The Halo-Halo Review is pleased to interview authors in the aftermath of their books’ releases. This issue’s featured authors include Beverly Parayno.
What is your most recent book?
A debut short story collection, WILDFLOWERS.
Book Link: https://www.wildflowersbp.com/
Who published and when was it released?
May 27, 2023 by PAWA Press (Philippine American Writers and Artists)
What has been the response/what has surprised you most about the response?
The response has been wonderful. We are going into our third printing soon. I’m so grateful to readers, especially those who have reached out to say that they “devoured” the book in one day. Personally, I love the design by Peter Selgin but did not expect that people would be mesmerized by the book’s cover. This was my experience when I tabled at the Arts Pavilion at this year’s Pistahan Festival and other festivals. I suppose it’s a pretty book to have on your shelf, even if you don’t read the stories!
Another thing that has surprised me is the way I’ve let go of the book in many ways. I don’t see it as mine, but as its own entity that has embarked on its own journey. Everything I do to promote the book is to help it along this path.
Tell me something not obvious or known about the book.
Many of the stories are auto fiction. For example, “Wildflowers” was inspired by a real visit I made to an elderly white woman as a volunteer for a nonprofit in San Francisco that provides meals and gifts to lonely seniors on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’d volunteered for many years and met elderly people all over the city, but the visit with this woman affected me for a long time. None of the back story or dialogue in the story is real, but I do feel I captured the essence of how that brief interaction made me feel. Also, I realize now that the story has its roots in Raymond Carver’s story “Cathedral.”
Also not obvious: I wrote the stories over a period of sixteen years, with a break in between of about six or seven years. When PAWA Press said that they would publish my collection, I gathered what I felt were disparate stories, revised them and wrote a few new ones (“Surrender” and “Balikbayan”), and handed the manuscript to an editor—expecting to hear that what I had was not a cohesive collection. When she came back two weeks later to say that I indeed had a collection, I fully committed to the manuscript and to pushing each story to its potential.
What are you working on right now?
Between volunteer work, such as serving on the planning committee for the recent Filipino American Book Festival produced by PAWA and co-sponsored by the San Francisco Public Library, and a busy day job, it’s challenging to get the mental space I need to write. So I’m working on giving myself grace! But I do tend to write a lot in my head, so in a way it feels like I’m working. Mostly scenes from my teenage runaway memoir-in-progress set in San Jose and Hyde Park and Poughkeepsie NY in the mid- to late-1980s. It’s the one book I really must write.
*****
Beverly Parayno grew up in San Jose, California. Her debut short story collection WILDFLOWERS was shortlisted for the 43rd Annual Northern California Book Awards; winner of a 2024 IPPY Bronze Medal and a 2024 National Indie Excellence Award in AAPI Fiction; and finalist for the 2023 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award and the 2024 American Fiction Awards. A board member of PAWA and the Munster Literature Centre in Cork, Ireland, she lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
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