Expat Women - Trailing Spouse Research & Call for Expat Writing Submissions

Hi Everyone, I hope you have enjoyed a wonderful week! Whilst our main Expat Women site is still on an indefinite "break", we wanted to share the following quick news items which might be of interest...

‘Being Dumped In To Sink Or Swim’: An Empirical Study of Organizational Support for The Trailing Spouse

Congratulations to my friend Dr Yvonne McNulty (a leading authority on expatriate return on investment and an academic expert in the field of expatriation) on the recent publication of her 'Being dumped in to sink or swim' paper, in the journal Human Resource Development International. 

Yvonne is an Australian who has lived as an expat in the United States, Singapore and now China. She rose to expat-research prominence years ago, with her four-year study about the challenges and opportunities for the Trailing Spouse. If you are interested in reading Yvonne's comprehensive article, please visit this site (current article price is US$36). 

New Survey Results Published - Career Choice and The Accompanying Partner

Evelyn Simpson and Louise Wiles (co-founders of the site AccompanyingPartner) released last month the results of their “Career Choice and the Accompanying Partner” survey. The survey of 312 accompanying partners on expat assignments in 59 countries around the world explored the decisions they make in relation to their own careers when they relocate with their partners on expat assignments. 

The study, which has been shortlisted for a European EMMA award by the Forum for Expatriate Management, helps organisations to understand how the assignment experience can affect the accompanying partners’ well being and provides a road map for providing them with effective and cost-efficient support. It highlights the desire of many accompanying partners to work, the factors beyond the availability of work permits which affect their ability to work, and the possible effects on the fulfilment that they may derive from the assignment experience. 

A free summary of the survey report is available on their AccompanyingPartner website, where the full report also can be purchased for €147. You can also contact Evelyn Simpson and Louise Wiles via info@accompanyingpartner.com.

Expat Women in Asia: Call for Submissions

Editor Shannon Young is seeking contributions from expatriate women in East Asia for a new anthology from Signal 8 Press in Hong Kong. 

"This collection will feature the writing of women who are currently expatriates or who previously lived in an East Asian country. For the purposes of this anthology, we construe East Asia to include Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and the ASEAN countries. All submissions should be creative non-fiction and/or travel memoir pieces that speak to the expat experience in modern East Asia. Potential topics include travel, work, relationships, gender roles, safety, family, and repatriation. We are looking for stories with a strong and personal narrative arc, not just travel guides or descriptions of the places you’ve lived. We hope to make this anthology as inclusive as possible, as well, and we welcome submissions from women from different parts of the world. 

Contributions should be between approximately 2000 and 5000 words in length. Each writer will receive two copies of the completed anthology and a percentage of the royalties to be determined by the final number of contributors. Please send all submissions, with a brief paragraph about the author, to shannon [at] typhoon-media [dot] com. Submissions should be in Microsoft Word, .doc or .docx format, and in a standard font. The deadline for submissions is 28 February 2013. This title will be released in paperback and e-book formats in the spring of 2014. Thank you."   

Listed Your Expat Women Blog Yet?

Our Expat Women Blog Directory is still very active. New blogs are added all the time. If you have not submitted your expat blog yet, please consider doing so here. We would love to see it.

On Twitter?

Finally, if you are interested in more regular expat headlines, social media tidbits, motivational quotes and tips from writers around the world, feel free to follow me on Twitter via @andreaexpat.


Until next time... thank you for your ongoing support and I wish you a truly sensational weekend,

Andrea (Martins)

Expat Hanoi Jane's Elka Ray Shares Her Writing Tips

Hi Everyone, Today we would like to introduce Elka Ray - the author of the newly-released (August 2011) book Hanoi Jane. Elka is a Canadian writer and illustrator who lives in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. She is the author of one novel and three children’s books.

Expat Women: Elka, what took you to Vietnam originally?

Elka: I spent six months backpacking in South East Asia after high school and found the region fascinating. Following university, I came to Vietnam in 1995, planning to find a thesis topic for higher studies. Instead, I started writing freelance, fell in love and never went back to university.

