Christine H. Lee

Category: Writing (Page 1 of 2)

How many Koreans does it take to investigate a wound?

January 22, 2022 /
Pedagogies of Woundedness by James Kyung-Jin Lee

James Kyung-Jin Lee has a book called Pedagogies of Woundedness: Illness, Memoir, and the Ends of the Model Minority. Published in January 2022 by Temple University Press, Lee examines the question, “What happens when illness betrays Asian American fantasies of indefinite progress?” discussing the model minority myth and its erasure as reflected in “illness memoirs.” Which, as he points out, is a relatively new category within Asian American literature. Pedagogies of Woundedness is an academic narrative and one that highlights a new perspective on how Asian American illness memoirs have come to join the larger genre of Asian American literature. Why didn’t they exist previously? And what does it mean when “the model minority” shows its vulnerability?

Lee establishes the model minority myth early on, opening on Julie Yip-Williams’ 2019 memoir, The Unwinding of the Miracle, involving her terminal cancer diagnosis. “All this seems so incredible and new,” he says, “as if Asian Americans have started dying only recently, in large part because they’ve long been expected to be harbingers of nothing less than the good American life, showing the rest of the United States how it ought to be done” (p. 4). On the same day in 2019, too, Graywolf published Esmé Weijun Wang’s The Collected Schizophrenias. Of this fact, Lee states, “It was as if, in an instant, scales fell from the eyes of U.S. publishers and readers alike: if as a collective, Americans demanded of their Asian American colleagues lives of exceptional mobility and affirmation of the U.S. cultural project, then perhaps…Asian America could also provide a pedagogy to optimize this narrative…Asian Americans can you teach us how to die well?”

LOL.

In his survey of Asian American illness memoirs, Lee writes, “In 2017, Christine Hyung-Oak Lee published her memoir Tell Me Everything You Don’t Remember: The Stroke That Changed My Life with Ecco, the first time in U.S. history that a major trade press published a work of nonfiction by an Asian American whose narrative was primarily occupied by illness” (p. 96).

When my 2014 BuzzFeed essay about my stroke went viral, I was barely cognizant that Asian Americans hadn’t yet pierced the American psyche with regard to illness and to Lee’s point, fallibility. I had simply written about something that happened to me and my path navigating a damaged brain. I was stunned by its reception. Editors wanted to publish such a narrative; my schedule was filled with editor and agent calls for three straight weeks. It was assumed that America was ready, based on the data; I don’t think any of us had at the top of our minds that Asian American illness memoirs were not yet a Thing. I engaged my dream agent (and made some agent and editor friends along the way), and ended up with a book deal. I temporarily ditched my novel-in-progress and wrote a memoir called Tell Me Everything You Don’t Remember based on the essay. I wrote furiously for a year.

Dear Reader: at a point in writing my memoir, I wondered whether to even center my Asian American identity in the narrative. Yes. This was a conscious decision I had to make. My editors thankfully tacitly understood who I was and how I was raised and my cultural context were key components to how I experienced brain damage. Sadly, I felt like I was taking a risk by doing this so explicitly; even though I had no idea I was the first, the only illness memoirs of which I was aware were written by white writers who didn’t have to make explicit their cultural context. Sadly, I was indeed taking a risk.

Yes, in the book reviews, there were folks who asked why I included my Asian American upbringing at all within my illness memoir.

My memoir was published in February 2017, in the wake of Trump’s inauguration, and I blamed many publishing headwinds on that guy (I still do). But there was, I now realize, another headwind: being the first. This was the beginning of a new neighborhood. And there were not yet any neighbors.

Speaking of neighbors: there can be a partnership between scholars and creative writers, one that writers often ignore. Scholarly writing is where I learn most about my own work and the ways in which readers interpret the messages I have sent, whether unconsciously or consciously. And to learn whether my writing has broken new ground as the scholar themself forges new territory.

Some of my most satisfying writing was in the academic term papers I wrote during my MFA–I still have fond memories of writing my term paper on golem imagery in Frankenstein and Great Expectations (Estella is a golem!). Literary writers who attended higher education institutions have if they’ve taken any non-STEM courses at all, likely produced academic writing. And literary writers who attended secondary education institutions most likely wrote academic essays. In this way, many of us have dipped our toes in scholarly work. And it is where, at least in my case, my writing began.

In an undergrad Asian American Studies class, my professor (who is part of the Asian American literary canon and who I won’t name because I am about to criticize him) said, “You should write it. Don’t be a scholar and just study it.” He made clear his opinion that creative writing was superior to scholarship. At the time, what he said was inspiring–I mean, I was nineteen years old and supposed to be premed and didn’t want to go to med school and my secret dream was to become an author, so please give me a break. But I didn’t realize it was at the sacrifice of scholarship. And that this kind of hierarchical perspective isn’t healthy whatsoever, because a literary writer needs readers. And the most thoughtful readers are often scholars.

