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| Editorial | |
| Christine Lee Zilka, Fiction Editor | |
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| Editorial | |
| Christine Lee Zilka, Fiction Editor | |
Issue No. 3, my first issue as fiction editor with Kartika has gone to print!
I've read all the submissions, "gone through the slush pile," as editors like to say. As a fellow writer myself, I was more than aware of the work and heart that went into each manuscript--and did my best to take care with my decisions. Did my best to send out mercifully short, but kind, rejection letters to those who submitted. Did my best to let some of you know to please submit other work to us. And did my best to ask questions of Yiyun Li that you too, might like to ask.
When I was in my MFA program, my writing life centered on the workshop, which involved reading other manuscripts, coming to a table, and critiquing the manuscripts. More often than not, over the years, I've learned more from reading the manuscripts of other writers than from having my own manuscript critiqued.
And so I have that opportunity as an editor. I've learned. There are a ton of Asian American voices--that the Diaspora is huge. We aren't just represented by our pioneers Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan anymore but by a multitude of writers and experiences.
In this issue alone, Ruchika Tomar writes about a drive up the I-5, painting a portrait of words. And Kelly Luce walks bravely and successfully into the frontier of writing characters of another race. And I love Jason Koo’s poem about equating “misery with comfort” (oh and so much more) at McDonald’s. There’s Rohan Mulgaonkar’s poem set in Bombay and Dina Omar’s poem set in Baghdad. McDonald’s, Bombay, Baghdad. Awesome. And essays, a genre we have come to know as being grounded in reality, show us the wide spectrum of the Asian American experience: Hauquan Chau talks about Asian names and Lewis Leong writes about a survivor of the Vietnam Communist regime. Then there's Yiyun Li, author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and the imminent novel The Vagrants. She talks to us about her experience as a writer.
Another thing discovered in workshop was that somehow, each week had some common thread between the pieces being workshopped--and so I see in this issue too, some commonalities. A large number of UC Irvine alum, for one; we were surprised when we started receiving the bios from writers of accepted pieces.
Still despite the common threads, the voices are vast, the methodology and execution of themes different.
And what's most thrilling--are the risks that people have taken. The risks are being taken now because of the pioneers like Kingston and Tan and David Wong Louie who have laid the foundation down for Asian American literature. Who are you? Who are we now, over 20 years and a writing generation later?
I'd like to hear from more of you writing the Asian experience.
I have great hopes and visions for Kartika Review. May Asian American Literature continue to be vast and rich and provocative.
Best,
CHRISTINE LEE ZILKA