Expat Women: You have now been in Vietnam for 16 years. What made you stay? And what can you tell us about the other expats you have seen 'come and go' in Vietnam?

Elka: Alot of the expats who came to Vietnam in the mid-to-late-1990s and are either still here, or return regularly. Having been closed to Western investment for so long, Vietnam was a strange and exhilarating place in those days. (I have consequently met everyone from retired Vietnamese colonels to Miss Vietnams to entrepreneurs with crazy get-rich-quick schemes.)

I stayed because it was exciting, I had interesting friends, and I could work part-time as a magazine editor and pursue my true passion – writing fiction. Since my husband’s family business is based here, I do not think that we will be moving any time soon. Although I do want my kids to spend their summers where I grew up, on Canada’s Vancouver Island.

Expat Women: Your first novel, Hanoi Jane, was published by Marshall Cavendish last year. What does it take to succeed as a writer?

Elka: I am still working on that one! I meet a lot of people who tell me, “Oh, I want to write a book!” but they do not sit down and do it. If you truly want to write, you will find some way to do daily. If you are really talented and lucky, your first book might get published - but that is unlikely. It is more probable that you will have to write for years without praise or financial reward before you have learned your craft and someone gives you a break. If and when you do find a publisher, you have to put in the time and effort to market your work. You need a great imagination, empathy to be able to create emotionally complex characters, discipline, and the ability to keep writing despite countless rejections.

Expat Women: Do you have any advice for other aspiring fiction writers?

Elka: I think that no matter what, you should write what moves you. However, if you want to get published by a traditional publisher (as opposed to self-publishing), you have to remember that their main concern is to make a profit. It is not enough to write a “good” book. It has to be sell able, so research the market.

If publication is your goal, before you start, I would advise you to write the promotional blurb that would go on your book’s back cover. Publishers want straightforward stories that can be summed up in a few lines. They want one clear, consistent point of view, and a lead character to whom readers can relate. The toughest market segment at the moment is that of kids’ picture books, especially rhyming ones. That being said, I have just finished a funny rhyming kids’ manuscript called Princess Nelly Was Smelly, for which I have high hopes. In the end I think that you just have to write what you love, and hope that some key editor will also love it.

Expat Women: Hanoi Jane tells the story of a young American reporter who, after moving to Vietnam and being dumped by her fiance, embarks on a wild adventure to rebuild her life. Was this story was based on your personal experiences?

Elka: The plot, which has Jane investigating a charity fraud, getting arrested by the secret police, and busting a gem smuggling ring, is absolute fiction. The characters are also inventions. The “real” elements in the story are the setting of northern Vietnam, which I know very well, and the emotions experienced by Jane — homesickness, confusion, doubt, heartbreak and ultimately a sense of pride that she is able to stick it out and find happiness in a place that was totally alien to her. I think that all expats have these feelings, which is why the book has resonated so well with them.

Expat Women: Elka, thank you very much for sharing your insights and experiences. We wish you and Hanoi Jane nothing but success this year. Congrats!

To follow Elka’s blog, which chronicles her often hilarious attempts to balance writing, motherhood and living in Vietnam, click here. To buy Hanoi Jane on Amazon, please click here (no affiliate link).

Insights from Robin Pascoe, who Celebrates the 20th Anniversary of Her First Book for Expats

Hi Everyone,  Our wonderful friend Robin Pascoe, well known for her books about expat living, recently celebrated her 20th anniversary of the publication of her first book for expats (congrats Robin!). She reflected on this milestone on Facebook recently, and kindly gave us permission to republish her insights here for your easy reading...

From Robin Pascoe on 12 January 2012:

"I’m always telling people not to ignore important milestones in their lives, but did I mention I rarely take my own advice?

It’s the 20th anniversary of the publication of my first book for expats, indeed an anniversary of the first expat book that told wives it was OK to be angry and resentful of their husbands and to wonder, who the hell am I anyway?

Originally published in 1992 as “The Wife’s Guide to Successful Living Abroad”, in 1993 as “Culture Shock: A Wife’s Guide" but finally, under my own Expatriate Press, re-issued and updated in 2009 and given the title I wanted for it all along, “A Broad Abroad”, it was so much fun to put into words and print what so many women were feeling but no one was saying!

