Since the pandemic has started, we have seen a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes all over the U.S. Those in the Asian American community are grappling with their own people being targeted for these hate crimes. In a powerful essay, our volunteer Long looks into the moments where he was personally targeted, his reactions to the rise in the hate crimes, and his journey of moving forward from the language of violence.

Psychoanalytic, Psychotherapist, Clinical Supervisor, and Author, Maxine Mei-Fung Chung debuts her book The Eighth Girl to which is a “ A multi-layered and compelling exploration of Dissociative Identity Disorder.” Creative Blogger Long Vo gets a change to interview Maxine Mei-Fung Chung as they talk about the importance of diverse stories that are socially responsible to be accurate, using empathy in her creativity, and even had a small chance to celebrate her Netflix deal for the book.

Creative Blogger Long Vo covers Soleil Ho’s first year as the SF Chronicle Food Critic. In her journey fighting for diversity in food media, Long recounts the ups and downs of her career as a chef, writer, Racist Sandwich podcast host, and now being a position of representation.

Author Thea Lim explores themes of love and grief through a science-fiction time travel story, An Ocean of Minutes. The Toronto Star raves, “Lim comes into her own here, with prose that’s elegant and haunting, somehow managing to be both unsentimental and deeply moving at the same time. A devastating debut.” For #KollabSFGetsLit, we get the opportunity to talk to Lim. In the interview, we cover what trauma means in terms of being “Stuck in time,” being a 3rd culture kid, and being apart of Mariah Carey’s lambily.

Debut author Nicole Chung releases her book All You Can Ever Know, a very personal story of her quest finding her birth parents while navigating in a predominant white environment, including her family. This insightful and suspenseful book has already received immense attention and acclaim from prominent media publications, including: A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, An American Booksellers Association, Library Journal’s Fall Editors' Pick 2018, The Washington Post’s 1 of 20 Books to Read This Fall, and the list continues to grow.

In this interview with Kollaboration SF, we share her unique writing journey and discuss what an editor should do, #AsianAugust, and a writer's voice.

Kollaboration San Francisco gets the chance to interview Ellisa Sun over the phone for the first out of four interviews as we follow her on The Dreamboat Tour. We discuss topics about being a late bloomer in the music game, her personal journey as a teenager, and her thoughts as a Asian-American performer.

Crystal Hana Kim, in her debut novel If You Leave Me, explores the repercussions of a country in war. The book is a timepiece during the Korean War that’s told through the first person narratives of protagonist, Haemi Lee, and her love triangle between her childhood best friend, Kyunghwan, and his older cousin, Jisoo. TheMillions.com review of Kim’s book highlights this feat, “Kim alters the expectations of the genre of war to include a much stronger focus on women and the multigenerational cultural changes that occur in and after a war caused by a global power struggle.”

Kollaboration SF gets the opportunity to Interview Crystal Hana Kim and talk about her book, her inspirational grandmother, and her feelings on releasing the book to the world.

Lucy Tan’s debut novel What We Were Promised is a story that follows the Zhen family has moved back to China after spending their lives chasing the American dream. Lucy explores heavy themes like classism, going from immigrant to an expat, and concepts of belonging, as US Today reviews, ““What We Were Promised” is bustling with themes like these, ones that focus on the terrifyingly complex facets of what it means to be Chinese-American, an immigrant, and an expat. But Tan certainly has enough bandwidth to handle these heavy topics, sifting them through a single family with forlorn honesty and compassion.” Kollaboration gets a chance to interview Lucy Tan about her writing process as an Asian American woman, her challenges of having a bilingual home as a writer, and ask her experience as a Asian American actress.