Rosa Kwon Easton on publishing with Lake Union

I spoke with Rosa Kwon Easton on Thursday, June 26th, from 5:30-7:00pm, on Zoom, about her debut novel WHITE MULBERRY. Lauded by Lisa See as “beautiful and deeply researched…If you loved Pachinko, you’ll love White Mulberry,” Rosa’s debut is the first book in a two-book deal with the Amazon “bookclub-fiction” imprint Lake Union.

We spoke about the challenges of writing family stories…the pros and cons of writing them as fiction vs. nonfiction…Rosa’s particular journey to a successful debut (including a generous peek into her Rolodex)…the experience of publishing with Amazon…and the pros and cons of the two-book deal, amongst many other topics.

The conversation was as relaxed and enjoyable as it was informative, due to Rosa’s great open spirit and personal generosity. Don’t miss it. Click on our faces above, or go to the video here.

For those of you who missed last month’s chat with Tomas Moniz, here’s a link to the recording. We had a lovely discussion, and I want to thank Tomas (THANKS, TOMAS!) for being his usual warm, open, and confiding self.

And lastly, a quick round-up of community news worth celebrating:

First I want to share with you some of MY news, ten years in the making: MY NOVEL IS AGENTED AND ABOUT TO GO ON SUBMISSION!!! I could insert a picture of myself doing cartwheels here (maybe not), but this image from my agent’s, Heather Jackson’s, website better expresses my strangely zen yet empowering excitement:

Suddenly, theory has become potential. We’re still not at fact yet, but watch this space.

And while we’re here, there’s plenty more I’d like to celebrate. First, I love and appreciate our wonderful writing community, a small portion of which met in Portugal earlier this month for a week-long retreat. Some good progress was made. New words! New insights. A new title for my novel. And we savored the joy and discipline of writing in community—because it did take discipline to get any writing and critiquing done in Portugal. But as you can see, we managed!

And, Lisa Manterfield, a participant on this retreat and my buddy and teaching partner, has a new novel out on submission with her agent, Melanie Figueroa of Root Literary. We’re wishing you the best of luck, Lisa and Melanie!

Don’t forget Lisa and I will be hosting a one-day querying workshop with another buddy and teaching partner, Heather Lazare, (that’s me, Lisa, and Heather above) on Saturday, September 6th. It’s juried in, so if you’d like a submissions package, you can register for one here. It will be a blast, and we’ve worked out a way whereby you can learn a little from each of us, and a lot from one particular mentor.

And last but not least, community member Melora Fern released this beautiful debut on May 16th, so it’s not too late to wish her book a happy birthday! I am always so pleased and proud to see one of our community get a first (or seventeenth) book over the line. Big congrats, Melora, and let us know how it goes!