Q&A

In one sentence: I am an accountant by training, an anthropologist by disposition, a writer by choice, and an occasional bar patron by preference.

I became interested in writing while first introduced to poetry in junior high school. One of my poems written in the eighth grade was rated as the best of that year and reprinted in the school newspaper. My interest in writing, professionally speaking, began after completing fiction and scriptwriting courses at Harvard University. I have since written and published across a diverse spectrum, penning fiction, non-fiction, short stories, essays, news articles, speeches, poetry, and personal quotations. Reviews of my books have appeared in Time Asia magazine, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal of America, Midwest Book Review, The Asian Review of Books, Asia Times Online, and About.com.

I was born in Calgary but spent my early childhood in Toronto. Among my special memories of youth include summers cottaging at the Muskoka Lakes in Ontario. The dream was always the same — an hour before daybreak, a 12-foot Springbok aluminum boat with a 9.8 HP Mercury engine, and an artificial Rapala minnow. Trolling for Smallmouth Bass on unbroken lake water seemed endlessly fascinating. I think this experience nurtured my appreciation for the outdoors, and my sense of adventure and independence.

My two favorite sports while growing up were ice hockey and tennis. I played hockey since the age of five (in Eastern Canada) and tennis since the age of thirteen (in Western Canada). I played in the Canadian National Junior Tennis Championships for three consecutive years as a junior.

My experiences living in Asia have played an instrumental role in shaping the person I am. After attending Beijing University as a language student, I spent several years working in Hong Kong. To date my travel opportunities have taken me to the outreaches of Asia including China, Japan, Taiwan, Mongolia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nepal, and India, as well as to continental Europe, Scandinavia, and Russia. A few highlights: took the Trans-Siberian train from Beijing to Moscow; went white-river rafting on the Trishuli River near Kathmandu; co-chaired a 600-person handover party in Hong Kong; and witnessed the sounds of the Guatemalan forest canopy coming to life at sunrise. If asked which two places I'd like to revisit, my answer would be the temple complex of Angkor Wat in Siem Reap and the treasure-laden Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

Traveling and living internationally will continue to be a factor in my life. Can I share a secret hobby of mine? Nowadays, I'm always on the lookout for the best pho soup and the perfect eggs benedict, especially vegan versions. So far, the best pho soup I've tasted was at the To Chan restaurant in Chinatown, Honolulu; the best eggs bene (coupled with ambiance) was found at the Q restaurant located within the Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia. I continue to cherish the watchwords: "What is the use of living in an interesting world if we never take notice of interesting things?"

Since chiildhood, I have visited the Hawaiian Islands many times with multiple trips to each of the four main islands of Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and the Big Island. In the last five years, I have been making return visits to Oahu and have experienced a newfound love of Waikiki and Honolulu. I believe I'm drawn to the way some things always change while other things never seem to change. Perhaps this is a fitting metaphor for the way we as individuals can grow but still keep the core essence of who we are. Just for fun, I started compiling my own travel notes and I'll post them here in case fellow travelers find them of interest.
Download Brandon's Hawaii Travel Notes

A few quotations seem to stay with me year after year. If I had to pick three: "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler." (Einstein); "People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within." (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross); and "Never ask a barber if you need a haircut." (popularized by Warren Buffett).
See Brandon's Favorite Quotations  |  See Brandon's Original Quotations

My most well-known education books are a series of core skills books. The titles of these six guidebooks are as follows: The Little Blue Reasoning Book, The Little Red Writing Book, The Little Gold Grammar Book, The Little Red Writing Book Deluxe Edition (Writing plus Grammar), The Little Green Math Book, and The Little Purple Probability Book.

The catalyst for the creation of this series was a conversation I participated in one evening while at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong. A few FCC members where lamenting about how educators and employers are quick to complain that students and young professionals are weak in the “basics.” Needless to say, no one, including myself, could answer the question: What are the basics? The challenge to find an answer to something so simple yet novel and useful hooked me.

These books were created to address this deficiency. They provide an answer to two key questions: (1) What are the “basics”? and (2) How might a person review them? I humbly believe that these books not only help define the three basic skill-sets of reasoning, writing, and math, but also provide a measurable way to acquire these skills. To date, The Little Blue Reasoning Book has become the best-selling and most translated book in the series. Given the increasing popularity of homeschooling, I continue to see the future potential for all of these books.

I have written a number of nonfiction educational books and have been pursuing, by choice, a self-publishing model. In my role as an "entrepreneurial author," I endeavored to tackle each of publishing's four domains: (1) write and produce books (employing highly competent editors and cover designers); (2) release books in multiple formats (paperbacks, pdfs, epubs/Kindle, and perhaps audio); sell foreign rights (including foreign language translations and/or co-edition rights); and (4) pursue special sales (non-traditional markets and/or sponsorship sales where sponsors pay for print runs and books are given to schools and not-for-profits).

That said, I have been traditionally published on three continents: Pearson Prentice-Hall Singapore, Blackwell Publishing UK, and Penguin Random House USA (Writer’s Digest is the original publisher of The Little Red Writing Book). Barnes and Noble, in cooperation with Sterling Publishing, even produced inexpensive hard cover editions for two of my education titles for exclusive offerings at B&N stores. From this point forward, however, I plan to team up with a literary agent and pursue a traditional publishing route. I will self-publish only for special, niche projects requiring minimal print runs.

