Another Year Older, Another Year Wizened
Prepping for my last book event, planning air travel with a toddler, and reflecting on a year of magical chaos
Happy full moon, folks! This month’s buck moon marks two years of this Substack newsletter being a monthly-ish missive. Also, I’m about to turn 41 in a few days, and will most likely finish my last book event on my birthday! So there is a sense of completion there. I’m going to be speaking at the Taiwanese American Conference - West Coast, and having a conversation with a wonderful advocate and thinker and writer about all things Taiwanese American, Christine Lin.
We are also taking my 14-month old son Jonah west to meet the rest of his dad’s side of the family TOMORROW, so let’s just say this week has been a little hectic.
So in honor of summer reading and summer breaks and a lighthearted sense of summer, I’ll just note a few wild and favorite recollections from this last year of being a writer and a mom:
Unwrapping my box of author copies of my book with my son, seen here that night at not quite 4 months old, and feeling like both were kind of these magical beings that had descended on me. But before I got too much new author new book ego, my son took a giant poop and I had to change his diaper. Grounding moments!!
Doing my first book events at local libraries and my big launch party at WORD bookstore in Brooklyn, having an amazing chat with my esteemed friend Kirstin Chen and sharing griddled pork buns from Win Son Bakery with the crowd.
The second pic is with my extremely wonderful writing group, who read early pages and whose feedback shaped the eventual tone and voice (and structure!) of the book.
One bittersweet development during this madcap year was that I had to take a leave of absence from the writing group, as I struggled to get Jonah to sleep at regular intervals and then eventually on his own, in his own room. Even when I thought I had the bandwidth to return in March, now back at work teaching and resuming full time “life”, I realized that I was squeezed out too thin and needed to break for a little longer. Sometimes it’s important to admit when we DON’T have the ability to do something — even though I miss everyone dearly and every meeting and set of pages I read gives me ideas about how to be a better writer.
Miss you all with so much gratitude, Exiles!
I did a book talk at the John Jay Library (I teach at John Jay), and my personal, professional, and creative lives all came smashing together. Here is Jonah shaking the hand of a dear colleague and friend!
A million friends, strangers, talented babysitters, kind and passionate booksellers, and others helped me this year. I got to catch up with old friends and former roommates, writing group partners, and reconnect with family members over the book, writing, events, and travel.
Also, an upside: now Jonah really likes bookstores and libraries!
It was chaotic! I don’t know if I could have done any of it again! But I’m so glad I did it.
Also, finding the quiet and the space and the bandwidth and the joy and the energy to start something new was extremely important to me. I’m a writer — a write, present tense.
Time to shut the door on the Taiwan book and fly through the next window of opportunity.
I’ll be back with lengthier and probably more helpful thoughts in August about agents and querying. But for now, it’s time to take a lot of stuff and my kid and truly a boatload of snacks to California.
There’s a lot of terrible news out there — I hope you squeeze the ones you love.
Also I’ve been thinking a lot about phones and screens and how we are what we pay attention to. I’ve been doing some very offline writing and editing on paper printouts of chapters and drafts and I’ve been really enjoying the tactile sensations of writing screen free again. More on this soon.
What have you been reflecting on lately, in terms of writing, life, or summer? Leave a comment and let us know!!
Wishing you a temperate, stress free, and creatively generative summer!
