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BR near and far!	Wing Tek Lum's advice	The Breath of Tides
Wing Tek Lum's advice: "Don't do it!"	Wing Tek Lum's advice: "Don't do it!"	Wing Tek Lum's advice: "Don't do it!"

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NEW SPECIAL ISSUE

In the Company of Strangers
Michelle Cruz Skinner

Sixteen deceptively simple stories comprise Michelle Cruz Skinner’s much-anticipated follow-up to Balikbayan and Mango Seasons, many of them about Filipinos tongue-tied and alienated in the motherland, or scattered across the map of heartaches and homesickness in the company of strangers called countrymen, family, lovers. A book of quiet gems definitely worth the wait. - R. Zamora Linmark, author of Prime Time Apparitions and The Evolution of a Sigh

The essential subject of these captivating stories is memory, but memory filtered by what cannot–or even should not–be said. The corrosive effects of a secret history, the burdens of understanding, are limned through stories both spare and lyrical. In a way, these stories tell a kind of love story: the love of a daughter for a heritage that, even while suppressed or denied, can never be erased. - Marianne Villanueva, author of Ginseng and Other Tales from Manila and Mayor of the Roses: Stories

Michelle Cruz Skinner shows us again that exile sometimes captures the body and sometime the heart; she writes closely about love and life in a family and we see that distance, longing, and desire all can contribute to the things misplaced in translation. - Ron Carlson, author of Five Skies and The Signal

Evocatively written. Deftly offers how life can unfold as a series of uncertain transitions. But redemption can surface when one realizes through these stories how much we share with each other. - Eileen Tabios, author of Novel Chatelaine

NEW REGULAR ISSUE

Issue 94
Bamboo Ridge

With the work of more than 30 writers, this issue of BAMBOO RIDGE opens with the work of the Editors’ Choice Awards winners, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán for poetry, Tyler Miranda for prose, and Janine Oshiro for new BR writer. Each will receive a $100 prize in addition to the author honorarium.

The award winners are followed by “Not Pau Yet,” a special section of selections from works in progress, excerpts from book-length manuscripts by Jeffrey Carroll, Lee Cataluna, J. Freen, Ann Inoshita, Juliet S. Kono, Alexei Melnick, and Kahikahealani Wight.

Featured artist in this issue is Fred H. Roster, professor of Art and Art History at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. The veteran sculptor’s work has always been provocative, humorous, and inventive. A portfolio of his work is accompanied by an insightful article by Lisa A. Yoshihara, Director of the UH Art Gallery.

Also included in this anthology, new work by Juliet S. Kono, Wing Tek Lum, Joseph Stanton, Brenda Kwon, and Michael Little, as well as two intimate poems by Bamboo Ridge Press co-founder and poetry editor Eric Chock’s wife, Ghislaine D. Chock.

RECENT SPECIAL ISSUE

Islands Linked by Ocean
Lisa Linn Kanae

From the author of SISTA TONGUE come stories written with humor and compassion that give voice to characters who find themselves at crossroad moments where past informs present, young teach old, and love can mean holding on or letting go. In “The Steersman,” a novice paddler shares her tempestuous yet life-affirming introduction to the tradition of outrigger canoe paddling: “…in the canoe, we were nameless. We were numbers, and when we weren’t numbers, we were random expletives—scrub, donkey, idiot, stupid, jackass, lame ass, dumb ass....” In “Born Again Hawaiian,” a young husband discovers how the personal impacts the political when his activist wife shows him how he must fight for what he loves most. And what happens when three local women take in the opera? “Dat suckah Pavarotti—he get um.”

The stories in this collection are familiar, like family. And like the father and daughter in the title story, the stories in ISLANDS LINKED BY OCEAN are “told and retold until the words swim through the listener’s veins and turn into blood.”

