How Writing a Short Story Can Improve a Novel-in-Progress
By Cindy Fazzi
Writing short stories can help establish your credentials as a fiction writer. It will give you much-needed exposure to editors, literary agents, and readers. Read the article
Cindy Fazzi's page-turning debut thriller, Multo--first in a planned series--delves into the plight of undocumented immigrants. The moral issues around deportation are explored through Filipino American Domingo, who equally believes in his career while also feeling ethically conflicted by it. Read the article.
What Hollywood Gets Wrong About the Bounty Hunting Business
By Cindy Fazzi
Whether it’s Clint Eastwood or Robert De Niro, the bounty hunter on screens large and small is usually a gun-toting white guy. The business, like life, is more complicated. Read the article.
Fall Into These 17 New Mystery, Thrillers, True Crime for September 2023
Clearly, in an effort to keep you stocked with mystery, thrillers, and true crime, this fall publishing is releasing a ton of crime books to read in September. I made sure to find a wide array of tropes and subgenres to have something for a variety of reading tastes. Read the article.
SAN FRANCISCO — Filipino American author Cindy Fazzi is releasing her new thriller Multo, featuring Fil-Am bounty hunter Domingo, who trails undocumented immigrants while writing an advice book for those aspiring to live in the US. Read the story.
Death By Heat
Short Fiction by Cindy Fazzi
His eyes were closed, but his mouth hung open as though crying for help. He had dark, curly hair and scaly skin the color of the earth. He was in his teens.
Cory Hidalgo, an ER nurse, was only a few years younger than this poor soul when she herself immigrated to this country. Same brown skin and black hair, a similar faith in the American Dream, except he was dead and she was of no help. Read the story.
8 Books About the Impact of Japanese Imperialism
During World War II
Works of fiction that capture the realities of Japan’s occupation of other Asian nations
By Cindy Fazzi
My native Philippines was colonized three times – by Spain for 370 years, by the United States for 48 years, and by Japan for four years. While the Japanese occupation was the shortest, from 1942 to 1945 during World War II, it proved to be the most brutal. Read the article.
I Used to Think Werner Herzog Was Brilliant
But his novel, “The Twilight World,” set in the Philippines without Filipino characters, changed my mind.
I Needed to Know if My Favorite Books Were Products of Cultural Appropriation
By Cindy Fazzi
Growing up in Manila, my idea of certain countries was shaped primarily by novels. I equated John Steinbeck’s California novels with the United States, Pearl S. Buck (The Good Earth) with China, and E.M. Forster (A Passage to India) with India. The only “Mexican book” I could remember was Steinbeck’s The Pearl. What’s wrong with this picture? Read the article.
Seeing My Filipino Immigrant Self in Ellison’s “Invisible Man”
By Cindy Fazzi
As a Filipino American immigrant, I’ve always been aware of my invisibility. I perceived it when coworkers looked past me, when store clerks and waiters talked to my white companions instead of me, and when editors and literary agents told me Filipino stories were unsellable.
Assertiveness became my armor, and adaptability, my best weapon. When people ignored me, I redoubled my efforts to be heard and seen. At work, I didn’t wait around to be noticed, but presented my ideas proactively. In hotels and restaurants, I spoke directly to people who were not inclined to wait on me. As a novelist, I set aside my unmarketable Filipino stories and “adapted” by publishing romance books about white characters. Read the article.
Historical Novel Society:
Book Review by Viviane Crystal
The profiles of most famous men depict strong, intelligent, egocentric and determined personalities. Cindy Fazzi depicts the outcome of a personality trait too often ignored: shame. MacArthur’s desire for Isabel is surrounded by shame, which only exacerbates Isabel’s sense of unworthiness. My MacArthur is another aspect of this famous man’s career that deserves attention. Yes, it reads like a novel, but the reader gets so caught up in the story that it feels real and not fiction. Based on real facts, this is light but potent historical fiction. Read the review.
Historical Novel Highlights Douglas MacArthur’s Open Secret
By Richard Freedman, Community Editor
An article in the Times-Herald (Vallejo, Calif.) puts the spotlight on Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s little-known love affair in the 1930s with Isabel Rosario Cooper, a young Filipino actress. “Though Cooper’s existence is not a secret, it’s hardly front row center anywhere until ‘My MacArthur,” according to the story, referring to the historical novel by Filipino-American author Cindy Fazzi. Read more.
3 Career Reinvention Tips From A Reporter Turned Romance Writer
By Cindy Fazzi
It took 20 years to build the Great Pyramid. It took me almost as long to break into the cutthroat book publishing industry. It might have taken even longer if not for the improbable combination of Tom Hardy, Italy, and the moxie to reinvent my writing career. Read more.
How to Choose Your Novel’s Title: Let Me Count 5 Ways
By Cindy Fazzi
Would you buy a book called Trimalchio in West Egg? Scribner didn’t—the publisher asked F. Scott Fitzgerald to change the title of his novel, which we all know as The Great Gatsby. Readers judge a book not only by its cover but its title. I thought I knew that already from the famous Fitzgerald anecdote, until my publisher asked me to change my book title. Read more.
Interview with Radio 4EB (Brisbane, Australia)
These are excerpts from an interview with Cindy Fazzi, author of the historical novel, MY MACARTHUR, conducted by Art and Riz Cruz of Radio 4EB in Brisbane, Australia. The interviewed aired on Sept. 2, 2020, 9 p.m.