I’ve never said no to a teacher who teaches my book in class and invites me as a guest speaker. In fact, one of my very favorite things to do as a writer is to zoom into a class. It is an honor to meet students whose academic insights into my writing often surpass those of book reviewers, especially those who question why I bring up being Asian American at all in a…(wait for it) memoir. I’m delighted when I read blog posts by students, those in Professor Lee’s classes included, who’ve read my book. It is good medicine, especially when I need correction or when in the long slog of writing my next book I question whether or not I should continue to write at all.

Scholars are our good neighbors for myriad reasons. And James Kyung-Jin Lee’s Pedagogies of Woundedness is an excellent partner to the burgeoning field of Asian American illness memoirs. May it be an influence as well.

Why safety is an important part of the writing process

December 24, 2021 /

This is how my writing begins–my brain sends up an image that I then dissect into various components and layers with corresponding narratives. I’ll demonstrate with a photograph as posted above. Here is a written description of the above photograph: a picture of cars and a cameraphone reflected in the rear view mirror of a car–the photo also includes the frame of the rearview mirror and the front windshield and what lies ahead. Tl;dr a kind of selfie.

One way to structure the above photo:

  • the past (the cars in the rear view),
  • the present (the cameraphone),
  • and the future (the road ahead) all in one picture.

Now what?

The past: Writing is a complicated brain process that involves taking memories and sorting them into an understandable order, optimally one that complicates and deepens meaning. In the wake of my stroke, I would often begin stories with such an image and then–it was like a cliff. What was the next scene? My card deck had missing cards. I had a fifteen-minute short term memory and retrieving the next module of a narrative was impossible. It was then that I realized that this is how I construct a story even if I’m not sure if this is how all others construct narrative.

Knowing how a thing works is part of the work.

The present: It is the end of 2021. I didn’t publish a single thing this year. It has been awhile since I had a year in which I had zero published work. There was–a lot to navigate in the world and in my personal life, and publishing got pushed to the bottom of the stack. I’d like to say I’m the kind of writer who would write and publish under threat of illness and death, but I have found that I am not such a writer. Listen: I’m just glad I’m alive.

But. I’m pivoting back to a regular writing practice. Yes, I am under deadline. Yes, I am behind schedule. But I’ve decided to really understand what it is I need to write, because 2021 did not provide these necessities to me. And so I’m taking inventory.

The other day, I was on a particularly long drive, during which I listened to music. I don’t often listen to music as a primary activity, and I found myself breaking out in song. The music was making me feel joy and grief and hope as I orchestrated a playlist. I manipulated my own feelings, too, switching from dance music (Martin Solveig & Dragonette’s Hello, Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn) to nostalgic 80s music (Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart, OMD’s If You Leave, Pet Shop Boy’s It’s a Sin) to music I affiliate with beloveds in my life (Dusty Springfield’s You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon’s Let the River Run). I thought about how music brings me into a moment, how music unlocks my feelings. And how I was having feelings for the first time in awhile.

I thought about how I do listen to music to begin writing. I often need music to unlock my emotions.

And then I realized, I lived in a dissociative state for most of the year–in this case, feeling detached more than a disorder. I spent most of 2021 on the ceiling of every room I’ve occupied while playing Bee Swarm Simulator or Animal Crossing New Horizons, watching myself live my actions, much like the narrator of a story is separate from the character. Sure, I feel my feelings, but it’s often asynchronous, at a much later time when I feel safe and rewind happenings in my mind and then allow myself to process my emotions. I am very aware that this isn’t healthy behavior and it stems from earlier trauma. And over the years, I’ve had to do less and less of this as I’ve worked on feeling more as I have feelings–save for 2021, which also gave my OCD and germ phobia a deep purpose, bringing these disorders back to life.

So as I sit back down to write, I have to acknowledge what it is that has changed. That writing is not the same this year as it was, say in 2019, at least for me. There are more psychic obstacles to navigate. A little more work to let myself unravel. And as a result, to hold the unravelled threads and then weave them into story.

The future: What do I need to write? I often write the best in crisis, when everything in my life is falling apart and there is no place to run, and no choice but to let my dam burst. But this isn’t sustainable. And it sure doesn’t lend itself to a consistent writing practice.

Also writing is the place where I do process. And without writing, I am not a well person, even if writing is the hardest activity purely because it forces me to confront myself and the world and all the intersections between and around. Just as in the picture, how do all the parts work together? What am I trying to say? I often don’t know before I begin–only that there is an important vision I want to communicate, with narratives that eventually emerge to complicate that very vision.

I know something works when the picture evolves into one that moves, and when the picture itself becomes woven into something else. I often wonder, for instance, if Rothko’s color block paintings have another painting underneath. Did he paint something horrific underneath and then cover it with rich red squares trimmed in black edging? Is that why his paintings haunt me? Has the original vision receded into another narrative? His work is spare and unadorned–yet when I stare at them, they take me to a very detailed place of emotion.

