Asian Shorts came about because of a sequence of events on one weekend. A friend was telling me that he had several short stories with Asia as a backdrop, I was saying that I had a few as well. Then another friend sent me an email that he wanted to write a short on Pattaya, and one of my Thai cousins sent me her latest photo, the one on the cover of this book.
It was like somebody was trying to tell me something, or several were anyway.
The nineteen stories by nine authors in this anthology were sent to me in one month, but are as varied as their writers. The stipulation was that Asia or an Asian had to feature strongly in the story. We have stories featuring Cambodia, China, Laos, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, the USA and Vietnam, by Asian and non-Asian authors who live in or come from Britain, Malaysia, Thailand, the USA and Vietnam.
Some of these writers are well-known as writers, some are better known in other spheres; some have written a lot before and been published in the traditional sense, others are travelling the Indie Publishing path, and for yet others this is the very first time they or you will have seen their stories in print of any kind.
You can read more about each author by visiting the web sites that they have given after their stories. I thoroughly recommend that you do this, as what you will find out about the authors will surprise you.
Owen Jones, Amazon Best-Selling Author from Barry, Wales, has lived in several countries and travelled in many more. While studying Russian in the USSR in the '70's, he hobnobbed with spies on a regular basis; in Suriname, he got caught up in the 1982 coup; and while a company director, he joined the crew of four as the galley slave to sail from Barry to Gibraltar a home-made concrete yacht, which was almost rammed by a Russian oil tanker and an American aircraft carrier.
“I am a Celt, and we are romantic”, he said when asked about his writing style, “and I firmly believe in reincarnation, Karma and Fate, so, sayings like 'Do unto another...', and 'What goes round comes around' are central to my life and reflected in my work. I write about what I see, or think I see, or dream... and, in the end it is all the same really”. He speaks seven languages and is learning Thai, since he lives in Thailand with his Thai wife of fifteen years.
His first novel, Daddy's Hobby is from the seven-part series 'Behind The Smile: The Story of Lek, a Bar Girl in Pattaya', but his largest collection is 'The Megan Series', twenty-three novelettes on the psychic development of a teenage girl, the subtitle of which, 'A Spirit Guide, A Ghost Tiger and One Scary Mother!' sums them up nicely. He has written fifty novels and novelettes, including: Dead Centre; Andropov's Cuckoo; Fate Twister; The Disallowed (a philosophical comedy); Tiger Lily of Bangkok; and A Night in Annwn (Annwn being the ancient Welsh word for Heaven). Many have been translated into foreign languages and narrated into audio books.
Owen Jones writes stories set in Wales, Spain and Thailand, where he now lives. He is a life-long Spiritualist, and this belief is interwoven, in a very realistic way, into many of his books and storylines. If you like a touch of the 'supernatural', try his books
He sums his life up thus: “Born in the Land of Song, Living in the Land of Smiles”.
