Recent News and Reviews
December 2014
"Every year Berkeleyside puts together a list of the best books the editors have read. We generally ask local authors and literary-minded folk to contribute their picks.
"Angie Chau is the author of Quiet As They Come, which was a finalist in First Fiction for The California Book Award and a finalist in Fiction for the Northern California Independent Booksellers' Award."
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December 2014
"If I were asked at gunpoint to choose only one book that I believed best represents the very heart and soul of Asian-American literature, I would answer, without hesitation, Quiet As They Come. The book is a prism between very complex and well-written characters and Chau sculpts them so well that within one reading I'll love and then resent them and then love them again."
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July 2013
"This year's writer-in-residence Angie Chau plans to encourage interaction among those who attend her one-day workshop on July 11 at Cal State Bakersfield. 'I hope that the workshop will serve as a spark to ignite their creative juices and that it will be just the start for them,' Chau said. 'Every single one of us has a story to tell.'"
Event Details: Cal State University Bakersfield, July 11, 10am-4pm
Participants must sign up in advance.
Please click here to apply for this workshop.
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June 2013
"The immigrant experience is a rich and deep well to draw from, and Angie Chau taps into it for her remarkable collection of short stories, Quiet As They Come, about growing up in San Francisco in a Vietnamese-American immigrant family. Recently, in recognition of its importance, Quiet As They Come was chosen as a text by several university English and creative writing programs."
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May 2013
Interviewed by Katerina Argyres
"How does one find happiness, balance, harmony, and live life gracefully? I think it's a question that every individual struggles with regardless of country or creed. Maybe this question comes to the forefront in immigrant stories because the differences in cultural norms and tastes can be so striking when a person is uprooted from one country and put into another. It sets up tensions that are accessible for good storytelling if done right. "
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Cal State University Bakersfield
April 2013
Angie Chau named 2013 Walter Stiern Library PG&E Writer in Residence at Cal State University Bakersfield
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April 2013
Angie Chau named 2013 Walter Stiern Library PG&E Writer in Residence at Cal State University Bakersfield
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Jeu D'une Gamine:
Angie Chau's Kearny Street Workshop Event
Jan 2013
Angie Chau gives her thoughts on pussycats, refugees, ridiculous lines, the writing process, and her upcoming novel.
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Jan 2013
Angie Chau gives her thoughts on pussycats, refugees, ridiculous lines, the writing process, and her upcoming novel.
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Aug 2012
Angie was an artist in residence at Hedgebrook, an artist's retreat that accepts 40 writers per year. In August she was featured on their website:
"And finally, underground in the Cu Chi Tunnels, on my hands and knees to do research for the new novel. It is humid and shadowy and everyone is gasping so loudly for air an echo pulsates in the tight red clay chamber. All I can think is how in the world did these men and women have the conviction to live without seeing sunlight for months on end while being shelled, gassed, and bombed in the most devastated area in the history of warfare? I think about the act of writing and trying to unearth lives lived beneath the surface. I think about the sweat and perseverance, the grasping for direction in the dark, the faith required. While I am 15 feet underground, I realize it is about pushing on even when it feels impossible, a good metaphor for life and the writerÂ’s path, one that usually means taking the road less traveled of course, and yet somehow well worth the long arduous bushwhack of a journey."
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July 2012
"Stevenson students participated in a presentation, author reading, and a private writing session with Angie Chau, author of the critically praised short story collection Quiet As They Come. Chau's writing, and the insight shared during her visit, resonated deeply with students, many of whom can connect to the challenge of acclimating to a new culture."
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Edmonds Community College: Author Talk
Feb 2012
Angie Chau gives a talk about her background and the ten year journey that went into writing Quiet As They Come, reads from the book, and takes questions from the audience.
Feb 2012
Angie Chau gives a talk about her background and the ten year journey that went into writing Quiet As They Come, reads from the book, and takes questions from the audience.
Edmonds Community College: Interview 2
Feb 2012
Minh Carrico interviews Angie Chau about her creative process and other topics.
Feb 2012
Minh Carrico interviews Angie Chau about her creative process and other topics.
Edmonds Community College: Interview 1
Feb 2012
Listen to Angie Chau's radio interview with Edmonds Community College. Topics discussed include her recent trip back to Vietnam and revelations about her new novel.
Feb 2012
Listen to Angie Chau's radio interview with Edmonds Community College. Topics discussed include her recent trip back to Vietnam and revelations about her new novel.
Jan 2012
"She's a new and compelling voice. It's hard to pull away once the Vietnamese bug catches you. Vietnam is a deeply fascinating place and culture. It has a rich and complicated past, a messy, energetic, present, and a hope fueled future. In between, there is the Vietnamese diaspora. That is what Angie Chau writes about - the Vietnamese-American immigrant experience."
Saigon Diary »
Sep 2011
Quiet As They Come has been added to the syllabus for the course "Asian-American Literature" at Chabot College in California. Click here to see syllabus.
Quiet As They Come has been added to the syllabus for the course "Asian-American Literature" at Chabot College in California. Click here to see syllabus.
July 2011
Review
"Angie Chau makes her Vietnamese characters come alive in all eleven brilliant stories. Every Vietnam veteran should read this beautiful and brutal collection of stories about the struggles of Vietnamese in America."
The VVA Veteran »
Quiet As They Come was recently used at Loyola University for the course "20th Century US Fiction".
Click here to see the syllabus »
The book has been or will be adopted for classroom curriculum at universities and high schools including UCLA, Loyola University, University of the Pacific, California College of the Arts, San Francisco City College, Drew School, Stevenson School, and Excel High School amongst others.
