My passion for writing started when I developed a fascination with different alphabets in kindergarten. I became a good speller, and then, I was constantly at the library checking out wordy books with fascinating stories and memorable characters. I started writing poetry in the sixth grade. In middle school, my sister pointed out to me that I had a knack for rhythm and words. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school when a fellow student asked me to autograph a poem I shared with the class that I realized my writing had potential.

My dad was the one who supported my creative endeavors and funded the self-publication of my first poetry book, which is no longer in circulation. Still, it was a milestone. Years later, I tried my hands in screenwriting and completed several full length feature scripts that drew interest from several independent filmmakers. I never stopped writing poetry and in February of 2010, I self-published “Whether By Chance” with some of my favorite old poems in addition to the new ones. Another poetry book titled, “Telling Eyes” is underway with my most recent poems, which are much darker and less dreamy. Readers, I hope, will continue to relate to my poems, albeit on a more tortuous adult level. My poetry can also be found in Savant’s Poetry Anthologies (FIRST BREATH, the award-winning WAVELENGTHS, and the upcoming FIFTY-EIGHT STONES).

 With the release of my autobiographical novel, ON MY BEHALF, readers are invited to relate to my personal journey. In seeing me in all my naked humanness, I hope readers everywhere will feel less ashamed of their own truths and supposed shortcomings. Life is flawed every way one turns. Mine is not a particularly special story, I think. Rather, it’s a story that is retold many times in many forms by many tongues. Every experience has been experienced before. What people have not seen before is my unapologetically forward approach to detailing everything from my shaky childhood to my entrance into adulthood and all the missteps along the way. Surely every good person has some bad in them. However, in reading ON MY BEHALF, it will be clear who it is actually tipping the scales. My parents, my culture, my surroundings and ultimately my determination to defy all of the above shaped the person that I am… sometimes for the better, oftentimes for the worse.

Through my trials and experiences, I have become a Vietnamese woman with a modern take on the world around me. I hope you will enjoy my autobiographical novel and memoirs entitled ON MY BEHALF.

Helen Doan - Author of ON MY BEHALF (Savant 2012)