Our Friend is Here! Asian Heritage Month Edition – A Conversation with Sylvia Bi, Publishing Design Assistant, On the Joy of Diversity in Fanart

Our Friend is Here! is a guest feature at The Quiet Pond, where authors, creatives, and fellow readers, are invited to ‘visit’ the Pond! In Our Friend is Here! guest posts, our visitors (as their very own unique character!) have a friendly conversation about anything related to books or being a reader — and become friends with Xiaolong and friends.

Asian Heritage Month Edition is a month-long event at The Quiet Pond, where Asian authors and bookish content creators are invited to celebrate being Asian, Asian books, and the experiences of being an Asian reader. (Note: Here is an explanation of why we are calling this guest series ‘Asian Heritage Month’.)

Hello friends! Welcome to our last round of posts for Asian Heritage Month here at the Pond. Today we’re changing tracks a little from our usual bookish tune, and talking about fanart from the margins! Art is undoubtedly one of the pillars of the reading community—I know I’m always overjoyed to find some good good art of my favorite bookish characters. And recently we’ve also been seeing bookish fanart pop up more and more around the industry too, in places like pre-order promo swag and book subscription box perks. As this happens, it’s also important to acknowledge the role of fanart in increasing visible representation and diversity in books as well!

Our Friend is Here! Asian Heritage Month Edition – Mackenzie, Bookstagrammer and Book Blogger at Colour Me Read, Discusses The Girl From Everywhere – Both The Book & Herself

Our Friend is Here! is a guest feature at The Quiet Pond, where authors, creatives, and fellow readers, are invited to ‘visit’ the Pond! In Our Friend is Here! guest posts, our visitors (as their very own unique character!) have a friendly conversation about anything related to books or being a reader — and become friends with Xiaolong and friends.

Asian Heritage Month Edition is a month-long event at The Quiet Pond, where Asian authors and bookish content creators are invited to celebrate being Asian, Asian books, and the experiences of being an Asian reader. (Note: Here is an explanation of why we are calling this guest series ‘Asian Heritage Month’.)

Asian identity within itself is so incredibly diverse. From having cultural roots to East Asia to West Asia, to being part of diaspora, to the various ways Asians connect to their identities by family, history, language, or food, there is no ‘singular’ way to be Asian and to embody Asianness. Another layer to Asian identity is being part of a mixed race family where one of your cultural roots comes from Asia, which comes with its unique challenges, dynamics, and ways mixed race Asians connect to their identity.

Our Friend is Here! Asian Heritage Month Edition – Charvi, Book Blogger at Not Just Fiction, On Authors of Colour Inserting Different Languages in Their Books

Our Friend is Here! is a guest feature at The Quiet Pond, where authors, creatives, and fellow readers, are invited to ‘visit’ the Pond! In Our Friend is Here! guest posts, our visitors (as their very own unique character!) have a friendly conversation about anything related to books or being a reader — and become friends with Xiaolong and friends.

Asian Heritage Month Edition is a month-long event at The Quiet Pond, where Asian authors and bookish content creators are invited to celebrate being Asian, Asian books, and the experiences of being an Asian reader. (Note: Here is an explanation of why we are calling this guest series ‘Asian Heritage Month’.)

As highlighted across the anecdotes and stories shared during our Asian Heritage Month guest feature series, representation can be validating, bring immeasurable joy, and even life-changing. The ways that readers can see themselves can vary – it can be as simple as the inclusion of characters from marginalised identities or it can be something a little more complex and nuanced like portraying experiences that are often unique to such identities.

Our Friend is Here! Asian Heritage Month Edition – Ikram, Book Blogger at Readlogy, On Her Experiences of Being a South-East Asian Reader

Our Friend is Here! is a guest feature at The Quiet Pond, where authors, creatives, and fellow readers, are invited to ‘visit’ the Pond! In Our Friend is Here! guest posts, our visitors (as their very own unique character!) have a friendly conversation about anything related to books or being a reader — and become friends with Xiaolong and friends.

Asian Heritage Month Edition is a month-long event at The Quiet Pond, where Asian authors and bookish content creators are invited to celebrate being Asian, Asian books, and the experiences of being an Asian reader. (Note: Here is an explanation of why we are calling this guest series ‘Asian Heritage Month’.)

Something that I have reflected on a lot in the last few years has been the differential privileges of being a bookish content creator living in either the US, UK, or Australia and those who live outside these countries. In the last few years, book bloggers who live outside the US, UK, and Australia – which I’ll henceforth collectively call ‘international book bloggers’ – have been outspoken about the obstacles and challenges that they face.

Our Friend is Here! Asian Heritage Month Edition – May Cho, Malaysian Brunei-Based Booktuber, On Why Representation Matters to Her

Our Friend is Here! is a guest feature at The Quiet Pond, where authors, creatives, and fellow readers, are invited to ‘visit’ the Pond! In Our Friend is Here! guest posts, our visitors (as their very own unique character!) have a friendly conversation about anything related to books or being a reader — and become friends with Xiaolong and friends.

Asian Heritage Month Edition is a month-long event at The Quiet Pond, where Asian authors and bookish content creators are invited to celebrate being Asian, Asian books, and the experiences of being an Asian reader. (Note: Here is an explanation of why we are calling this guest series ‘Asian Heritage Month’.)

One of the understated effects of representation that most marginalised readers will know is that seeing yourself on the page can create an unexpected domino effect: when you finally find a book that’s a mirror into your identity and your experiences, it creates an insatiable hunger to find even more mirrors. Several of the guests in our Asian Heritage Month guest feature series have spoken about what it means to reflect on the lack of Asian characters in literature — but what if the idea of having an Asian character never even crossed your mind?