Red on Maroon Mural, Section 3 1959 by Mark Rothko

For instance, Mark Rothko’s Seagram Murals. (Segue: Mark Rothko was commissioned to make these murals for a fancy restaurant. He was so disgusted about painting something for a restaurant full of rich patrons dining on expensive food with his work as decor that he intended his murals to sicken them–he is my kind of DGAF). I first saw them at the Tate Modern a number of years ago. I have never forgotten the emotional experience of viewing them in person; they reminded me of double-edged safety razors and furthermore, they make me feel the tension of holding one in my hand. Knowing how Rothko died only concretizes this feeling for me. What–I wonder, is underneath? Is that hidden picture the structure of the story he tells?

I realize, too, that the title of this post is about safety. But it is also about risk and disregarding safety. Double-edged safety razors might have been safer than its predecessor–but the blades alone are full of risk. Maybe we can never truly be safe and safety can only be an approximation.

I am not safe when I write. I am throwing myself into the wind. I am letting myself break down. I am breaking down visions. And then putting them back together, intertwined.

To do so requires a wild freedom, the kind of wildness that crises afford me, when the rules have been erased, my foundation crushed, and the walls completely ruined. It requires a kind of self absorption that motherhood doesn’t always afford me. But maybe this year I will create a room into which I enter to write and create. Maybe a locked door will be the very thing that enables wildness. Or maybe I will break rules and make demands.

How to Ask Your Professor For a Letter of Recommendation

January 3, 2020 /

If you just want a letter of recommendation–and not necessarily a good one, you don’t have to read this post. Go ahead and ask your professor/ instructor for a letter of recommendation any which way you’d like, and–don’t worry about it.

But if you want to ask your teacher to write you a letter of recommendation that thoughtfully details your strengths and underlines strong emotional support for whatever it is you’re applying, then read on…

Your instructor, bottom line, does NOT want to write you a bad letter of recommendation. The thing that frustrates an instructor most of all is not being given the resources to write you an excellent letter of recommendation. We WANT to see you succeed, and we do not want to let you down–but we also need certain things to enable us to do our best for you.

So here is a list of resources to provide (and when to provide them) to professors.

In your initial letter:

  • Offer enough time to write an excellent letter: Provide the deadline and give at least 3-4 weeks leeway, if not more. If you don’t give at least 3-4 weeks advance notice, your teacher may not be able to write you a letter in time (especially since letter writing season tends to overlap with “grading lots of papers and turning in final grades” season or the precarious, “we aren’t checking our email because we are on vacation” season or the very possible “I am also writing X other letters of recommendation”). Or worse, your letter will be very rushed and lukewarm. Again, if you don’t care about the quality of your letter or you don’t care that your teacher now has a dent on their head from bashing their head against their desk, then you can disregard this point.
  • Ask in person, if possible. But if you cannot ask in person, ask via email. And always be very polite and respectful. You’d think this was a no brainer, but–you’d be surprised at the number of flippant “Hi can you write me a letter of recommendation for blah blah?” emails professors do receive.
  • Do not officially submit your professor’s name to the institution until you receive a yes from the professor. OMG, yes, this happens. The institutions DO automatically email the letter writer, sometimes immediately. And it’s weird for a letter writer to see a request from a letter via XX university / XX fellowship before receiving a personal request to which they’ve haven’t yet agreed.
  • Why it is you believe they are the person who should write your recommendation letter: Who doesn’t like being buttered up? And also, what an excellent way to model what you’d like for your instructor to write on your behalf! Also, it helps your letter writer understand what value they can add to your application. For example, telling your instructor that they were the person who has seen you through the entire draft of your manuscript and can attest to your growth–is insightful and helpful. Another example might be that this instructor might have taught you after a particularly challenging time in your life and that they are witness to your resilience as a writer (and this instructor may not previously know the importance of their timing in your education).
  • A promise to provide supplemental materials should the professor say yes: these materials should be ready to go (i.e., application materials–and even if they’re not ready, have a general summary ready to go).

If your professor says yes, please provide the following:

  • Your application materials, along with your writing sample (or statement of purpose) for an MFA program/writing fellowship/writing residency / Ph.D. program: You want to help your letter writer feel informed about your application and overall preparation. And also, it’s nice for your letter writer to know what it is you’ve written so that they can write a letter that supports your stated strengths and/or adds to what you’ve already written.
  • What you would like for your letter writer to highlight in your letter of recommendation: Make it easy for your letter writer to write a recommendation–it helps to know where it is we should start. Giving your letter writer every foothold onto how you should be represented is helpful to both you and your recommender.
  • Provide necessary administrative details: Gone are the days (I hope I hope I hope) when letters had to be sent via snail mail. But if an institution requires snail-mailed letters, please provide a self-addressed-stamped-envelope.
  • Provide necessary logistical details: Most letters are sent electronically these days–whether via submittable or a dossier service like Interfolio. Specify to your letter writer from where requests will come or should be sent. Sometimes automatic email requests get lost in spam or a subfolder, so it will only help your recommender to know for what to look in their email. That you have researched and understand these details only adds to the strength of your candidacy, too.

