Tom Cho is a tease. He teases. (I tease.)
Yes, that’s him on the cover of his debut short story collection, Look Who’s Morphing. Is that his real hair? What’s that mark on his face? Is that a scar? Watch my edited interview below to find out…
Cho called me from his bedroom in Toronto where he’s staying until the end of June. Born and raised in Australia, where Look Who’s Morphing was originally published, Cho’s applied for permanent residency in Canada. He’d been coming to Toronto, on and off, for about a year. “I initially came for a artist residency,” he says, “but I really came to like the city. … Right from the beginning, it became a part of my artistic practice.”
While our nation awaits for his ‘adoption’ papers to go through, he’ll be doing readings across the country, six in May alone. From Toronto, he’ll go to Waterloo, Ottawa, Winnipeg before joining three other writers in Vancouver for Asian Heritage Month. “This is going to be the first time for me, because we don’t have Asian Heritage Month in Australia. … I’m excited about that.”
Tom Cho has six cross-Canada readings in May, including Waterloo on May 6, Ottawa on May 15, and Winnipeg on May 23.
It ends in Vancouver, B.C., on May 30 with an Asian Heritage Month reading with Doretta Lau, Nancy Lee and Kevin Chong at Pulpfiction Books (2422 Main St.) from 7 to 9 p.m.
Tom Cho’s short stories “Learning English” and “Dinner with My Brother,” now collected in Look Who’s Morphing, were published in issue 18.4 (Spring 2013) of Ricepaper magazine. Read an excerpt of “Learning English.” Buy a copy of the issue.
Tom Cho began writing creative works in his mid-teens. He has a PhD in Professional Writing from Deakin University and, alongside his work as a fiction writer, he has a parallel career as a freelance writer and editor. His work has been described as being “transgenre, transgender, and transcultural all at once.” Born and raised in Australia, Tom is a newcomer to North America. Look Who’s Morphing is Tom’s first book.