R Zamora Linmark
R. Zamora Linmark is a poet, novelist, and playwright born in Manila, Philippines. He is the author of four poetry collections: Pop Vérité (Hanging Loose Press, 2017); Drive-By Vigils (Hanging Loose Press, 2011); The Evolution of a Sigh (Hanging Loose Press, 2008); and Prime-Time Apparitions (Hanging Loose Press, 2005), and the novels The Importance of Being Wilde at Heart (Delacorte/Random House, 2019), Leche (Coffee House Press, 2011) and Rolling the R’s (Kaya Press, 1995), which he adapted for the stage in 2008. Linmark was awarded fellowships from the Japan–United States Friendship Commission, an NEA in Poetry, two from the Fulbright Foundation, and the State of the Art Prize from Creative Capital. He has taught Creative Writing and Literature in the U.S. and the Philippines, most recently as the Roger F. Murray Chair in Creative Writing at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA. He also edited a special literary folio on writings from Hawai’i for The Hopkins Review. He currently lives in Honolulu where he is at work on his next play FAGS/HAGS, and Class of ’86, a novel.
books
Private: Rolling the R’s
Illuminated by pop fantasies, Donna Summer disco tracks, and teen passion, the fiercely earnest characters in Rolling the R’s come to life against a background of burning dreams and neglect in a small 1970s Hawaiian community. In this daring first novel, tour-de-force experiments in narrative structure, pidgin, and perspective roll every “are”, throwing new light on gay identity and the trauma of assimilation. Rolling the R’s goes beyond “coming of age” and “coming out” to address the realities of cultural confusion, prejudice, and spiraling levels of desire in humorous yet haunting portrayals that are, as Matthew Stadler writes, “stylish, shameless, and beautiful.”
More R Zamora Linmark Books
Coffee House Press 2011
Hanging Loose Press 2008
praise
“[A] style that combines the comic pitch of a drag queen with crazed, daredevil experimental techniques unseen since the ’60s heyday of Terry Southern and Hunter Thompson—all in a dense and startlingly beautiful pidgin dialect. Linmark nails the excitement and terror of being young with a rare and moving accuracy.”
— Dennis Cooper, Spin Magazine
“Rolling the R’s is a downright funky, hothouse treat.”
— Jessica Hagedorn
“Linmark has done more than simply use the argot of equatorial poverty as a sexy, colorful idiom. In its structure, tone, and depths, Rolling the R’s is true to the furious and witty rhythms of a vernacular culture of resistance.”
— Village Voice Literary Supplement
“R. Zamora Linmark serves up an eccentric and enchanting blend of disco memories, Tiger Beat crushes, and pidgin English in Rolling the R’s.”
— Out Magazine
“Miles away from singular narrators, linear tales, and middle-class white characters, an ocean away from the Continental United States, Linmark’s text explodes the formal and thematic expectations of young adult literature, pushing the boundaries of the genre with a dizzying array of stylistic choices.”
— Roopika Risam, Asian American Writers’ Workshop
R Zamora Linmark news
March 26 – April 26, 2026 | Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays @ 7PM, Sundays @ 2PM | Kumu Kahua Theatre (46 Merchant St Honolulu, HI 96813) Adapted into a play by Kaya’s very own R. Zamora Linmark, Blu’s Hanging will be coming to Honolulu’s Kumu Kahua Theatre this March and April! The production opens March 26 […]
Before the Young Adult became the edgy, best-selling genre it is today, Kaya Press was publishing cutting edge stories about Asian diasporic young people that changed the world. R. Zamora Linmark’s Rolling The Rs tells the stories of young people in Kalihi, Hawaii in a way that no one had ever allowed children to exist […]
On May 29th our beloved Kaya author, R. Zamora Linmark, sat down with Michel Martin (host of NPR’s All Things Considered) to discuss his lasting 90’s debut novel, Rolling the R’s! We’re obviously big fans of Rolling over here at the Kaya Press office (especially since it still stands as one of our all time […]
Join R. Zamora Linmark as he tours America in support of Kaya’s re-release of the modern classic Rolling the R’s. Tour Dates March 28th, 7 PM at University of Southern California Rolling the R’s: Literary Revolutions in the Asian Pacific Diaspora with Jessica Hagedorn and Lois-Ann Yamanaka Friends of the USC Libraries Lecture Hall, Doheny Memorial […]