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We are devastated over the loss of Anthony Veasna So. The loss of his voice is immeasurable. Anthony was an incoming Retreat fellow, and we'd like to share some of his writing today.
Anthony in @ElectricLit: “I feel like individualistic notions are antithetical to the type of community I grew up in, so when I’m writing, I try to create new archetypes that represent people we can look toward.” https://electricliterature.com/there-is-more-than-one-way-to-be-cambodian/?fbclid=IwAR0d8weGtpWw8jA0y8LA_xFAYMFe3fkJwaUE5v_yHSeMWuUdYfeGT2SdQYQ
“Imagine Chuck’s Donuts a mausoleum to their glorious past.” –– ‘Three Women of Chuck’s Donuts’ in the @NewYorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/10/three-women-of-chucks-donuts
‘Anthony Veasna So on the Alienation and Comfort of Doughnut Shops’ @NewYorker: “It felt sublime to me, almost otherworldly, and I was obsessed with claiming this image as part of a Cambodian-American visual language.” https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/anthony-veasna-so-02-10-20
'The Shop' in @GrantaMag: "It was a beautiful enterprise, no matter how flawed, the way Dad sustained so many people, a whole ecosystem, both in terms of providing a service to the neighborhood and also providing twelve Cambo men with jobs." https://granta.com/the-shop/
'The Monks' in @nplusonemag: "Two days at the temple and all I’ve done is count shit. The dots on the ceiling. How long it takes for a stick of incense to crumble into ashes." https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/the-monks/
'Superking Son Scores Again' in @nplusonemag: "He was a regular Magic Johnson of badminton, if such a thing could exist; a legend, that is, for the young men of this Cambo hood (a niche fan base, admittedly)." https://nplusonemag.com/issue-31/fiction-drama/superking-son-scores-again/
‘Manchester Street’ in @ninthletter: “The library let us lose ourselves in the fantasy of Narnia, Uriel, and Hogwarts. We spent afternoons flipping pages until one of our parents reached the maximum amount of paid hours their jobs allowed.”
http://www.ninthletter.com/web-edition/summer-2016/summer-2016-cnf/158-so
http://www.ninthletter.com/web-edition/summer-2016/summer-2016-cnf/158-so
'Collateral Damage' in Decomp Magazine: "Even with all he had accomplished, his problems still boiled down to his distinct culture, his skin color, and the fact that, like a true mama’s boy, he had never stopped loving his mother’s cooking."
http://www.decompmagazine.com/collateraldamage.htm
http://www.decompmagazine.com/collateraldamage.htm
‘Journey to a Land Free of White People” @nplusonemag: “The day the Crazy Rich Asians trailer premiered online, I watched it on repeat for an hour.” https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/journey-to-a-land-free-of-white-people/
If you can donate, his partner, Alex Torres, has set up a GoFundMe for support during this time. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-for-alex-torres
And Anthony's debut collection comes out in August 2021 from @eccobooks. Pre-order it here. 
https://bookshop.org/books/afterparties-stories/9780063049901
https://bookshop.org/books/afterparties-stories/9780063049901
