Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 12:45PM Here's a fresh look at my interview on RTHK Radio 3 as posted on their Bookmark Website. Click on this link: http://app1.rthk.org.hk/special/bookmarks/interviews_list.php. Enjoy!
Monday, January 18, 2010 at 04:21AM An account of my writer's journey is published in the Editorial Page of the January 18, 2010 issue of Hong Kong's Cairns Media Magazine -- http://www.cairnsmedia.com/Archives%20-%20Editorial_Woman-of-Words-Reveals-Literary-Influences_01182010.html. The article is based on my talk and responses to questions at the Author's Event organized by the Women in Publishing Society in Hong Kong, on January 11, 2010.
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 03:01PM 
Elsie signing a book at the Author's Event on January 11th, 2010, at the FCC in Hong Kong
The Author's Event for my new novel, The Heart of the Buddha, held at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong on January 11th, 2010, was a success, thanks to the Women in Publishing Society, Hong Kong, which organized the event, and to all my friends who came out to support me. To them all, I am very grateful. Below is my introductory presentation for the evening.
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The reason for this evening is my new novel, The Heart of the Buddha. And so, for the formal part of my presentation, I’ll be talking mainly about it. I first conceived the idea of writing a novel set in Bhutan in 2000, when I went there the first time with my husband Michael who was on a foreign-aid consulting assignment there. On that first trip, I was quite smitten by the tiny kingdom and decided then and there that my next book would be about Bhutan. At the time, I was still working on my first novel Hui Gui. In 2002, I returned to Bhutan with Michael, for almost 3 weeks, mainly to do research for the new novel. I was lucky to engage a great guide, Kesang, the same guide we had on our first visit. Through his help, I was able to interview Buddhist monks and lamas. Michael and I trekked the foothills of the Himalayas, and spent time with a family in their home in the hills.
I have to confess that when I went to Bhutan for my research, I only had a vague skeleton of the main plot: about a North American woman going to Bhutan and falling in love with a Buddhist monk there. With the information I had gathered from that trip, and from books on Bhutan I had read, I plotted the details of my story. You might say I was doing things in reverse, shaping the story with the experiences and knowledge I had gathered from my research, instead of knowing ahead of time what I wanted. I was making use of all my gathered ingredients to bake the cake, not knowing how the cake would turn out. It worked for me that time, because Bhutan is such an exotic, mystifying country that anything about it would enhance my story. I took just over a year to put the first version of the manuscript on my laptop. It was 2004. Meanwhile, Hui Gui was published in 2005, and I was busy promoting it. I set The Heart of the Buddha aside for a couple of years, then took it out again, rewrote some, and edited a lot. I had no qualms about sharing different versions of the manuscript with my writing and reading friends – what I was writing was no secret. Particularly, I am part of a Writers’ Group in Toronto, just seven of us, a very close-knit group, and I received a lot of constructive suggestions from them. Finally, late in 2008, I decided the novel was ready to see the light of day.
The novel is different things to different people. There is no denying that it’s a love story, but it can also be an adventure, a mystery, and even a travelogue to a very special, exotic place that many have not been to, and some have not heard about. At the same time, it can be considered a novel about a journey, both physical and spiritual. In short, one can read a lot into it, or just take it as pure entertainment. Above all, I have enjoyed writing it. Creating it is pure joy, one of the most rewarding and self-satisfying experiences of a lifetime. I only hope my readers will enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
Sunday, November 8, 2009 at 11:20PM WomensRadio.com has a new posting of The Heart of the Buddha: http://www.womensradio.com/content/templates/?a=4196&z=13.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 04:37PM The review of The Heart of the Buddha in InTheFray Magazine has just been posted. Here's the link: Chick lit, Bhutan style - InTheFray Magazine.