5 Things Thursday: May 2026

Did you enter the giveaway for a copy of Happy Endings with hand painted edges by yours truly? Go enter!

Here I am, in late May when I realized I might have said yes to too many things in June. Now the hard part is making sure I don’t say yes to anything else (unless it’s something I’m super excited about.)

Thankfully, my teaching is winding down for the summer, except for some in-person illustrated journaling classes I’m teaching at the DC Pen Show. That means I have more time to write, right?

In the meantime, here are five things that have caught my attention this month.

I said good-bye to a friend and fellow author Lalana Dararutana (writing as Piper J. Drake). She was one of the first Asian American romance authors I’d met. I was so awkward, but I’m glad I introduced myself to her. We bonded over our passion about writing stories with Southeast Asian characters.

You can read the beautiful words about Piper here and here.

If you feel so called, buy and read her books! I’ve enjoyed them all but Wings Once Cursed and Bound is my favorite.

I’m lucky enough to call Venessa Vida Kelley a friend so I might be biased when I say: get this book in your hands (or ears) ASAP! Venessa’s queer historical romantasy between a Puerto Rican immigrant and a merman was beautiful. I switched back and forth between the audiobook and my print copy because I didn’t want to miss out on Venessa’s artwork. I vote to bring back illustrated novels for adults!

Narrator Lee Osorio’s talented accents transported me right into 1910s Coney Island. The only reason I didn’t listen to the entire book was because I needed to sleep. It was easier for me to set the print version away than to turn off the audiobook.

The novel touches on so many aspects of different marginalized characters and I learned so much about the performers’ lifestyles during that time.

Buy at your local indie bookstore or on Bookshop, Libro, Amazon

My sister and brother-in-law gave us an AcornTV subscription for Christmas so you’ll have to put up with me talking about their various murder shows. For some reason, I’m drawn to New Zealand and Australian shows.

Brokenwood Mysteries is set in the small town of (surprise) Brokenwood.I’m not convinced it’s a small town because it has multiple vineyards, historical mines, etc, but seeing recurring characters pop up in later episodes gives it a small town feel.

It’s not gory which is always a plus for me. The episodes are almost two hours long which gives the mystery enough time to toss out several red herrings as the clues unfold. What keeps me watching are the main characters. They’re quirky and don’t always get things right.

I fell in love with acrylic pants during my last semester of college when I realized I needed to improve my drawing skills to be a better costume designer. The costume design thing didn’t work out for me, but the acrylics stayed.

Since acrylics aren’t reusable after the paint dries, I set them aside after my first child started walking and getting into everything. I actually set aside my art for quite a while before returning to it. Except I taught myself how to use watercolors because it was the easiest medium for me to pick up and set down.

A couple of weeks ago, I dug out some acrylics of the acrylics I’d hoarded from various online classes. I had so much fun playing with the paints in my sketchbook and testing some pencil colors on top of them. I’ve really been drawn to mixed media artists like Kate Moody, Erika Lamar, and Sophie McPike.

I’m still figuring out if I can put acrylics in an airtight palette so I can pop it up open for a quick paint. If you have any suggestions on palettes that aren’t the stay-wet kind, I’m all ears!

On June 4th, I’m excited to be the in-convo partner for Máire Roche to celebrate her new book Bromantasy, billed as Schitt’s Creek meets Princess Bride. Sounds fun, right?

Let’s kick off Pride month with a bang! If you’re in the area, come out and see us! The event is free but you’ll need to RSVP.

Now it’s your turn. What’s got your attention this month?