If your professor balks or says they can’t:

  • Be gracious and say thank you anyway.
  • Contact your backup letter writers.

Just as students don’t get compensated for writing an application–neither do educators. It isn’t part of our job description and we certainly aren’t compensated for writing letters–but of course, we do it because we love our students and want you to succeed. So when you write your request, make sure to be as respectful and professional as you can, even if this is the professor with whom you’ve had beers after MFA workshop. Trust me, the professor will understand and appreciate your erring on the side of formality and politeness when it comes to a letter of recommendation request.

In sum: a wonderful student (whose initials are S.F.), once said to me, “One should put the same amount of care into a request as the care they request be put into a letter of recommendation.“

BOOM.

via GIPHY

Right? You want your professor to write a professional, respectful, and compassionate letter stating your strengths to whichever institution you apply. So you want to emulate that tone when you request your letter.

Also–don’t forget to say thank you. A simple thank you note or small gift suffices after the fact. Or if you haven’t bought your professor’s book, now might be the time? Let us know the outcome of your application (remember, we’re rooting for you) even if unsuccessful–honestly, writing a letter of recommendation is like sending a wish out into the world, and we have a vested interest in what happens, too. And if you find yourself no longer needing the letter, let us know asap.

I hope this helps you on your journey. And here’s to many excellent letters of recommendation for you and positive application outcomes!

East Egg: Or How I Became a Husband

October 10, 2018 /

(The new virgin queen of East Egg, August 2018)

 

I picked up my first hive late in the evening. East Egg came from a Randy Oliver nucleus, or mini-colony, bred for both mite resistance and gentle disposition. I’d put my order in months earlier, the day that Trump was elected, an act I didn’t realize then as defiance. That I’d support matriarchy in any way I could, including a colony of bees.

What I wanted then was solace. I also wanted distraction. I wanted to fulfill a lifelong goal of keeping bees. I’d always wanted bees, but my ex husband had been resistant. But he was gone–he’d left me, and with that went any excuses I had for not allowing myself the space to which I deserved.

Even then, it took me a couple years to do the research, take the classes, and order the bees so I could be well prepared to husband a hive.

The word “husband,” first recorded around the year 1000, originally meant “male head of household,” whether married, single, or widowed. “Husband” didn’t mean a married man until the year 1290. In that same year, the word “husbandry” came into being as a noun for “management of a household and its resources.” In the 1300s, the word “husbandman” came to mean a farmer or tiller of the soil–so the word “husbandry” expanded to mean farming and agriculture in general.

So here I was, for the first time in my life, husbanding. Husbanding myself. Husbanding the household. And husbanding chickens and now bees.

I was no longer a wife. And I no longer wanted to be a wife ever again.

I was going to be a husband.

The box of bees was sealed shut when I picked it up. It buzzed. It was full of life. Heavy. We carried it carefully–CAREFULLY–into the car, and drove it carefully–CAREFULLY–home. And we placed it on a hive stand. We unsealed it. We walked away.

The next morning, I couldn’t help but peek in. I lifted the cover off the box. There they were–five frames of bees, surrounded by an additional five empty frames that the bees would fill with more brood (baby bees), honey, and pollen in the coming weeks and months. I named it East Egg. It grew. It produced honey. It kept mite counts below 6 throughout the year, without any intervention or treatment. It was so strong going into the winter later that year, that it emerged this Spring with a catastrophic mite count of 46–it had robbed a bunch of hives and brought home mites.

I treated it with an organic treatment. And the mite counts dropped again. I cherished its magnificent queen. Took pictures of her whenever I spotted her. Sometimes the bees stung me–and while I suffered from large localized reactions, I didn’t really much care. I loved what that hive meant to me, and I kept at beekeeping. I was a husband.

I was helping bees grow and prosper. I was learning about the different roles of the female workers–how they start as nurse bees, move to cleaning the hive and caring for the queen, then move to guarding the hive, until the final phase of foraging. How tidy–that the last stage of work took them out of the hive, where most of them would end up dying.

The few males–the drones–I ignored. They didn’t sting. They were there to serve the purpose of passing the genetics of the hive on. Nothing more. Every time I talked about bees or opened up the hive, any worry I had–dissipated.

When the apple trees blossom around the Spring equinox–bees are prime to swarm. Swarming is a way of reproducing, as half the hive leaves with the queen to a new home. The remaining bees raise their own queen from the eggs left behind. But in the city, you don’t want to do this. To be more exact, your neighbors would not appreciate you doing this.

And also–why let your bees swarm when you can create an artificial swarm (a split) and make sure to give them a good home?