RECENT BLOGS

LATEST BAMBOO SHOOTS ENTRIES

Persistent Noise Published by CONNIED | Friday, February 05, 2010 7:08 PM	Kona Blast Published by CONNIED | Tuesday, January 26, 2010 5:29 PM Cherita is the Malay word for story or tale. A Cherita consists of a single stanza of a one-line verse, followed by a two-line verse, and then finishing with a three-line verse. It can either be written solo or with up to three partners.
Haikus: O'ahu Morning Skies Published by LEILANIOLANAI | Thursday, February 04, 2010 9:54 AM Five diverse mornings...	Cinderella Shoes Published by ERIC KIMURA | Sunday, January 17, 2010 11:26 AM
Pele’s Faith Published by CONNIED | Wednesday, February 03, 2010 5:34 PM A poem about doubt and faith	When Did We Get to Be So Old? Published by ERIC KIMURA | Sunday, January 17, 2010 11:20 AM I was surprised to hear of the death of an old Boy Scout buddy. When I went to the funeral, I was even more struck how all of us former scouts had aged and matured. The thought ran through my mind was if we could have predicted how each of us would have turned out. E. Kimura
Word Play Published by CONNIED | Wednesday, February 03, 2010 5:32 PM Use the following VERBS to write a poem or story- Racket, Snug, Green, Spoon, Boggle, Snake	Determining GOOD Published by CONNIED | Saturday, January 16, 2010 5:40 PM

READ MORE BAMBOO SHOOTS ENTRIES >>

BAMBOO RIDGE MEDIA

IMAGES Photos and images by BAMBOORIDGE.COM members. Bamboo Ridge authors at Native Books MIA reading flyer BR under Buddha's eyes! Bamboo Ridge in Nepal!	PODCASTS Podcasts and audio by or discovered by BAMBOORIDGE.COM members. The Bodysurfers - Eric Chock Eric Chock reads THE BODYSURFERS from his book, LAST DAYS HERE. Urban Gardening - Eric Chock Eric Chock reads URBAN GARDENING from his book, LAST DAYS HERE. Ghislaine's Quilt - Eric Chock Eric Chock reads GHISLAINE'S QUILT from his book, LAST DAYS HERE. Strawberries - Eric Chock Eric Chock reads WORKING CONSTRUCTION from his book, LAST DAYS HERE. Working Construction - Eric Chock Eric Chock reads WORKING CONSTRUCTION from his book, LAST DAYS HERE. Joe Tsujimoto, Morningside Heights, at Punahou Joe Tsujimoto reads from his collection of short stories that chronicles the life of a Japanese American born on the edge of Harlem after his family moved to New York following internment during World War II	VIDEOS Videos by or discovered by BAMBOORIDGE.COM members. Wing Tek Lum's advice: "Don't do it!" Wing Tek Lum and Marie Hara were interviewed by Waianae High School's Searider Productions for the Hawaii Institute for Public Affairs (HIPA). BR editors Eric Chock and Darrell Lum will receive one of HIPA's leadership awards in the Culture and Arts category at a dinner at the Hilton Hawn Village Coral Ballroom, 5 pm, on Feb. 24, 2010. For more info contact HIPA, 585-7931. A Journey to the West A Lawrence Chen Film. A rural cobbler finally earns enough money to travel to Beijing, and what he discovers there is a world completely unlike his own. Ha Kam Wi Tawk Pidgin Yet? Part 3 of 3 Note: the title is spelled using Odo orthography. One story in Lee Tonouchi's collection [i]Da Word[/i] is written using Odo orthography. For more information contact the Sato Center for Pidgin, Creole, and Dialect Studies at UHM [url]http://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/index.html[/url] Ha Kam Wi Tawk Pidgin Yet? Part 2 of 3 Written,performed, and produced by students in Waianae HS Searider Productions class. Funded by the Hawaii Council for the Humanities. Ha Kam Wi Tawk Pidgin Yet? Part 1 of 3 A video project by Waianae HS Searider Productions and UHM Sato Center for Pidgin, Creole, & Dialect Studies.	DOCUMENTS Past issues of BRidges and other Bamboo Ridge documents. MIA reading flyer BRidges Newsletter - December 2009 Michelle Cruz Skinner Reading at Native Books BR #94 Author Party at Native Books Cruz Skinner UH reading flyer Issue 94 - UH Launch Flyer Issue 94 - UH Launch Flyer Cruz Skinner - Punahou and UH Flyer Flier for Michelle Cruz Skinner event at Punahou and UH.