Later I returned to USC and received a Master's degree from the Master of Professional Writing program, an MFA equivalent (1989-1992). During that course of study I took courses with Richard Yates (Revoulutionary Road, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness), John Rechy (City of Night), and Hubert Selby, Jr. (Last Exit to Brooklyn).
Bibliography
(all credited as "Tom Chao"*)
Chao, Tom. "The Piano Did Something Bad." MaLLife (Bomb Shelter Propaganda, Seattle, WA) 13/14, (Winter 1987): 36-39.
---. "The Punishment for Imperfection is Death." Paragraph
(Oat City Press, Holyoke,
MA), (Winter 1987): 25.
[Appeared without title.]
---. "Miniature Stories." Asylum (Mission Hills, CA) 7:4 (Spring 1988): 25.
---. "The Pie-Man." Pangloss Papers (Pangloss Foundation, Los Angeles), 7:1 (Jan 1988): 15-16.
---. "The Gum Bar." Open Magazine (Open Dialogues, Westfield,
NJ) (1988): 41.
[This magazine would later become the well-known Open Magazine Pamphlet
Series.]
---. "Can't Dance." The Southern California Anthology (University of Southern California, Los Angeles), 7 (1990): 138-40.
---. "A Guy, A Girl, Some Big Dreams, and a Vigilante Mob." Alaska Quarterly Review (University of Alaska, Anchorage, AK), 2:1 & 2 (Fall & Winter 1992): 169-77.
---. "Miniature Stories." The Noospaper 4 (N.D.): inside front cover.
*While I had given myself the nickname "Tom X. Chao" many years previously, I did not use it professionally until moving to NYC in 1994.
From 1990-1994, I was a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Reader, a weekly newspaper distributed throughout Southern California. I began as a book reviewer thanks to Book Editor Steven Kane, and then moved to the music department under the editorship of Natalie Nichols. I suggested and wrote dozens of features, interviews, album & concert reviews and previews.
My first book review, of a non-fiction book about a comedy troupe, "The Compass," appeared on 10/5/1990.
My first music review was of Elvis Costello's "Mighty Like A Rose" album and tour. 7/19/1991 - "His Aim Is True."
I was fortunate enough to interview:
Jane Siberry (in person). 9/16/1993 - "Sane Jane."
Andy Partridge of XTC (by phone). 7/7/1994 - "Language in His Lungs."
(The text of this interview was, until recently, archived in the Chalkhills
XTC website, but that site has disappeared.)
My final review was a round-up of John Cale. 8/25/1994 - "A Cornucopia of Cale."
My final appearance in the Reader was my Top Ten List for 1994 which appeared on 1/12/1995. This was published after I had moved to New York City in August 1994.
The LA Reader ceased publication on 8/16/1996 after 17 years in existence. Some of the staff migrated to the New Times LA, some to our long-time rival The LA Weekly, and some to the Los Angeles Times.
I have fond memories of my days as an arbiter of taste in Los Angeles, as I always enjoyed talking with the staffers at the Reader. Even though I was a freelancer and did not work in the office, I would go in every Friday morning* to pick up the dozens of free CD's and other promo items I would receive for review. Hats off to Natalie Nichols, Andy Klein, Dan Epstein, Erik Himmelsbach, Brian Bullen, Amy Steinberg, and everybody else from the Reader! I even played on the softball team one year in the annual tournament where we played against the staffs of other publications such as Billboard. My crowning acheivement was not hitting into a double play. I also strained every muscle in my body that day and was unable to walk the following day. I even pioneered the "sympathetic groin pull."
*The full Friday morning routine also included going next door to the Office Depot to pick up supplies for my day job in the office of the Journal of Polymer Science in the Chemistry Department at USC. I would also go into the chain drugstore (Sav-On?) and buy a bottle of juice, a stick of beef jerky, and a package of vanilla creme-filled cookies and consume them while driving on the 10 freeway to USC.