I split East Egg. In other words, I took a few frames out of East Egg (two frames of capped brood, one frame of eggs, one frame of honey, and the rest empty frames) and put them into a new box, and thus a new hive. This split had bees and eggs and capped larvae–and no queen.

Without a queen, the worker bees made a queen from the eggs. East Egg now had an offspring of sorts, and the queen of East Egg, a daughter. She was a rare ebony colored queen. I named the new hive split Bree, and she went to live in Sonoma County.

But then–tragedy. East Egg started to dwindle. It had been a very very healthy and large colony until May. Five boxes tall! A full box of honey going into Summer.

 

But somehow, East Egg never capped the honey. I was so busy with other hives and a rare vacation to Hawaii, that I neglected to go down into the deep box to double check brood–even after I didn’t spot any eggs in the second box.

Something happened to the queen right after the split. I know this now, because I made a chart of the hives I managed this year, according to their growth. You see, East Egg started taking a dive after I made Bree in April. But I didn’t notice.

I saw the queen, but didn’t notice anything wrong–and because she was alive, I figured all was okay. Here she is, on May 27, post-split.

Doesn’t she look okay? Right?  Look closer. There’s a mite on her shoulder.  I remember making a note to check her again the next time I opened up the hive.

By now, she’s stopped laying–reading my notes now, I know.

 

 

You see, bees normally supersede a failing queen. I often call my bee colonies “The Borg,” because they work as a cohesive unit. The queen is beholden to the workers, and the workers are beholden to the queen. The worker bees build a queen cup if they sense something wrong. They raise their own queen. And the queen usually lets that happen, knowing her own demise. But not this queen. She tore apart every queen cup.

She didn’t let them make another queen–and so I thought all was okay. But in June (June 16 to be exact), I took a closer look. There she is, the queen. Looking injured–see her peeling thorax?

 

In the end, I had to kill the queen, when I saw how injured she was. It was awful. Later, someone asked if I’d preserved her–dunked her in some alcohol. And if I ever have to kill another queen bee, I’ll do that. But no. I stepped on her in an inglorious end.

Out of loss and setback comes opportunity.

So I decided to use this as an opportunity to purchase a Randy Oliver queen.

I bought a Randy Oliver queen. Placed her in the hive where the candy plug would be eaten away in a few days. The candy plug never got eaten away by the workers. Strange. I called my mentor, and she said to go ahead and remove the candy plug. I did. And the bees? They killed her.

I had no idea at the time, but the hive had laying workers. At the time, I thought the queen was newly injured just a week or so earlier. I thought the queen had only recently stopped laying eggs. (A queen can lay about 1500 eggs/day). But in hindsight, she had stopped laying in May.

Laying worker is when a hive goes queen-less for long enough (3 weeks or longer), the worker bees themselves start laying eggs. They do this, because they do not smell queen pheromone, and they do not smell egg pheromone.

The eggs laying workers lay are unfertilized, so they are haploid, and become drones. In a sense, this is the way a dying hive still sends off its genetics into the world. The brood pattern is uneven and spotty, unlike when a queen lays–she lays in a solid swath of eggs.

And so for the next 6 weeks, I put in a frame of eggs from another hive, hoping that the smell of fresh eggs would suppress the laying worker situation.

 

East Egg persisted. I inserted frame after frame of eggs from Tangerine Hive each week. I think I put in a total of 8 frames of eggs over six weeks. (Tangerine Hive, meanwhile, had a gorgeous queen that was a laying machine).

It persisted. Like, nose above water, persisted. It got invaded by wax moths. I took frames and put them in the freezer to kill the larvae, and substituted clean frames.

We kept going. All I wanted to do was to keep this hive alive through the winter.  It was important to me. I was a husband. I was husbanding. I was helping matriarchy survive.

By 6 weeks, East Egg was assaulted by robbing bees. Strong hives will rob other hives. They will send great numbers of bees to a vulnerable hive and rob it of its honey. And oftentimes, the robbing bees will kill the bees inside the hive. I imagine East Egg did this last winter to other hives.

There was a cloud of bees above East Egg–I wondered if it was some sort of odd swarm. I didn’t think of robbing, because I’m pretty diligent about keeping a robbing screen (it keeps outsider bees from going in the hive, while allowing the home bees to go in and out freely) on my hives. Out of curiosity, I rushed outside in a bee suit. Despite the robbing screen, the hive got robbed out through a tiny notch in the inner hive cover. I hadn’t even considered that notch. It was a tiny notch.

And there, on the ground, was a small pile of bees. Inside that pile: a new queen.

East Egg had managed to make a new queen–had managed to break laying worker. As a beekeeper, I learned that persistence can pay off. That laying worker might take 6 weeks to suppress. That an additional hive is of great help. That bees need community. That a notched inner hive in Berkeley is a dangerous thing.