The book has been or will be adopted for classroom curriculum at universities and high schools including UCLA, Loyola University, University of the Pacific, California College of the Arts, San Francisco City College, Drew School, Stevenson School, and Excel High School amongst others.
May 2011
Article
"In the media, the people I saw [depicting the Vietnamese] were girls dancing on poles and people getting tortured in Rambo," says Chau. "I didn't see the kinds of people I knew in the media. So I started writing this book."
The Santa Clara Weekly »
Live Radio Interview
April 2011
KUSF San Francisco
Prepare to be moved, surprised, and inspired as host Janet Gallin helps guests from all walks of life express themselves in letters that support, thank, or set things straight.
Click here to listen to the audio »
March 2011
Article
"Her book Quiet As They Come, although fiction, is a tribute to her transformation and the people who guided her life."
Examiner.com »
March 2011
March 2011
Live Radio Interview
March 2011
Andrew Lam interviews Angie Chau
KALW 91.7 San Francisco
Click here to listen to the audio »
March 2011
Review
"Quiet As They Come is vaguely reminiscent of Hemingway's In Our Time (1925): each book involves a collection of reoccurring characters, many of whom are traumatized by a war whose temporal and spatial proximity is often ambiguous."
Western Lit Review » (PDF)
January 2011
Review
"Her stories can be touching, funny or deeply sad. Often, they are all three at once."
Dallas News »
December 2010
Review
"Chau is a writer of frightening skill. Her understated stories pull at the heart, yet remain unsentimental."
You Fight Like Anne Rice »
Review
December 2010
"I felt she was telling a story of how 'we' live now, and for the first time, I felt that the 'we' included me."
The Rumpus.net »
Interview
November 2010
"In her debut book, a short story collection called Quiet As They Come, Angie Chau chronicles an extended Vietnamese refugee family as they navigate the San Francisco Bay Area, loss in it many forms, and that volcanic desire that bubbles up and explodes from us. In short, she writes about the human heart and how fragile it can be."
(Article no longer Online)
Article
October 2010
"In literature, we've been waiting for a parallel phenomenon: the moment when scores of talented young writers shrug off the mantle of ethnicity for ethnicity's sake and exercise their right to explode expectations of Asian Americans on the page."
San Francisco Magazine »
Angie Chau Fills a Vacuum
Interview
October 2010
"In the 50th in a series of posts on 2010 short story collections entered for The Story Prize, Angie Chau, author of Quiet as They Come, runs through the writing process for one of her stories."
The Story Prize »
Sunday Book Review
October 2010
"Chau, who took a decade to complete this collection, has an unflinching ability to render horrific memories (death-defying boat escapes, years of prison torture), then effortlessly capture the careless energy of two giggling teenage cousins trying to flirt their way into a free cup of coffee at the local cafe. Her stories are a powerful mix of tragedy and kindness, of miscommunications and all-too-painful empathy, which bound together are a resonating homage to many an immigrant."
San Francisco Chronicle »
Interview
October 2010
"I think I made a decision at some point in graduate school that you're not writing to make money. You're writing because you have to. For me, it's my meditation. I would do it regardless. I knew that I would be an old lady and still want to write stories."
PressDemocrat »
Review
October 2010
"In addition to clever storytelling and believable characters, Chau has the ability to fill in her fiction's backgrounds with wonderful, pithy, pawky observations of things we all could see but usually don't. I believe it was Henry James who said a good writer is someone 'on whom nothing is lost.' That certainly describes Chau."
Queen Anne and Magnolia News »
Interview
October 2010
"Angie Chau is a writer born in Saigon, Vietnam, whose new collection of short stories, Quiet as They Come, describes the difficult existence of Vietnamese immigrants caught between two cultures. She's been called 'an astonishing literary talent.'"
The Women's Eye »
Interview
September 2010
"Chau, who was born in Vietnam and moved to San Francisco when she was 4, based her first book in part on her own experiences: Quiet as They Come is a collection of short stories involving 12 Vietnamese immigrants sharing a house in the Sunset."
San Francisco Chronicle »
Review
September 2010
"Some reassurance may be had from Angie Chau, a young writer still willing to keep collective memories from fading. She was born in Saigon, but now lives in the Bay Area. As you might expect, she has stories."
SF Weekly »
Review
September 2010
"Angie Chau's Quiet as They Come is a luminous debut. It compels in the quiet force of family dramas tinged with transnational traumas."
Asian American Literature Fans »
Live Radio Interview
September 2010
Interview with Sedge Thomson on the nationally syndicated NPR show West Coast Live.
Click here to listen to the audio »
September 2010
Article
Trust Us: September's Movies, Music, and Books - What ELLE editors are looking forward to reading, seeing, and hearing this September
"The linked stories in Angie Chau's darkly sparkling debut, Quiet as They Come, focus on Vietnamese families who fled the war and settled in San Francisco. In 'The Pussycats,' a schoolgirl must bring something special from home to her class. Her mother's response captures the perennial push-pull of immigrant life: 'In Vietnam, this was called bragging. In America, it was called Show and Tell.'"
Elle Magazine »
Article
August 2010
Rousing the Sleepers - Top 20 hand-sells from independent presses this fall
"Her selection this season is Angie Chau's Quiet as They Come. Not only did Yamazaki tell her, 'Let's make this one work,' but Consortium Book Sales & Distribution included it in its inaugural rep picks program."
Publishers Weekly »
Interview
August 2010
Interview with Rusty Barnes, editor of Night Train Magazine.
Night Train »
Review
June 2010
Essay/Review by Christopher Schaberg, Assistant Professor of English,
Loyola University New Orleans
Summer Reading: Quiet As They Come
What Is Literature »