So today, in acknowledging this important milestone in my life (you always remember your first!) here are five great memories I associate with this book:

Of the many rejections I received when sending out the manuscript, my favourite that made me laugh out loud was from a Hong Kong publisher who wrote to me and said: “Expat wives have servants. Why do they need a book?”

The night the publisher in Singapore called me. We were living in Beijing and it had been months since I had sent them the manuscript. The managing editor apologized for just finding it, but she wanted it. I cheekily suggested there should be a follow up book for parents and the editor said, “start writing that now.”

My Chinese cook (yes, ok, I had a cook) came to where I was sitting at the phone, completely unravelled with joy, carrying a tray with a double shot of scotch and a cigarette for me. (No cook, no smoking and actually, no drinking anymore since I lost my fear of flying and no longer need to be fuelled by vodka).

The day the books arrived in Beijing I had a choice: I could go to the airport and be the first to open the boxes containing my new baby. Or I could attend a piano recital of my first baby (an 8-year-old Lilly). I chose my daughter and never regretted it.

My first speaking tour: Husband Rodney said, “You should go to promote the book in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore since you have friends in all three places who would be sure to help you.”

Me? “You mean: alone???”

Never mind that he pushed me out of the nest and my comfort zone, it was in Tokyo that I attended a lecture given by Dave Pollock whose Third Culture Kid bible was still years away from publication. I gave Dave a copy of my new book (since he’s quoted in it) and when he got up to speak to the school audience, the first words out of his mouth were: “I have just been given a book that I know everyone in this room will want to read.” A great friendship and mentorship was born. Like so many people, I still miss him.

Weeks after that first tour: I was sitting at the dining room table in Beijing with my then 3-year-old-son Jay reading a three week old Hong Kong paper, the South China Morning Post. Scanning the book page, I was, as the Brits say, gobsmacked.

“Mommy has the #1 bestseller in Hong Kong, Jay. Eat your carrots.” It was the beginning of leading a life I didn’t participate in (or know about) most of the time.

I realize I could probably write a hundred great stories associated with this book but won’t bore everyone to death. However, I have saved one last great memory that I cherish the most: The countless women who came up to me during my years on the road and said, “Thank you for writing this, Robin.”

Remarkably, the book (and all of the ones which followed) are still selling after all these years!

Find yourself in my books, as I used to say..."

Note: Robin retired from expat writing last year, but her books and videos are still available on her website, ExpatExpert.com.

Missed Some Great Expat Links on Twitter? (September 15-16 edition)

Hi Everyone, I hope you are all enjoying September! Here are some expat links I have tweeted recently, that might interest you...

7 Ways Hurricane Irene Taught Me Not To Lose My Head As An Expat
bit.ly/rsySgT

5 Lessons Wonderland Taught Me About Expat Life, by Lewis Carroll's Alice
bit.ly/oJ8St0

Do Expat Child Custody Laws Need Changing?
bit.ly/oME2bi

10 Most Liveable Cities in 2011?
bbc.in/nfie0w

How to Turn Study Abroad Regret into a Positive
bit.ly/pJIN3w

10 Most Expensive Cities for Hotel Stopovers
tgr.ph/qrCQ5t

How Does an Expat Define 'Home'?
bit.ly/p1HSlp

10 Things I Miss From Home by Suzanne in Bermuda
bit.ly/qKAXZ4

Expat Taxes on Forbes: "Can Moving From Japan to NY Make You a Rhode Island Resident?" onforb.es/qMpRkP

Expat Life isn't as Peachy as You Might Think - The Uncertainty of Expat Life
bit.ly/nId1dz

Please Support Expat Writing Mentor Jo Parfitt and Her New Upcoming Novel - Interview Her or Ask Her to Write for You!
aweber.com/t/FHz6o

Preserve Your Expat Memories & Help Expat Archive Center to Document the Social History of Expat Life

bit.ly/ng1WeJ

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To follow me in 'real time' and keep up with even more great expat links on Twitter, please click here.

