Phong Quan

Had a great time chatting books & Buddhism with @champwongs.bsky.social & @megancheewrites.bsky.social! Check out Champ's @reactorsff.bsky.social story “Where the Hell is Nirvana?” for a hilarious story about a deva hacking karma points with the best-researched Buddhist cosmology I've seen in SFF.

Had such a fun time hosting the incredible @aijiang.bsky.social, @megancheewrites.bsky.social, @elianeboey.bsky.social and @vivianlicreates.bsky.social here in Singapore last week! Also lol at out our co-typewritting story attempt. 😂

The #2026IgnyteAwards for Outstanding Fiction Podcast recognizes excellence in audio performance and production for speculative fiction. Congratulations again, @khoreo.bsky.social

I go on about 🕷🥩Small Bites🥩🕷 and genre. Thank you for inviting me, Renan!

INFECTION POINTS by Elena Pavlova is out in November and I am totally biased because I'm the editor for this novella BUT it's such an excellent & very different vampire story. I've loved it since I read it in slush, and after reading it 1000 times through edits, I love it even more.

Everything is happening all at once. The paperback edition of my collection CONVERGENCE PROBLEMS is out today! If you missed it when it came out in hardcover, nows your chance. Also, its a great way to warm up for my new novel THE FIST OF MEMORY which comes out in just one month!

I published a short story this year in @uncannymagazine.bsky.social that I'm really proud of. It's about the attention economy, flavors of provocation, and what a superhero would even look like if it was invented today. It starts with a dare.

In the light of Seven Sea's recent acquisition of Priest's 天涯客 Faraway Wanderers (WoH), reiterating what I've been saying for years, her other Wuxia Legend of Fei is one of contemporary works in the genre, and I'd love to be able to give it an official English translation. #books #sff #Chinese

Same goes for authors. You don't have to buy expensive hardcovers of our books. You can request them from your local library, tell your book clubs about them, read and review on netgalley, share and repost covers and quotes. These are things I'm encouraging people to do for THE FIST OF MEMORY.

ICYMI Thanks @fantasybookcritic.bsky.social for hosting the exclusive cover reveal of Chinese #sff anthology China + 100, in which we ask 10 of China's top #scifi and other genre writers to imagine the world 100 years after covid19. #books. fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2026/08/excl...

It's my birthday and I'd love for you to gift yourself (or a friend) a copy of my first book child, TELL ME YOURS, I'LL TELL YOU MINE. Nathan Ballingrud calls it "creepy, touching, grotesque, and beautiful." Stephen Graham Jones says it's filled with magic tricks!

Tis the UK pub day for 🪷☁️An Empire in the Clouds☁️🪷👀🥳‼️ * @titanbooks.bsky.social 💫

Ideas are dust, wind, air.

The 2026 Hugo Award for Best Editor, Long Form goes to Diana M. Pho.

Congrats @thomasha.bsky.social!!

"This Is What You Came For" by @pqwrites.bsky.social plays with time and space in such an interesting way--the integration of music and narrative is impressively satisfying. the setting/detail work is really well done too www.khoreomag.com/fiction/this...

Finally have a breather to catch up on my reading and I resubscribed to @locusmag.bsky.social just so I can read @mariahaskins.com’s short fiction reviews. It’s hard for me to keep up with all the great stories coming out and I’m never disappointed with her recommendations. Please check them out!

SO EXCITED FOR THIS!!!

Reading more for ESEA Heritage Month, @pqwrites.bsky.social space opera re. war trauma, connection and belonging. Loved the 2nd person duo narration, BAME and non-human main characters, diaspora Vietnamese angle. More of this imagination and writing please. www.castofwonders.org/2020/12/cast...

OMG thank you @witchywonderer.bsky.social, that's an amazing article online.ucpress.edu/sfs/article/...

Catching up with @pqwrites.bsky.social and Coco, and gossiping about... I mean discussing publishing 🫢

I haven’t been able to write much this year, but one thing I’m proud of is working with my mom to translate/edit a book on Vipassana meditation by the Venerable Khippapañño Kim Trieu. It’s a great, practical guide grounded in Buddhist philosophy. Check it out! thichcathienvien.net/en/ebook-the...

