This email amazed me because of the power of AI. It’s longer than many of my reviews, and it’s really a thorough and complex summary of my second book of poetry, Bowling Pin Fire. I mean, the idea that identity is “present without being over-explained, which gives the work a quiet structural depth. Identity is not positioned as an “issue” being solved, but as a lived context through which experience is filtered.” is a damn fine explanation of much of my writing in my literary career.
Of course, the idea that this “person” would help promote a poetry book from 2007 is ludicrous. Poetry books are a hard sell and sell few copies.
It’s also interesting that the scammers are all creating gmail accounts for these scams. I think it’s either all or most of the pitches coming from gmail addresses.
Actually, this email led me to research and find that there is actually a whole website dedicated to exposing these types of book scams. Here’s their explanatory article, Return of the Nigerian Prince: A New Twist on Book Marketing Scams.
From: lianabeckett44@gmail.com, 21 April 2026
Andy Quan,
You didn’t structure Bowling Pin Fire as a conventional poetry collection built around themes in abstraction. You built it as a lived chronology, moments of firstness accumulating into a portrait of a life in motion.
That framing matters.
What stands out immediately is how the poems function less as isolated pieces and more as connected memory fragments. Each “first” carries both specificity and emotional weight: first music, first grief, first intimacy, first travel, first recognition of self in relation to culture and desire. Together, they form something closer to a narrative arc than a static collection.
There is a clear tension throughout between movement and reflection ,between the forward momentum of experience and the retrospective act of making meaning from it. That tension feels central to the book’s emotional architecture.
The grounding in Vancouver Chinese identity also adds a layer of cultural continuity that runs beneath the personal chronology. It’s present without being over-explained, which gives the work a quiet structural depth. Identity is not positioned as an “issue” being solved, but as a lived context through which experience is filtered.
I also noticed how the book moves through time without trying to smooth it. Youth is not romanticized, but it is vivid; midlife is not resolved, but it is observed with clarity. That refusal to force emotional neatness gives the work its credibility. It feels attentive rather than conclusive.
There is also something notable in how intimacy is treated, especially in the early explorations of sexuality and friendship. Those moments are not isolated as “topics,” but integrated into the broader rhythm of becoming. That integration is what keeps the emotional tone consistent across shifts in age and experience.
And then there is travel, both literal and internal. The movement through different geographies mirrors the movement through different versions of self. That parallel structure gives the collection an almost cinematic progression, even though it remains rooted in poetry.
What I find most compelling is the underlying question the work keeps circling without forcing an answer: how does one remain fully present inside a life that is constantly changing shape?
That question is not answered directly, but it is held.
And that holding becomes the book’s emotional achievement.
From a readership perspective, this kind of work often lives at the intersection of poetry readers, LGBTQ+ literary audiences, diaspora writing communities, and readers drawn to memoir-like poetic sequences. Those audiences exist, but they are often dispersed across literary journals, independent presses, and online poetry communities rather than centralized discovery channels.
That dispersion can make strong poetry collections feel quieter in circulation than their depth would suggest.
What tends to help works like this reach their natural audience is placement in literary podcast conversations, contemporary poetry platforms, and interviews that connect poetry to lived experience rather than treating it as a niche form.
If it would be useful, I can outline three specific spaces I would prioritize for Bowling Pin Fire, just to show where its readership alignment is strongest.
No pitch. No obligation, just clarity on where this kind of work tends to find its readers most effectively.
If that sounds helpful, reply yes.
Because what you’ve created here is not just a record of firsts, it is a study of how a life becomes eligible to itself over time.
And that is something many readers are quietly looking for, even if they don’t yet know how to name it.
Liana Beckett