As a beekeeper–or husband of bees, I’m trying to unravel this mystery. I refrained from talking about East Egg all season, because I felt I had let down those bees. I felt I had been a bad husband. But in the end, I never left them. And they never left me. They fought until the end. And so did I.

The top picture–is a picture of the virgin queen. She’s tinier than a mated queen. She was the last one standing, because the female workers protected her, clustered around her. I’m standing too, because of all the women in my life.

Harvest

September 3, 2018 /

I’m teaching a novel structure class. Freytag’s pyramid, which he diagrammed in 1863, describes a 5 act drama.

1. Exposition–or rather, an introduction
2. Rising action–building suspense
3. Climax–the big showdown
4. Falling action–tying up loose ends after climax
5. Denouement/Resolution–the end, whether problems are resolved or not resolved

Late Winter and early Spring is the time for a garden’s exposition. Planning. Buying seeds. Germinating them indoors or in the greenhouse. It is an exciting time full of possibilities. Every year, I also work on a few experimental plantings–like gourds in Berkeley and cucamelons that are new on the seed scene. And many different kinds of peppers in hopes of making hot sauce. I also planted blue sesame plants for the first time. Some other items I planted for the first time: meadow arnica, schisandra, myogi ginger, cherimoya, wasabi, warren pear, coolidge pineapple guava, burdock, rocoto, blacktail watermelon, and a banana.

Then they’re transplanted into the ground sometime in Spring or early Summer, and the rising action begins. New variables like the weather and sunlight and fertilizer and soil quality and insects and pests and diseases come into the picture. The weather warms. But fog might roll in. Things get more complex. The plants spread their roots, begin budding and growing, and produce fruit and vegetables for harvest. Progress is measurable and visible. Sometimes, there are surprises. Like raccoons that party like gangsters in the garden each night, digging up mulch to search for grubs. Or really, just dig up plants for no good reason other than the fun of it. And of course, the clematis vine that never ever ever flowers. And powdery mildew. Always powdery mildew over here.

There are welcome surprises, too. Like one pluerry fruit the first year of a pluerry tree’s planting. Lemon guava fruiting for the first time since I planted it last year. More passion flowers than I can count. Infinite sweet pea flowers. Tomatoes and after tomatoes.

Everything reaches a tipping point. Reaches a crescendo. Reaches climax.

At a garden’s climax, the tomatoes and squash and cucumbers and eggplants and beans and peppers and corn–nearly everything is ready to harvest, almost at once. It is thrilling. This is the point I’ve been waiting for all year.

But also–the problems that existed earlier in the season in smaller quantity become even more evident now; I am battling powdery mildew that threatens to kill my squash vines on the squash arch. It’s coming at me with a vengeance now, because I let the first whispers of powdery mildew go overlooked earlier.

The myogi ginger fell over and died a couple weeks ago. The schisandra is yellowing–and I’m not sure that’s normal (I have to look up whether or not it’s deciduousthank goodness this is normal–they’re deciduous). The blacktail watermelon, which fruited with great hope earlier–has stalled. The watermelon fruit is about four inches in diameter. Yes. FOUR. The cool foggy Berkeley weather has triumphed there. The meadow arnica is tiny but growing. My blue sesame plants never flourished. The raccoons keep coming. Even as the garden is at its peak, it is at its most vulnerable.

Things are literally falling over–dahlias heavy with bloom. Tomato plants busting out of their Florida weave.

And they will fall over–what will follow is falling action. The tying up of loose ends after harvest. Cutting plants down. Building compost. Cooking the harvested vegetables.

I’ll sow cover crops. Sow some winter garden crops like carrots and kale and lettuce. But mostly, I will let the soil rest and rejuvenate. There is resolution–what pests haunted the garden before will no longer be relevant. If one spot was particularly powdery-mildew-susceptible, I’ll plan on planting something different there next year.

But mostly, I will be better off than I was the year prior, because of this garden. Even if a bit tired.

In tragedy, the protagonist is worse off. In comedy, the protagonist is better off at the end than at the beginning.

Here’s to comedies. And gardens. And urban farms.

My writing playlist

May 9, 2017 /

In case anyone is wondering…this is my writing playlist.

There are a lot of Jonsi and Sigur Ros tracks. I’m indebted to Jonsi and Sigur Ros for the bulk of my writing, as you can see.

Also, while I love lyrics (in my non-writing life I love Journey and Sia and Kate Bush and New Order and the Killers and Houndmouth and Imagine Dragons and Postal Service and Blondie and David Bowie and Adele, etc., etc), I bend towards ambient or non-lyric-based songs for my writing (the words from the song get mixed up with my own words). You’ll see at the tail end of the list, I have some songs with lyrics; that’s me coming out for a breath of air from a deep dive into my own writing. The beginning is mood-setting, and the middle is pensive and slow.

It’s a 4 hour long playlist, which is about the maximum amount of time I can sit at any one time to write. I rarely make it to the end.

