Lisa Brackmann's Blog

A couple of months ago, a documentary about China's pollution went viral, receiving over 150 million hits in the first few days of its online release. Made by Chai Jing, a former investigative reporter with CCTV, "Under the Dome" is reminiscent of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." It explains the problem in ways that people can easily understand. And it is a call to arms. Some have called it China's "Silent Spring." 

Here's Part 1, with full English subtitles.




I've blogged (and written a...

A little over 10 years after I left China for the first time, the Los Angeles Opera staged John Adams' opera, "Nixon in China."

You might be thinking, "An opera starring Richard Nixon? That's…an interesting choice." Many critics shook their heads as well, not at all sure what to make of an opera whose characters were not only based on real people but the majority of whom were still alive at the time of these first productions (the opera originated in Houston in 1987 and was performed in LA in...

(as always, click to embiggen)
I was born and raised in San Diego, California, about a half hour from the Mexican border. When I was growing up, it was entirely possible to ignore the border, if you were a typical White kid like I was. Tijuana, the sprawling, messy city on the other side, was a place that a lot of the time, White San Diego seemed to pretend wasn't there, engaging in an act of civic denial.

Or, Tijuana was there, but it was "The Other," the place where you went to engage in tran...

Sometimes I think I should have learned photography. I like taking pictures, having that frame to put around the world. It's a lot easier, at times, to share experiences of other places through photos than it is to write about them.

I have a semi-respectable camera but I really enjoy taking pictures with my smartphone. I like being able to edit and post on the fly, also that the phone is less obtrusive than a DSLR. The main reason I want to upgrade my phone at this point is for a better camera...

Cara Lopez Lee and I met through an online author network and bonded over our love of China, Mexico, and writing. This month she’s celebrating the 2014 edition of They Only Eat Their Husbands: Love, Travel, and the Power of Running Away , (Conundrum Press, Oct 7 2014). 

It’s about Cara’s nine years in Alaska, where she landed in a love triangle with two alcoholics, and the year she ran away to trek around the world alone. During that journey, she made her first visit to China and discovere...

I am sometimes not sure why I'm so addicted to traveling in China, because truthfully, it isn't always easy. Maybe because what it always is, is interesting.

A couple of days ago, I traveled with a friend by Da Ba Che -- Big Bus -- from Kunming to Dali. It takes about five hours or so, two hours less than the train. Note to self: What it saves in time, it makes up for in added discomfort and occasional terror.

You get on this thing and are immediately bombarded with a safety video ins...

(originally posted on Murder Is Everywhere)
I've traveled to places that many people would consider exotic. All over China, including Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang. I just went to Russia for the first time this year. But I'm finding that my home town of San Diego is as exotic as anyplace I've ever visited.

Submitted as evidence: Comic-Con International.


Comic-Con started as a small gathering of comic book creators and fans, science fiction and fantasy writers and readers, and, well, Trekkies....

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you've probably noticed that I posted a lot of articles and photos about Tony Gwynn, one of the greatest hitters in baseball, after his untimely passing.

Tony formed a great friendship with Ted Williams, who considered Gwynn the best hitter since, well, Ted Williams
Tony Gwynn was Mr. Padre, the face of a franchise that often -- well, mostly -- has underperformed. On a team with a history of mediocrity, he was excellence personified. He was also Mr. San...

Whenever I come to China, I try to go somewhere I’ve never been. On this trip, I decided to visit Hengdian World Studios. I worked on a film studio lot in Los Angeles for many years; how could I resist a visit to the largest filming facility in China, which, as I understood it, is also a tourist attraction a la Universal Studios.


This trip happened kind of quickly and I didn’t have much time to research it or even really think much about where I was going and what I would do. I’d read an artic...

I'm pretty sure some novels are written in dog years.

I'm wiped out. I feel kind of like that guy up there, except not as perky. But I am similarly exultant.

A couple days ago I sent off the draft of my latest book to my editor. The draft was…a bit…tardy. Okay, I was late. This has never happened to me before. But every once in a while, you run up against the reality that, although writing books for publication is a job, embedded in a for-profit (we hope) business, creating a novel is still an...