From the Hawaii Writers Guild website:
Our HWG is gaining more exposure. Several of our Guild members were at the Jo Ann Williams Christmas Craft Fair over the two day event on November 23 and 24 to sell and sign books while promoting the Guild. We passed out flyers and business cards and talked to a lot of people who otherwise would have not known that there is a writers guild in Hawaii.
Our first day, Cece Johansen, Louise Riofrio, Virginia Fortner, Duncan Dempster, and Jada Tan Rufo were all there meeting people and signing books. On day two it was Cece, Jada, Louise, and Jim Gibbons. We had a lot of people who were interested in native Alaskan and Polynesian cultures. Since Louise’s book Discovery is about that, she did very well at the fair. Her books SOLD OUT!
I had encounters with a fellow ESL teacher who had also taught in China, as well as with a young man who has a podcast about Asian Americans and the issues we face. Perhaps you will hear me on a future podcast.
Jim also had an encounter with another fair vendor, a retired police officer who had written a book on his experiences, Behind the Badge. Jim told him about the existence of our writer’s guild and gave him our information. Jim also was able to barter with this man book-for-book. Virginia also was also able to barter with other vendors to get more exposure.
There were fun moments as well. They had door prizes and lucky number draws. Jim and I made out like bandits in that category. He got a prize for having a Santa-like beard, while I had to show pictures of bugs and a selfie with a hotel employee. I also pulled a muscle while trying to walk like a turkey. After all that effort I should get something!
Next up for me is our Writers’ Voices event December 5th, at the Thelma Parker Memorial Library at 6 pm. I’ll be reading from my historical novel The Zone, a story that takes place in 1937, China during the infamous “Rape of Nanking”. The passage I’ll be reading from is a true event taken from the diary of Minnie Vautrin, dean of Ginling Women’s College, who was one of a handful of westerners who stayed behind in the besieged city of Nanking, now Nanjing. Although Iris Chang wrote about the Nanjing Massacre in her book Rape of Nanking, I still find that many Americans know nothing about this atrocity. This book is my attempt to tell people using fiction about what happened in those dark days of December 1937.
xinghuajiangsu 