And sometimes yes, I do skip around.

(I’ve only very very recently discovered Standing At Last–recommended to me by a superior friend who suggested them after I shared my general predilections with her). Always looking for more. Always looking to lengthen my writing time.

What is your writing playlist? What do you like to hear while writing? Anything I might be missing, based on what I’ve got?

—+—+—+—-

(In case you’re averse to itunes, here is a list of the songs):
1. Anthem by Moby
2. The Newsroom Main Theme
3. Hymn by Moby
4. Myth by Beach House
5. Chasing Cars by Sleeping At Last
6. Around Us by Jonsi
7. Growing Till Tall by Jonsi
8. Hengilas by Jonsi
9. Untitled 4 by Sigur Ros
10. Indian by Sleeping At Last
11. Marl1 by Tsewer Beta
12. The Hunt by Youth Lagoon
13. Holocene by Bon Iver
14. Montana by Youth Lagoon
15. Flume by Peter Gabriel
16. Why Not? by Jonsi
17. VCR by The xx
18. Building the Barn by Maurice Jarre
19. Boy Lillikoi by Jonsi
20. Mariner’s Song by Cowboy Junkies
21. AEvin Endar by Jonsi
22. So Long, Lonesome by Explosions in the Sky
23. Sun by Jonsi
24. Cannons by Youth Lagoon
25. We Bought a Zoo by Jonsi
26. Hoppipolla by Jonsi
27. Viva La Vida by Coldplay
28. Snaerisendar by Jonsi
29. Into the Blue by Moby
30. Opus 26 by Dustin O’Halloran
31. Southern by Sleeping At Last
32. Whole Made of Pieces by Jonsi
33. Sweet Jane by Cowboy Junkies
34. All Through the Night by Sleeping At Last
35. Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley
36. Your Hand in Mine by Explosions in the Sky
37. Knife by Grizzly Bear
38. The Book of Love by Peter Gabriel
39. Poison & Wine by The Civil Wars
40. A Whiter Shade of Pale by Annie Lennox
41. On the Sea by Beach House
42. Youth by Beach Fossils
43. The Others by Birds of Tokyo
44. Yellow Roses by Animal Hours (my boyfriend!)
45. Entropy by Grimes x Bleachers
46. Everything Little Thing She Does is Magic by Sleeping At Last
47. Simple Things by Miguel
48. Lo Boob Oscillator by Stereolab
49. What a Pleasure by Beach Fossils
50. Cybele’s Reverie by Stereolab
51. The Story by Dolly Parton
52. Still Falling For You by Ellie Goulding
53. Two Weeks by Grizzly Bear
54. Train by Niklas Aman
55. Daydream by Youth Lagoon
56. I Drove All Night by Cyndi Lauper
57. True Colors by Cyndi Lauper
58. Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler
59. I Will Always Love You by Dolly Parton
60. Anthem by Moby

Mailing List

July 14, 2016 /

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I am starting a mailing list in anticipation of the release of my memoir TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU DON’T REMEMBER (and of course, after that–my novel, THE GOLEM OF SEOUL).

I welcome you to sign up for monthly-ish updates from me.

The updates will have some personal content as it pertains to writing. I’ll also be sharing my writing process, my publishing experience, favorites, travel, etc. A little like this blog, but also different.

And hopefully more exclusive–for instance, when my book trailer is released, my mailing list readers will be the first to see it!

Additionally, I plan on holding giveaways to members of the mailing list–for example, signed books…and possibly tote bags or other schwag I might dream up.

Please sign up below. And thank you for becoming a part of my inner circle of readers.

Subscribe to my mailing list

* indicates required




The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

June 20, 2016 /

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(A picture of me in 2013)

In 2013, I lost everything I’d built my life upon. My marriage. My previous identity. Money. I was heartbroken and dealing with postpartum depression. I was struggling with motherhood, and the challenges of this new life.

But unbeknownst to me at the time, I found my identity and strength and friends and love and I began a relationship with my newborn daughter. Everything was gone but I had the opportunity to replenish my life with things and people most important to me as a newly untethered individual.

I remember telling O that I had one year to really make a change. That for a year I would be at home as a new mother and I would have no money and that that would be the year I would double down on dreams. Everything’s gone to shit, I told him. I have nothing else left to lose. I have to do only the things I love to do and see where they lead me.

I felt helpless and so I did the one thing that did not make me feel helpless. I doubled down on writing.

In 2013, I wrote the essay that was a turning point in my career, MINT and it was published in The Rumpus by Roxane Gay. It was not as widely read as some of my future work, but this was the publication that changed my life.

That essay led to an opportunity to write something for BuzzFeed in 2014. I wrote an essay about my stroke and recovery. The essay went viral and led to a 2-book deal with Ecco.

All I did in 2015 was write my memoir. I wrote and wrote and wrote.

