November 19, 2006

"Writing Characters That Take You By Surprise"

Jana McBurney-Lin has worked on her debut novel My Half of the Sky for 15 years. She spent eight years in Singapore with her husband. During that time she served as an editor for ALC Press in Japan. She has written for other media such as National Public Radio, Writer’s Digest and Hemisphere, the United Airlines magazine.

Jana served five years as President of California Writer’s Club Peninsula Branch and founded the Kids' camp, an annual conference for young writers.

Jana lives in California but returns to China for a month every year with her family. My Half of the Sky leads us into the day to day experience of a young woman caught in the changing world of China as it rushes into world globalization. National Booksense chose it as its August Pick of the Month: Forbes selected it as a title for their book club.