Since her debut novel, Girl in Translation (which was translated into 16 languages), Jean Kwok has earned the coveted status of international bestselling author. Her newest work, Searching for Sylvie Lee, is a Today Show Book Club pick and earned Jean another spot on the New York Times bestseller list. It comes with a list of encomiums as long as a kite string: O Magazine, Buzzfeed, the Washington Post, CNN, Time, Newsweek, and more. Language plays a key role in all of Jean’s fiction, and together with reading, it has been central to Jean’s own [...]

To talk of bilingualism in America is to speak about more than just language. Our not-so-secret wish at America the Bilingual is that aspiring to be bilingual will inspire an appreciation for those who have come to this country from elsewhere, and with other languages. They are following the lodestar that has long shaped America’s history. They’ve come to make their lives here, raise their families, help build—literally and otherwise—their communities. Yet if you rely on just national news to know how we’re all getting along with one another in our communities, you might conclude [...]

Most writers will tell you that it's challenging enough to write well in their native language, let alone attempting it in another. Yet a number of well-known authors have done just that, in many cases writing not only well but brilliantly, in a language that was not their first. There's a name for these writers: exophonic. The word derives from Greek–exo in Greek means "outside"; phonic means "voice." The University of Warwick in the United Kingdom even offers a course on it, called "Exophony, or Writing Beyond the Mother Tongue." One for the Russian road Vladimir Nabokov [...]

Ed. Note: The AIRdaily, an online forum for podcasters, recently ran this story on Steve and Fernando.  Florida-based AIR producer and retired CEO-turned-podcaster Steve Leveen brought his pitch to the AIRdaily in early January 2017 with hopes of finding a producer to help bring sound to his idea. Independent audio-maker Fernando Hernández answered that call from the other side of the country, and the podcast America the Bilingual began its journey to becoming sound waves. Four months later, their first episode was published. Now six months into the collaboration, Leveen and Hernández share their experience in a Q&A [...]