Two months ago, I turned in my memoir manuscript. Yesterday, I finished copy edits.

In 2017, on February 14, TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU DON’T REMEMBER will be published and out in the world.

I did not do this alone.

Thank you.

2013 was an enormous fall. Here is a picture of me in 2013, sliding down the Codornices park concrete slide. On that day, I decided that as miserable as I felt, I would seek a minute of pure joy, somehow. My thinking was that I could hold on to those few seconds and say, “Today I felt good, even if for ten seconds.”

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(Also, falling can feel good–as evidenced by the slide).

That is how I clawed my way back. I would hold on to the small parts of good. Even if the good was just one percent of my day. I would make that one percent, larger, somehow. I would hold on to any part of happiness, even if fleeting.

I would focus on happiness. I would be aware of misery and I would try to deal with the bills and legal paperwork one by one. My worries were many–at one point I wondered how it was that I would pay for diapers. I would not ignore these concerns. But I would look at a sliver of happiness while dealing with the unpleasant.

And eventually, the happiness would dominate.

And yes, it has.

Book Gestation

June 17, 2016 /

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It takes a number of steps and people and coordination to bring a memoir into the world. (It also takes work).

The essay that sparked this whole process. Editors and agents. A book proposal to write. A book deal. Then, write write write write wriiiite.

After twelve months of writing…GOOOOOOAAAALL:  a completed and accepted final draft of TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU DON’T REMEMBER. I’ve never written at such a quick pace.

My novel, on the other hand, took twelve YEARS to write and I’m still not done rewriting it. And it’s due soon, to my editors! 

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So we’re now in the copyedits stage. Many eyes have scanned the pages. An intrepid and sharp-eyed copyeditor combed through my manuscript for necessary changes over the past month, and now it is in my hands again. My penchant for unnecessary commas is clear to me as I accept changes proofread the proofreader. (Shazam! I caught a couple of things he/she missed!). A legal team has read the manuscript to ensure all things are square on the litigious front.

Blurbs have been courted. Bound manuscript copies have been sent out for said blurbs.

I have cover art–it’s beautiful. I can’t wait to show it to you.

The advance reader copies (ARCs) will be out within a couple of months and the publishing sales team readied.

My editors asked that I make a short video for the sales team–I could have shot something simple with my iPhone (what’s the selfie version of an iPhone video?), but I’d already been pondering a book trailer for a few weeks . A good book trailer can be amazing, a bad one, ineffective (and a major expense).

The fact that a book trailer could achieve two needs at once got me off the fence.

So this week, we shot my book trailer.

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I get to have Oprah Lighting! Well. Sort of; I get to be lit up! I had to powder my face and everything.

The entire living room got lighting. Including my bookshelves, the backdrop to some of the book trailer.

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It’s hard to talk about my book and not make it sound cheezy. I’m astounded that people even want to hear about my story about having been sick and then getting better. But along the way, I learned lessons about wellness and resilience, and it was gratifying to write them down.

And I can’t wait until my book is out in the world–the official publication date is February 14, 2017.

 

Getting In Shape To Write

June 6, 2016 /

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I turned my memoir manuscript in, and it’s time to move forward to my next book, before the PR demands for my memoir ramp up. So between now and January 2017, it’s novel-time. It’s due in a few months.  It’s done but not done done done.

Whereas my memoir took 12 months to write, my novel has taken 12 *years* of effort. It was born in the midst of my MFA’s novel writing workshop, ushered on by Victor LaValle. I’ve rewritten it three times. Thrown away more words than I’ve eventually kept. It waited for me to recover from my stroke. Witnessed the birth of my child, the end of my marriage, and its book contract. It waited for me to live a life, to grow up and meet it. To be able to write the damn thing.

Unlike my memoir, my novel requires so much more discipline and rigor from me. It wants a tidier home. My kitchen is tidier than it has been in a couple of years. And it requires me to get in physical shape. Literally–I can’t write my novel unless I’m running or doing yoga on a regular basis. It goes back to the discipline and rigor this novel demands from me.

I went on a run today.

Confession: I haven’t gone on a run in….years. Over two years. The last time I went for a run, I could run 30 minutes easily. This time–nope. I cut short my run by 15 minutes.

Further confession: I wasn’t running for 15 minutes straight. I was doing “intervals.”

This bout of exercise felt like running (see what I did there?) your hand in the wrong direction on velvet fabric. Not what I expected. Uncomfortable. Dissonant.

But getting back into my novel reeks of this discomfort–like wearing jeans after having worn sweatpants for two years.

Confession: I’ve been living in soft pants for 2 years.

I’ll keep running and getting back into shape. And I’ll keep working on my novel, and getting it into shape. And my novel will shape me.

In other news–there is a family of foxes in our neighborhood. They’re beautiful and delightful to spot in our urban setting. My daughter spotted a baby fox/kit, and she couldn’t stop talking about it.

Then again, we have no more chickens.

 

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