title characters of her favorite American TV show. She never pictured stealing across the US border from El Salvador as “an illegal”, fleeing for her life, but after her brother is murdered and her younger sister, Gabi’s, life is placed in equal jeopardy, she has no choice, especially because she knows everything is her fault. If she had never fallen for the charms of a beautiful girl named Liliana, Pablo might still be alive, her mother wouldn’t be in hiding and she and Gabi wouldn’t have been caught crossing the border.

But they have been caught and their asylum request will most certainly be denied. With truly no options remaining, Marisol jumps at an unusual opportunity to stay in the United States. She’s asked to become a grief keeper, taking the grief of another into her own body to save a life. It’s a risky, experimental study, but if it means Marisol can keep her sister safe, she will risk anything. She just never imagined one of the risks would be falling in love, a love that may even be powerful enough to finally help her face her own crushing grief.

The Grief Keeper is a tender tale that explores the heartbreak and consequences of when both love and human beings are branded illegal.

And here’s the beautiful cover, designed by Kelley Brady and Theresa Evangelista and illustrated by Kaethe Butcher!

So what does the author think of the cover? In her words:

When I first saw illustrator Kaethe Butcher’s work, I was immediately struck by how intimate and tender her drawings were. Delicate lines in a graphic style convey deep connections, almost like electricity. Because of the speculative technology in The Grief Keeper that allows Marisol to experience Rey’s grief, it was important to me that, when Kaethe drew Marisol and Rey together, that web of connection was immediately apparent. I was not disappointed. Their bodies are close and they seem to be weathering a storm while holding fast to each other. The flowers on Marisol’s shirt defy reality and drift into the air, as if they have the power to quell Rey’s pain. The stars in Marisol’s hair speak to the bright and dark in her own life.

It’s such an emotionally charged cover and I am so in love with it. The amazing team at Penguin, Kelley Brady, and Theresa Evangelista took pains to create a cover that reflects all the heart, strength and love in my book. I am so grateful!

The Grief Keeper goes on sale on June 11, 2018, and you can preorder it now!