The lone mooncake I was able to steal from my work pantry because nobody got budget to send me mooncakes for Mid Autumn Festival this year. 🥲

Me rocking my 4 Immortals of VN shirt with @nghivo.bsky.social, my literary hero & the 5th immortal to me! Thank you for being so gracious with my fanboying. Your writing helped me believe that my Viet-American ass has a chance to write & meeting you was a highlight of the Nebulas. 🙏

Had such a great time at the Nebulas in Pasadena last weekend. Thanks to all the cool, amazing people who let lil’ ol’ me hang out with them & congrats to all the finalists. You inspire me to keep pushing my own writing forward & I can’t wait to see you again. ♥️

Finally back in NYC! Huge congrats to all the Nebula winners! Beyond honored to have spent time with you all 🙏🏻 Special thanks to @pqwrites.bsky.social @aijiang.bsky.social @rachaelkjones.bsky.social and all the amazing writers who helped this introvert from feeling overwhelmed at her first con 💙

One of the most exciting things about going back to the U.S. for me is getting a chance to experience all the Cheetos innovation. New packaging?? Xxtra Flamin’ Hot?? Take my money!! 🤤

Back in California & jetlagged af for @sfwa.bsky.social’s #Nebulas2024! 💀 Lmk if you want to meet up! I’ll also be on one panel on Friday 6/7, 3-4pm: “The Rise of South & Southeast Asian SFF”, with @rajeevwriter.bsky.social & Avani Gadani, moderated by S.B. Divya. Hope to see some of you there!

“He taps its gleaming hull and the ship hurtles through the bedroom... dripping on rainy days, sizzling on the hot ones. Alberto calls it Offy.” Love this @diabolicalplots.com story by @renanbernardo.bsky.social about a child & their ship. A moving coming-of-age & beyond story full of love & life.

Pssst. Slay and Slay Again!, an anthology containing my first published story is now available for digital preorders at Amazon. If the ‘zon isn’t your thing, check out the quotes thread as more options become available. Official release date is July 31st!

This is ridiculous. This press is asking for "first right of refusal for adaptation rights (film, graphic novels, etc.) of the work for a period of 3 years from the signing date." THREE YEARS. Run, don't submit, don't sign this. Such a bad thing for writers. www.emberletterpress.com/submissions

“The ink traces its own black veins, ancient circuits across a new body, your body.” Tense and unsettling flash by @angelaliu.bsky.social in @uncannymagazine.bsky.social about making deadly supernatural deals. Love the gorgeous prose that viscerally seeps into you like the namesake cursed ink. ✍️

If you also feel existential anxiety, it's okay to put your phone down and do something nice instead. Your anxiety makes literally no difference in whatever happens. Your focus and dread is not a magic wand that will stop bad things from being worse if you just keep staring at bad things.

Get a whole-ass jug of this insane but surprisingly smooth 女儿红 (red daughter) drink at Magazine 63, the coolest speakeasy in Penang, to feel like a wandering wuxia warrior. ⚔️

“My son tells me that there’s a man in the house, someone he hears well after the lights are out…” A brilliant flash by @thomasha.bsky.social in @lightspeedmagazine.com about a strange haunting passed through generations. Loved its unnerving creepiness juxtaposed with parental tenderness.

“She could never turn down chasing a pretty, expensive thing.” This is a fun, fast-paced heist story with a sky-race thrown in, full of likable thieves resisting their better judgments. A charming @clarkesworldmagazine.com story by @reasie.bsky.social I really enjoyed. 💙

Visited Kek Lok Si, the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia. The Buddhist nerd in me finds it fascinating that though the temple’s name means supreme bliss in Hokkien and is a reference to the pure land of the buddha Amitabha, its defining feature is the giant statue of the bodhisattva Guanyin. 🤔

“Once there lived a princess who was a girl, a corpse, a slippery amphibial nymph.” What a gorgeously written & twisted anti-fairy tale by @emelkrishnan.bsky.social in Strange Horizons about a princess who’s not who she seems escaping her forced marriage in a shocking way. 🔥

Monkey King sightings in Penang. I’m only mildly surprised that a purely fictional (vs mythological) character gets whole ass temples/shrines devoted to him.

Accurate representation of my TBR: lots of wine and food, but never made it to chapter 2.

Discovered that there’s a shrine to the local Chinese tutelary deity (a sort of very local neighborhood god) in the back of Tanjong Pagar plaza. I lit incense & prayed for inspiration for my next story & for my enemies to always hit every red light on their way to work.

“You’re sending me thoughts and you’re insulting me? And…and yet you want me to clean your belly?” This line about sums up “Copper”, a short & charming @interzone.press story about a feisty robot talking to their human by @jendiagammon.bsky.social that left me smiling. Give it your consideration!

“The soups we sometimes salt with our tears are too bland for the guests’ tastes. Meals we top with our insomnia are not energizing enough.” Haunting @interzone.press story about a strange hotel that tugs at you familiarily until you realize w/ horror what it’s about. Classic @aijiang.bsky.social!

Yo! Congratulations Vajra! A well deserved win. Its an amazing shortlist and I'm proud to have even been on it with you, B. Pladek, Emma Törzs, and Juhani Karila. Wonderful indeed.