Vanessa Hua presents her debut collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities, in conversation with ZYZZYVA editor Oscar Villalon. The characters in these stories vividly illustrate the conflict between self and society, tradition and change: a Hong Kong movie idol flees a sex scandal; an obedient daughter lies about attending Stanford; a Chinatown elder is summoned to his ancestral village, and a Korean-American pastor hides a secret agenda. Hua explores the clash of cultures and the complex, shifting allegiances we carry with us as we make our way forward in a new land. Deceit and Other Possibilities marks the emergence of a remarkable new writer.
Vanessa Hua has appeared in The Atlantic, New York Times, FRONTLINE/World, Washington Post, and elsewhere. Previously, she was a staff writer at the San Francisco Chronicle, and has filed stories from China, South Korea, Panama, Burma and Ecuador. She received a 2015 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, the San Francisco Foundation's Phelan Award for Fiction, and is a former Steinbeck Fellow in Fiction at San Jose State University. Her novel, A River of Stars, is forthcoming from Ballantine.
Oscar Villalon is the managing editor of ZYZZVA, the former books editor at the San Francisco Chronicle and a member of the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle. His writing has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review and The Believer.
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