Feel free to download a catalog containing descriptions of all books under my authorship and published by Maven Publishing including foreign editions.
Download Maven Book Publishing Catalog

Technically, the difference between fiction and nonfiction is that fiction is a work based on the imagination whereas nonfiction is based on facts or real-life events. A popular way to distinguish the two forms is to say that fiction exists to entertain or enlighten while nonfiction serves to inform or persuade. There is also some truth to the idea that fiction “tells a story” and nonfiction “illuminates an idea.”

My own way of contrasting these two forms of writing is to say that fiction “explores” and nonfiction “reveals.” An analogy might be that nonfiction is an archeological dig in which we have a very good idea of what we’re unearthing, but need to work to determine what is ultimately there. An archeological dig certainly requires ingenuity on the part of the excavator to plan and navigate the excavation, but there is arguably less exploration and more revealing. Fiction, on the other hand, is like completing a painting. The task of painting a picture (whether realistic in form or abstract in form) does require structure to plan the work, but then it becomes a journey of exploration and less about revealing.

My two favorite fiction books are Siddhartha by Herman Hesse and Animal Farm by George Orwell. My two favorite nonfiction books are Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and Poor Charlie's Almanack by Charles Munger. My two favorite short stories are "The Lady with the Little Dog" and "The Bet," both by Anton Chekhov. My two favorite poems are Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and Clare Harner's "Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep."

My professional experience may be viewed in terms of three turning points that led me to work in accounting and finance, teaching and training, and writing and publishing. After I completed my language studies at Beijing University, I joined the Ernst & Young accounting group in Hong Kong. As a joint-venture auditor in the China Division of the firm, I audited client companies including Coca-Cola, McCormick Seasoning and Foodstuffs Company, and the Hilton and Holiday Inn Hotels. I also worked on feasibility studies for clients trying to quantify their investment potential in China, as well as contributed to the Ernst & Young "Doing Business in China" handbook, used by over 100 worldwide offices.

Another turning point occurred when I returned from graduate studies at the University of Chicago and joined the Hong Kong office of US-based Kaplan Educational Centers — a Washington Post subsidiary and the oldest and largest test preparatory organization in the world. My tenure in test preparation began while serving as Director of Business Development. Through my subsequent work as a GMAT test-prep instructor and MBA admissions coach, I helped hundreds of applicants achieve acceptance at one or more of the world's leading business programs. I also authored two books on my area of expertise namely Ace the GMAT and Getting into Business School. I also pursued work as a corporate trainer, conducting seminars for such well-known organizations as AT&T, ATKearney, Bank of East Asia, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Hutchison Whampoa Group, JP Morgan, and Merrill Lynch.

A third major turning point occurred when I left Hong Kong to return to Calgary to advance my goal of becoming a successful author and independent book publisher. I formed Maven Publishing and began selling my education books in multiple formats across global markets. With respect to foreign rights deals, several of my education books have been translated for the overseas markets including China, Czechia, India (co-editions), Korea, Russia, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

My current memberships affiliations include: The Glencoe Club (Calgary, Canada) and the Elbow Park Tennis Club (Calgary, Canada). I am an alumnus of the Beta Theta Pi General Fraternity (San Diego State University chapter; president of my pledge class) and the Delta Sigma Pi Professional Fraternity (San Diego State University chapter; awarded the nation's best chapter during the time in which I was an active member).

My past memberships and affiliations have included: The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong (currently life-absent member); FAPA — Florida Authors and Publishers Association (former board member, Sebring, FL, USA); IBPA — Independent Book Publishers Association (Manhattan Beach, CA, USA); IPAC — Independent Publishers Association of Canada (Calgary, Alberta); Contributing Editor, Hong Kong Culture magazine (Hong Kong); Co-Vice Chair of the Young Professionals Committee, American Chamber of Commerce (Hong Kong); MBA Alumni Chair, University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business (Hong Kong); Gibralter’s International Who’s Who of Professionals; Canadian Chamber of Commerce (Calgary branch); and American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (USA).

My alma maters include San Diego State University (Bachelor of Science in Accounting) and the University of Chicago (Master’s Degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing and Operations Management). In addition to studying Mandarin Chinese at Beijing University, I also attended summer school at both Yale University (courses in Mandarin Chinese Language and Computer Science) and Harvard University (courses in Fiction Writing and Script Writing).

I have won numerous awards including the International Book Awards, the President's Book Awards, and have been a recipient of the "Educational Book of the Year" award from the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. I have also been a winner or finalist at the Ben Franklin Book Awards, the Global eBook Awards, the Beverly Hills Book Awards, the IPPY Awards, and the Foreword magazine Book of the Year Awards.

I have concrete plans to write another dozen books with an equal blend of fiction and nonfiction. I will gravitate toward topics that pique my interest. Whether fiction or nonfiction, I will continue to write in the belief that there will always be a place for books that inspire, enlighten, and enrich.