E.P. Tuazon’s forthcoming collection of Filipino-American short stories, A Professional Lola (Red Hen Press, 2024), offers a fresh take on identity and explores what it means to be an ever-evolving character in our own stories.
Through the extraordinary, we learn from family members, friends, strangers, protagonists, and even Bigfoot that identity is complex and fluid.
Our sense of self depends on who we’re with, the country we’re in, and the lessons we learn. It can change when life throws us a curveball and challenges everything we thought was true about ourselves and our relationships. It can also change when we embrace what we’ve known, no matter how late in life.
In “Blood Magic,” the passive wife of a neglectful husband seeks escape in a spell-casting women’s group that comes with its hierarchy. Brother and sister twins find their extra-close relationship threatened in “Bellow Below” when a third person is thrown into the mix. “Carabao” tells a tale through the eyes of a young boy whose grandfather finds peace after a dramatic transformation.
E.P. Tuazon is a Filipino-American writer in LA whose work has appeared in several publications. I had the privilege of interviewing them about life, the writing craft, and their diverse cast of characters whose stories will linger with you long after you’ve closed the book.