Gifts and Ripples

Thinking about a year of full moons

Dear readers, happy full moon and thanks for coming on this ride with me!

This year has been a doozy for everyone I know (including me) so as 2024 comes to a close, I’m looking forward to maybe a bit less of a rollercoaster next year, if the universe could just make that possible…

I just did my last book event of the year, at an extremely close by venue — my little town’s local library — which was surprisingly well attended considering it was on a Saturday afternoon in December. I might do a memoir writing workshop with them in the spring! People in our community of Edgewater are interested in telling their stories.

This month, perhaps with the impending holidays, I’ve been thinking about gifts... and about the ripple effect we have on each order’s lives and writing. Also, some peculiar things have happened since my book came out, even as the events and buzz have died down. Ripples have emerged... the book has created new channels of energy, some of which have flowed back to me.

First, some readers have gotten in touch when they finished the book! Which has touched my heart and made me cry a little every single time. Maybe this will never get old, and maybe this is why I write. To connect with a reader — to have a conversation.

The first one to contact me when she finished the book was my mom, god bless her (I have a great mom!), and she liked it! My response was a sigh of relief.

My mom can be a little **critical** (cough cough, also, happy birthday, Mom, I love you!). When I showed her the 1-page overview summary of the book in its proposal form, she had SO many critical edits that I actually regretted showing it to her (sorry, mom).... But then I took her feedback into account and the book proposal also got a lot better.

So phew. Mom liked the book!

But then other readers got in touch. Not my immediate family. Sometimes, not someone I even knew.

Through the book, I met an old friend of my Dad’s from college, who based a character on him in a novel he wrote (Neal, if you’re reading this, let’s swap manuscripts!). He also told me the story of passing a bottle around with Janis Joplin on stage in Golden Gate Park in the summer of 1968 with my dad Richard. Wheeeeee!

I was also contacted by a former associate of my Grandpa Thomas who helped him file his UN Petition in 1956!!! Which is amazing. Can’t wait to hear more of that story. (And to add a few endnotes to a future edition of the book?!?!)

And I just received an email from a woman from a pro-independence Taiwanese American activist family, who told me that in my book’s description of my biracial features, I had described her daughter. This choked me up.

Our actions have implications, and our stories and relationships have ripples. While we do a lot of bestowing of commercial objects to one another around this time of year, the effects we have on each other’s lives can also be gifts. Honoring each other can be a gift.

So many people have given me so much this year (not even scratching the surface of how many friends and family have banded together to shower us in love and baby stuff for my son Jonah). Thank you to everyone, for all of the support.

Bringing it back to writing, your writing can be a gift. Everything we do creates ripples.

Let’s make them positive ones, as we approach another year full of uncertainty and challenges on a national and global level. Maybe our local level can be full of joy, generosity, hope, and love.

Wishing you a great holiday season and a happy 2025. Doesn’t 2025 sound like the distant sci-fi future? It does to me.

A few requisite self promotional announcements:

– My book is on The Rumpus’s first book gift guide!

(https://therumpus.net/2024/11/29/the-first-book-holiday-gift-guide/?mc_cid=fc3a295db1&mc_eid=b385cec49e)

- And it was recommended by TaiwaneseAmerican.org as a holiday gift in their Bookshop.org Editor’s Picks! (https://bookshop.org/shop/taiwaneseam_org)

– If you’d like to order my book at a 35% discount, you can do so until midnight tonight at Rowman.com using the promo code 24JOYSALE (https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538194065/Where-Every-Ghost-Has-a-Name-A-Memoir-of-Taiwanese-Independence)

– Another great gift is a writing class! I’m offering a Flash Memoir class online from 1/29-2/12, so tell your friends! Former students, how was the class? (https://www.writingco-lab.com/classes/writing-flash-memoir-winter2025)

But seriously, thank you all for the support. If you are here, you are a friend to my writing. Here’s to more words— and some of them good or even excellent — in 2025.

Here it is, your moment of zen: