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Slant'd

@slantdcreative

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✨Building a creative home for #AAPIs to pursue their wildest dreams
📚 Indie press (books + magazines)
✏️ Storytelling programs (virtual + IRL)

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WE DID IT!!! 🎉
$25,902 raised + 304 backers from all corners of our community = another successful @kickstarter campaign in the books (pun 100% intended) ! 📚

This campaign was never just about hitting a number: it was living proof that AAPI stories deserve to exist in the world. To everyone who backed, shared, or cheered us on: THANK YOU. We mean it from the bottom of our hearts. 🙏🏼 ❤️

It was definitely one of the most stressful campaigns we’ve ever run, and we were only able to do it because this community shows up when it really matters. Because of your support, we’ll be able to fund the production of our first two books and make our debut authors’ dreams a reality. ✨

WHAT’S NEXT:
🥟 Soup Dumplings Don’t Eat Cheese by @mslynnchen @annychen.art launches NEXT MONTH (Oct 2026)! We’re planning a launch celebration in Los Angeles (more details soon)!
🇵🇭 Eternal: Tales of an East Side Pinoy by @itsdjeternal @kelsotang @moodinfinite launches Spring 2027!

🔜 Backers: Keep an eye on your inbox later this month! We’ll be sending backer updates and fulfillment details your way very soon.

Missed the campaign? You can still make a late pledge (link in bio) to get your hands on books + merch before the public.

#kidlit #indiepublishing #diversebooks #memoirs taken in Los Angeles, California by @slantdcreative

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a month ago

WE DID IT!! 🎉🥟🎧 Our kickstarter campaign is 100% FUNDED! Soup Dumplings Don’t Eat Cheese! and Eternal: Tales of an East Side Pinoy are officially coming to life! Thank you to the 289 backers who believed in these stories. This was the most ambitious campaign we’ve ever run, and every single pledge, share, and comment got us here. From the bottom of our hearts — thank you!!
We’re not closing up shop just yet: the campaign runs through 8/30, so there’s still time to back us if you haven’t, or add on anything extra to your pledge. And for our Canadian friends — we’re now shipping to Canada! 🇨🇦 We can’t wait for you all to read these stories 🥹 by @slantdcreative

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2 months ago

👀 A new sneak peek into Soup Dumplings Don’t Eat Cheese! as we get ready to send one of our first books to print 🥟 Every spread here carries something intentional. @mslynnchen wrote this story from her own history with body image and identity — the kind of thing she wished she’d had language for as a kid. @annychen.art took that and gave it shape: designing Little Dumpling and Mama as visual opposites on purpose, soft and rounded versus sharp and precise, and folding in little details from her own upbringing along the way. This book has been years in the making, made with more care than a caption can really capture. And it doesn’t reach print without you.
3 days left to help bring Soup Dumplings Don’t Eat Cheese! to life. Back us on Kickstarter — link in bio 💛 by @slantdcreative

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2 months ago

Eternal: Tales of an Eastside Pinoy is one part memoir, one part Bay Area music history, and one part love letter to the city where Roel Garcia grew up in - San Jose.

The book follows @itsdjeternal growing up in the ’90s—from garage parties and DJ battles to radio, fatherhood, and eventually building a crew of his own. Told through Eternal’s stories, archival photos, flyers, and ephemera, it’s a book about DJing, but also about family, growing up, chasing something you love, and what happens when the people and places that shaped you begin to change.

The co-authors (@kelsotang and @moodinfinite ) spent the last three years interviewing, writing, digging through archives, and slowly piecing this story together. Excited to finally bring it into print with @slantdcreative —and launch our Kickstarter to help make the book real.

To everyone who’s already backed the project… thank you for believing in us. 🙏🙏 by @slantdcreative

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2 months ago

⏰ 3 DAYS LEFT to back us on Kickstarter! We’re in the final stretch of the campaign. Help us bring our debut books to print 🙏🏼 If you’ve been saving this as a to-do for later, NOW’S THE TIME! Kickstarter is all or nothing, ever pledge helps, or share this with someone who’d love these books. 🔗Link in bio to back us before time runs out 💛 by @slantdcreative

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2 months ago

We’re halfway to $25,000 and we can’t get to the finish line without you! In one week, our Kickstarter closes, and Kickstarter is all or nothing: if we’re short by even $1, we get $0. These aren’t just two books to us, they’re Lynn Chen @mslynnchen and Roel Garcia @itsdjeternal, two debut authors getting a shot at telling their stories that traditional publishing rarely gives. Only 7% of published authors in the U.S. identify as AAPI. Every pledge is a small act of making sure that number changes! Both of these stories deserve to exist in the world and with your help, they will. We’re so grateful for everyone who’s gotten us this far. If you haven’t backed us yet, now’s the time. Please help us amplify and share with someone who would love these books! Link in bio 💛 by @slantdcreative

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2 months ago

🎥 Story time, whenever your fellow dumplings need it. Author Lynn Chen reads every page of Soup Dumplings Don‘t Eat Cheese! – so bedtime, car rides, and the fourth reading of the day are all covered. But this video, and the book itself, only happens with your help.

The readalong video is a Kickstarter EXCLUSIVE - back The Drama Dumpling reward tier and help bring this story to print. Link in bio ✨ by @slantdcreative

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2 months ago

🖼️ Kickstarter reward spotlight: Every gangster has a party poster

That line is the heartbeat of Eternal – and now it's a poster you can put up in your studio (or wherever, really). Designed by @liyangelique, a Filipina graphic designer, illustrator, and friend of the authors. Inspired by 90s/00s concert posters, this piece is her own homage to Roel's eternal love of music – expanding Eternal beyond the page into a piece of art rooted in East Side San Jose Pinoy culture.

Available in select reward tiers or as a standalone add-on to any pledge. But none of it happens without your backing first. Support Eternal: Tales of an East Side Pinoy on Kickstarter and bring this poster and story home. Link in bio ✨ by @slantdcreative

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2 months ago

Every book starts somewhere. Swipe through to see how Soup Dumplings Don’t Eat Cheese! came to life, from @mslynnchen’s earliest ideas to @annychen.art’s final art. And remember: this book only gets made if we hit our Kickstarter goal — link in bio to help bring it to print. ✨

Lynn co-founded a body image blog called Thick Dumpling Skin — and when it came time to write her first children’s book, she knew the hero had to be a soup dumpling. Soup dumplings have strict standards: precise weight, an exact number of pleats. The perfect metaphor for a story about the pressure to be “just right.”

Lynn described Little Dumpling as “plump and proud” to Anny on their very first call. That one phrase stuck with Anny through the entire illustration process. She always starts with character first – reading the manuscript, highlighting every word that describes who Little Dumpling is, then sketching until her facial expressions and body language feel true to that description.

Early versions kept Little Dumpling’s clothes “doughlike”, styled like dumpling skin – but it made her look too young. The team landed on a letterman jacket, a ruffle dress, and chucks: bold, age-appropriate, and true to her sassy, rebellious personality.

It’s been an inside joke between Lynn and her husband for decades – and somehow, it became the title of her first book.

Once the characters were set, Anny moved into storyboarding. Rough thumbnails first, then refined sketches, determining pacing and how the story would move page to page. This is where Soup Dumplings Don’t Eat Cheese! started to feel like an actual book.

Once the characters were set, Anny moved into storyboarding. Rough thumbnails first, then refined sketches, determining pacing and how the story would move page to page. This is where Soup Dumplings Don’t Eat Cheese! started to feel like an actual book.

Little details like these are why Little Dumpling feels so real – she’s not just Lynn’s character or Anny’s illustration, she’s a little bit of both of them.

Soup Dumplings Don’t Eat Cheese! doesn’t go to print without backers. Help bring Little Dumpling’s world to life – link in bio to support the Kickstarter. ✨ by @slantdcreative

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2 months ago

Ever wonder how a book actually gets made at Slant’d? 📚 Our Acquisitions Editor, Tiff Soga, shares the steps over the last two years to bring these books to shelves. We’re endlessly grateful to the Slant’d Creative Circle (Fall/Winter 2021 cohort) – our community brain trust of AAPI writers, artists, advocates, and visionaries. Thank you for your incredible care, sharp insights, and for helping us pick our debut books to share with the world: Amanda Liaw, Christina Chung, Hana Kim, Jenny Liao, Jocelyn Tsaih, Julie Ae Kim, Katie Gee Salisbury, Krystal Mak, Shantel Bartolome, and Vina Orden.
None of it happens alone. It‘s a whole community, every step of the way, which is exactly how Soup Dumplings Don’t Eat Cheese! and Eternal: Tales of an East Side Pinoy came to be.
Now we need our community to help us finish the job. Back us on Kickstarter by 8/25! Link in bio 💛

#aapi #aapivoices #book #publishing by @slantdcreative

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📍 Kickstarter reward spotlight: DJ Eternal‘s Guide to San Jose

Every pin’s got a memory behind it. This isn’t your typical city guide – it‘s Roel’s own map of the streets, sounds, and spots that made him: record shops, family hangouts, corner stores, and more. Each pin comes with his own words on what that place means to him. @itsdjeternal @theupliftersllc

Whether you‘re from the 408 or just visiting, this is San Jose through a local’s eyes. IYKYK

This city guide‘s only available through select reward tiers, not a standalone add-on!! Back our Kickstarter to help bring the book to life and be the most in-the-know about San Jose. by @slantdcreative

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ETERNAL, the memoir, is ready to print!

One part love letter to San Jose, one part fuel to chase your dreams no matter the challenge.

Thank you to all 115 of you who’ve supported thus far, getting us to 49% funded. We collaborated with the talented @liyangelique to make limited goods for this drop. Link in bio!

production: @popeyemedia.la
director and dp: @moodinfinite
gaffer: @hyperionfilm
editor: @kelsotang
design: @liyangelique by @slantdcreative

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