Even as I struggle to find a lit agent to rep my second novel, a google alert notifies me that a book I published 14 years ago, and whose digital edition was recently released, is now being offered FREE by some Trump-adelic morally-challenged pirate website. http://enterbooks.net/…/olip-gdr13169641-books-s1s11399262s…

I am so fucking fed up with this bullshit. So I wrote them this email:

Dear Pirates and Thieves,

A Google Alert notified me that you are offering free copies of my book, Suddenly Stateside, to your subscribers. Gee, thanks for choosing my book to steal. Thanks for profiting off a book that took me over a year to write. Thanks for giving it away without thinking that MAYBE you might offer me royalties for the “sharing” of a book that I wrote while working a minimum-wage paying day job so that I could support my writing vocation.

Thank you for leeching off of artists who are trying to make an honest living with the skills they have, which are already poorly compensated. Because you know, not STEM.

Thank you and all your subscribers for being assholes who produce nothing original of your own and compensate for your abysmal lack of talent and originality by stealing my stories. For stealing my life, which fed those stories.

Thank you for nothing. Which is what you pay me — that’s right, a big fat slice of fucking NOTHING — every time you offer my ebook for free to your equally ethics-free subscribers.

All the worst,

Marivi Soliven Blanco
Author
Suddenly Stateside
…Among other things

4 years after The Mango Bride was released, I continue to talk about advocating for survivors of domestic violence. So far, we’ve saved 9 immigrant survivors of domestic violence and raised additional money for community organizations that offer support services for these women and their families in the Bay Area and Anchorage.

A friend took this photo @ ParadiseHills library. The Mango Bride’s metaphor for love is food. So it’s so smart of them to put it next to Marvin Gapulto’s Adobo Road – a cookbook I actually use!

How do you get the word out about your new novel that a) needs a literary agent and b) hasn’t yet been published? By acting like it already has both. I’m reading excerpts from The Rizal Dance Hall Murder and chatting about lovers, killers and taxi dancers in the 1930s, at Philippine Expressions Bookshop in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 3.

“I won’t be lynched for loving a white girl” – It’s 1934 & taxi dancers sell wiles for a dime, but love could get you killed IMM OWN #DVpit

140 characters to capture an 85,082 word novel. Just 140 to snag the notice of a literary agent. Caught the eye of 7 agents and 2 indie publishers on #DVpit Twitter pitch event last Wednesday. Am suddenly, belatedly, in awe of Twitter.

A professor friend snapped this photo at the AAAS conference

I have no idea how The Mango Bride made it into the display of  books by  Asian American authors set out at the AAAS conference in Portland last April 15.

It’s unlikely my publisher Penguin lobbied for its inclusion, for my book was released four years ago and all the bells and whistles I threw into the ensuing 18-month DIY book tour have long since faded away.  Thus I can only assume some blessed bookseller  read the novel or at least liked its cover enough to bring it along.

When  a friend attending the conference sent my husband the photo above I gleefully posted it on Facebook. Another professor attending the event mentioned she’d seen the book and was thinking about purchasing it.  By the time she returned to the table, all copies had sold out.

I stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy long before my last baby molar fell out. But I’ll always believe in the Book Fairy who brought my story to the AAAS ball.

April 11 was the 4th anniversary of my novel’s publication date.

on April 11, 2013 over a hundred friends and relatives gathered to celebrate the birth of my book.

That morning four years past, I rose at 6 and baked a 150 banana bread cupcakes; went to yoga class to stay centered, then came home and baked 150 more. It’s not a Filipino party unless there’s food, so while the cupcakes were cooling, I stewed 15 pounds of pork adobo, chopped 7 pounds of mangoes into salsa, then hauled everything to San Diego Writers’ Ink’s reading room  to set up for my very first book party, surrounded by family and 130 friends.

April 11 came round last Monday, but breaking news of a shooting at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino erased all thoughts of celebration.

San Bernardino Elementary School Gunman ‘Was Out for Blood,’ Says Instructional Aide Who Witnessed Shooting

Later, news reports revealed the tragic symmetry of these two entirely unrelated events: a special needs teacher had been gunned down by her estranged husband as she worked with her students in class. Sadly, my novel about domestic violence had found affirmation in a horrific domestic violence (DV) incident.

How does one celebrate a novel that cleaves so closely to grim reality? By marking those who suffered in person rather than on the page. Karen Smith, 53, Jonathan Martinez, 8, shot by Cedric Smith who then turned the gun on himself.

*Photo credit http://ktla.com

In 2014 I established the Saving Beverly Campaign, literary events that raise funds for community organizations which offer support services for immigrant survivors of domestic violence. With the help of Susan MacBeth of Adventures by the Books, and Michael Gil Magnaye a development director in the Bay Area, I organized fundraisers in San Diego, San Francisco and Anchorage which have collectively raised nearly $15,000 for DV support services.

The first Saving Beverly event  at the Joan Kroc Center for Peace and Justice, University of San Diego, October, 2014, with Adventures by the book founder Susan McBeth,  our keynote speaker  former American Ambassador to the Philippines Harry Thomas and Mithi Aquino Thomas

Given this latest tragedy at North Park Elementary School, it seems the best way to commemorate my novel’s pub date anniversary  would be to organize another Saving Beverly event. I encourage anyone and everyone who wants to help set it up to contact me at marivisoliven17@gmail.com.

Writing is typically a solitary activity — just me sitting on the love seat, typing,  while the cats look on from the other couch. Consequently, watching actors perform your words is a true delight.  Rhumba at the Rizal is  a short play– my first! — is inspired by  my unpublished novel, The Rizal Dance Hall Murder. 

With so many white actors playing yellow face, having Asian actresses play white face is supreme poetic justice

Mamie Savage (in the blonde wig) is a larger than life character based on a real person in 1935 San Diego

After the Friday performance, playwrights (in front row) gathered on stage to talk about their respective plays.

Catch the final shows this weekend. I’ll be speaking on the Playwright’s panel that follows this Friday’s show. Hope to see you there!

Some writers have video book trailers for their novel. I got to write a PLAY for my book trailer! Fourteen actors and a choreographer pack the scene with love, death and dance.

Rumba at the Rizal, a vignette inspired by the Rizal Dance Hall Murder will be one of several plays performed in Halo-Halo this March. If you’re in SoCal, come watch with me!