Category: General updates

I had a great time at this year’s Author Alley at the wonderful Loganberry Books! I got to catch up with old friends and meet ones. I shared a table with my friend Sarah Goerhke, chatted with Monica Comas, and re-introduced myself to Barbara Howard.

Barbara was a key inspiration in my self-publishing journey. In the fall of 2024, I was starting to consider self-publishing, but I really doubted my ability to do it all on my own. I attended a panel at the Cuyahoga County Public Library’s Writing Center featuring self-pub authors, and I was so impressed by Barbara and how she has written and published so many books on her own. In the Q&A, I asked how she found her amazing covers, and she said she did them herself. She was one of two authors (the other being Jane Hartsock) whose example led me to think that I too might be able to design a cover for Mathey Girls that matched the style and quality of the book.

When I did Author Alley last summer, I was a very new baby author. It’s amazing how much has changed over the last year for Mathey Girls and my author journey.

May 2nd is Mathey Girls’ book birthday and I could not be more proud of how well it’s done this past year. The amount of support I’ve received from readers, the Cleveland community, and the Princeton community has been incredible. There’s still lots in store for Mathey Girls—thank you for joining me on this unbelievable, wonderful journey.

💙🧡💛

Happy Indie Bookstore Day! So happy I got to sign books at Loganberry Books, chat with customers, and take part in the celebration (it was hopping in there!!). I also met two other local authors, Marie Vibbert and Elizabeth Zaleski. Lots of fun and community spirit!

I had the pleasure of speaking at the Hathaway Brown Upper School as part of their Writing Fellowship this week. I went to HB for Upper School many years (decades!) ago, and it meant a lot to share my experience with these students. One point that I hope got through: you and your priorities and passions may change over the course of your life, and that’s okay. The important thing is to follow what inspires you.

I’m so pleased to announce that the Mathey Girls audiobook is now available across a wide variety of platforms (Audible, Spotify, Apple, Libby, Libro.fm and more). The audiobook has been a labor of love between my cousin Betty and me. I had never planned on producing an audiobook, given that I self-published the novel, I am not a fan of my voice, and I personally don’t usually listen to audiobooks. After a number of people asked about an audiobook, I started to take the idea more seriously, and I realized that any narrator would also need to speak Mandarin.

I was discussing this problem with my cousin Betty, who (I kid you not) responded with: “I’ve always wanted to narrate an audiobook!” Well, okay then!

Betty has a beautiful voice, is an avid audiobook listener, and she did an amazing job bringing Mathey Girls to life. Over several months, we worked through each chapter one-by-one (and some of them, more than once), and got expert audio production assistance from our talented and patient friend William Bausch.

Please check out the audiobook through your favorite retailer or, if you want to hear it on Libby, request that your library carry it! (And, of course, remember to review the audiobook if you listen to it, thank you!)

I am so proud of the Mathey Girls cover, which I designed using Canva. (I love it so much that I’m worried that my next book cover can’t possibly be as good.)

Anyhoo, the cover is a finalist in kobo writing life’s 2025 Indie Cover Contest in the fiction/non-fiction category! The winner will be decided by online voting, which runs from December 1st to the 8th.

UPDATE: Mathey Girls placed second in the fiction/non-fiction category! I remain enormously proud of the cover. Thank you to everyone who voted.

These past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind, and my final event before the holidays was a visit to my alma mater Hathaway Brown School to speak to the Middle School assembly.

It was such a pleasure to speak to a room full of bright young ladies. The highlight was the extreme reaction I got when I mentioned that in college, we had unlimited Lucky Charms during brunch. Girls literally bounced off of their seats and gasped in excitement. (If any of their parents notice a sudden enthusiasm in going to college… that may be why.)

The pictures show: speaking in the auditorium (I went to HB for Upper School and have so many memories from that auditorium!); holding up a copy of my senior Strnad project, Cotton Candy Clouds, a children’s book that I wrote and my classmate Leah illustrated; and standing underneath an alumna profile in the hallways for HB’s 150th.

It was such an honor to speak at the MotivAsians annual gala. I was invited to speak and do a reading, and I chose the scallion pancake contest scene (we were, after all, at an Asian banquet!). I had a lovely group of friends who came out to support me, and made some new friends too. Thank you to MotivAsians for inviting me and for bringing the Cleveland Asian community together!

The full video of my speech is here: https://youtu.be/g8zH4-IO6iE (thanks to Dan Hanson for recording and posting).

You can now purchase the Mathey Girls ebook on platforms other than Amazon, including Apple Books, Kobo/Kobo Plus, and more! It’s also available on Overdrive/Libby; if you don’t see Mathey Girls on your Libby app, please request that your local library carry it!