If you reading this blog post online and you are not already an Expat Women member, please support us and sign up here to receive our monthly, motivational newsletters.

Thanks for your support and I wish you a fantastic day/evening! Andrea @andreaexpat

Missed Some Great Writers' Links on Twitter?

Hi Everyone, Here are some great writers' links I have tweeted recently, that might interest you for your expat/business/personal writing endeavors. Enjoy!

A good discussion on Amazon as a publisher- they're not the bad guys
http://su.pr/1ikUXg

10 Questions to Ask Before Writing Your Book
http://bit.ly/jLVvEC

18 Things Learned at the Sydney Writers Festival
http://bit.ly/kBbm5k

Top 10 Best Resource Guides for e-Book Authors
http://bit.ly/lndGHu

How Blogging Saves Me and My Family from Personal Bankruptcy
http://t.co/otvWaX7

Highly Recommended: Successful Blogging in 12 Easy Steps - Excellent e-book!
http://bit.ly/mUvZIa

10 More Things You Never Knew You Could Do On LinkedIn
http://read.bi/lWw7QA

Got Something You Need To Do (like, write that novel maybe)? Watch Firefly Coaching's quick video - and then do it!
http://bit.ly/mEZ7zd

Top 10 Blogs for Authors
http://t.co/cWU4rNn

Practical Tips on Writing a Book from 23 Authors
http://bit.ly/iTb94p

13 Things I Got Wrong and 19 Things I Got Right in my First Year of Writing
http://t.co/E6Ils3j

If you reading this blog post online and you are not already an Expat Women member, please support us and sign up here to receive our monthly, motivational newsletters.

Thanks for your support and I wish you a wonderful day/evening! Andrea @andreaexpat 

Robin Pascoe's Expat Blogella:The Rest of My Life

Hi Everyone, If you have ever read books written specifically for expats, there is a good chance that you have read one of Robin Pascoe's books.  Robin is well-known for her witty expat books and I know many of you enjoy reading what Robin gets up to. Many of you have also met Robin when she was on the international speaking circuit, championing 'the expat family' for so many years.

Trying to retire from the speaking circuit, last year Robin launched a Successful Living Abroad series of 20 online video lectures, that you can enjoy for free here. And now, Robin has taken a leap of faith and launched her own Expat Blogella: The Rest of My Life.

Robin's new blogella is expat fiction (although when you read the characters, you realize that Robin has based her fiction on people you have probably met in your expat travels, so whilst it is fiction in terms of Robin's family life, it is quite close to the truth for many expats who have either survived or witnessed the heartbreak of infidelity and/or divorce abroad - and for that reason, it certainly makes a good read).

So far, Robin has posted six installments on The Rest of My Life - the blog of her new fictional character, Joelly Schuster. If you are interested, you can read them all here, or if you'd just like a sample, you can read the first installment below. (Thanks Robin for granting us permission to re-post it.)

Happy Friday/weekend reading! Andrea


Installment One

"I have to begin somewhere, so why not today when I have been 53-years-old for just over twenty-four hours? Yesterday wasn’t the greatest birthday I have ever celebrated but it wasn’t the worst either. My lovely daughter took me out to a fancy restaurant because she didn’t want me to be alone.

She’s worried about her old mother in this new life which no longer includes her father since he recently ditched me, in Beijing of all places. Naturally, it was for a woman half his age and younger than our daughter.

There is a reason clichés were invented. Bumper stickers too, like “Shit Happens”. They can be incredibly useful for summing up one’s life.

Maybe I could write bumper stickers instead of a taking a job as a barista at the Starbucks in the market. God knows I have served enough coffee in my life. I keep threatening to become a professional milk whipper because I’m now completely broke and it would seem, unemployable because of my age and a blank CV.

My daughter isn’t the only one fretting about what I am going to do now with the rest of my life (yes, it is the perfect title for this blog if I do say so myself). My son Brian isn’t exactly thrilled about his mother’s new and extremely reduced circumstances.

