9 Years of Lola By the Bay and 2022 Year in Review

It all comes down to this. The fanfare of the holiday season is winding down as champagne is slowly but surely being stalked up for the stroke of midnight tonight. Resolutions are being jotted down and vision boards are being crafted together, with the hopes of some of them actually manifesting by this time in a year. 2023 is now less so of a concept and now hours away from becoming our reality.

But before 2022 bows out altogether, I wanted to make sure I had my retrospective for this ninth(?!?!?) year of my website written down and ready to ponder for those who  may have missed any of what happened, or to read and go, “That happened this year?”

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Looking Back on A Decade of Writing (Part 2)

Note: The following is a continuation from last week’s post. To read the first part, check it out here.

Exploring Authentic Stories at the Filipino American International Book Festival

For reasons predictable by now, it’s been a hot minute since I last was at a book festival; whether as an attendee or as a participant. To have seen book conventions like BookExpo shut down in recent years, as well as a recent surge in book banning in different parts of the country, books feel particularly precious now more than ever — especially those authored by historically underrepresented communities.

In Collaboration with This Asian American Life: The Making of “My Journey with Journals”

So as I had mentioned last week, I have never written a comic book or a graphic novel before… but as of this week, I can say that I have written a web comic. I teased this project back in February, but for those who missed it, on Thursday, my collaboration with This Asian American Life (TAAL) was released, in the form of a comic commemorating 20 years of journaling called “My Journey with Journals.”

What Did I Miss?: March 2022

Published Works

Depths of Unexpected Emotions Unravel in Kogonada’s ‘After Yang’– For The Nerds of Color, I break down my observations and thoughts about this director’s second feature film.

“Turning Red” Animators on Anime Influences and Working with Domee Shi – For the Center for Asian American Media, I spoke with two Pixar animators on what it was like to work on the studio’s 25th feature film.

Review of Hollywood Heroine by Sarah Kuhn – For Goodreads, I go over my general thoughts about the fifth entry into the Heroine Complex series.

Plays

Rainy Day Artistic Collective 2022 | Not in Kansas by Lauren Lola – Following the performances of the Halfway Historical Festival, the director of this very personal play gave it a home on her YouTube channel for audiences to continue to discover and, hopefully, learn from. Inspired by true events, two PhD students from the Philippines are on a road trip to New Orleans, when they experience the opposite of Southern hospitality at a rest stop in Mississippi.

Comics

My Journey with Journals – In collaboration with This Asian American Life, I look back on 20 years of journaling and how much it has shaped my life. (The companion personal essay can be read on the TAAL website.)

The Coming and Consulting of “Jemini” – A “Lumpia with a Vengeance” Spin-Off Comic

Okay, so here’s something a little different, but also pretty fun, and the best part is that this marks a first for me. So check this out:

5 Things I Haven’t Written, But Would Like To

Ever since I made the decision several years ago to start taking my writing more seriously, I’ve managed to have written quite a number of projects since then. I’ve written novels, short fiction, plays, films, and the occasional poem or two. However, there is still so much more that I have not written that I would like to try my hand at eventually, and a lot of those mediums are collaborative. As I’ve been told time and time again, the first step to making something happen is by putting it out into the universe. Therefore, I would like to take today to run through five things I have not written, but would like to someday:

Long Live the King: Recommended Reading… and Remembering

I knew that I wanted to write something regarding the untimely loss about Chadwick Boseman, but the struggle came in the form of figuring out what to contribute that hasn’t already been said. After a while though, for me, it ultimately came down to the exploration of actors who died well before their time, and are forever commemorated for their storytelling in the more significant roles they played.