Barely out of college, the poor guy has his whole working life ahead of him (once he figures out what he wants to work at) but already he’s been offering his mother the money he has been saving up for a car. What a good son I raised. But I’ll crawl to the supermarket before I will let him give me his hard-earned money. 

Brian is so angry with his father right now, but what else is new? He’s been mad at him his entire life because he was simply never there. He was always on a business trip or working late for whatever oil company was controlling our lives at the time, always too tired if he was home on a weekend to coach any of Brian’s school teams.

I suppose I’ll have to get to that story at some point in this cyber diary with its clever title chosen precisely because I haven’t got a ******* clue what to do with the rest of my sorry little life.

Am I even allowed swearing on a blog? Too damn bad if I’m not supposed to since I’ve already been at it. My son isn’t the only one with anger issues obviously or so says the shrink I lined up before I even arrived in Ottawa.

Wait, am I supposed to even say where I’m living? Is there an instruction manual anywhere other than Blogging for Dummies which I saw in the bookstore? And does there happen to be a version for menopausal idiots who can barely remember to finish a sentence?

Please leave a comment and a link, dear reader. All one of you and that does not include you, Deborah (that’s my daughter). You don’t count. It’s your fault for even talking me into this in the first place."

Missed Some Great Expat Links on Twitter?

Hi Everyone, Here are some expat-related articles and links that I have tweeted about recently, that might interest you:

Expat Survey says it's the leisure time, not the money, that's better abroad
http://bit.ly/c0ZWTh

Top 10 Places for Women Expats
http://bit.ly/bVyQ5S

Loved new video promo for book by expat trailing man Alan Paul who reinvented himself in China
http://youtu.be/tAth-nW9L5U

Top International Women to Follow on Twitter
http://ht.ly/3hb9K

Why Should Expat Families Abroad Care About the Boarding School or College/University Visit?http://bit.ly/d1b00t

Ex-Career Expat Wives - Your thoughts?
http://wp.me/ptOFQ-mG

Expat study suggests that providing too much support may actually hinder workplace performance
http://bit.ly/crMypE

Got $500k to $1million to invest in the U.S. economy to fast track your U.S. citizenship?
http://ow.ly/2ZCjJ

Well-known author of expat books, Robin Pascoe, releases new repatriate "blogella"
http://t.co/55kLAqV

Article Writing: Interview with Expat Writing Coach Jo Parfitt
http://bit.ly/gtss5h

Want To Know Who's Speaking At The 2011 FIGT Conference?
http://www.figt.org/2011_Conference_Schedule

Moving to London, Geneva, Zurich, Hong Kong, Singapore or Dubai?
Check out http://www.lookseecity.com/ - they just won industry award

Expat Wives: Blog Post for You
http://bit.ly/fJ1xEl

British expat woman in Turkey raising funds to help train families still recovering from earthquake of 1999
http://bit.ly/hrMW4K

Expats: Online Magazine for Parents Raising Little Global Citizens
http://incultureparent.com/

Expat Issues: Cauldrons of Cultural Complexity, Deal-Breaking Weather, Fashion Faux-Pas
http://bit.ly/a7NcCN

Expat Women moving to the U.S.? Check out Girlfriend Circles to meet new friends in your area
http://bit.ly/hlwUbC

Funny: Expats Helping to Re-Write Chinglish Signs In Shanghai
http://bit.ly/fzG7BF

Expats: Looking For The 'Good Life' in France?
http://bit.ly/fesy7F
and WAIF (Women Alone in France)
http://bit.ly/gEl4qe

Expat Secrets: Great Week of Posts about Damaging Expat Behaviors from Expat Coach Marie Brice
http://ow.ly/3n8IF

Do expats really have a better life abroad?
http://bit.ly/hRneCK

Does abuse occur in expat communities?
http://bit.ly/gxdWtQ

Congrats to Winners: Expatriate Management and Mobility Awards
http://bit.ly/gU3362

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To follow me in 'real time' and keep up with even more great expat links on Twitter, please click here.

To sign up and receive our monthly, motivational Expat Women newsletters, please click here.

Thanks for your support and have a great week!

Andrea
Twitter handle: @andreaexpat