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January 15, 2019On Re-Fusing CanLit--Or Why We Need Integrity, Community, and Roses
In a lot of the trauma memoirs I’ve been reading lately, I see the same metaphor used to describe the process of healing. You’ve likely heard it too. It compares healing from trauma to the Japanese ...
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September 10, 2019
On Reading
Writers need to read— I offered this advice earlier in the summer— and I sincerely hope it’s not news to any writer looking at this post that reading is a most instructive way to learn what does, ...
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February 16, 2018On reading politically, or why the good old days are a flat out lie
It’s a funny time in the world of words. Every morning, when I log into Twitter, people are debating freedom of expression and the politics of how we read. Some of this is just nonsense, really just ...
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June 17, 2020On Reclaiming Brokenness and Refusing the Violence of ‘Recovery Narratives’
I’m working on this essay when a friend texts me. His therapist suggested he write a list of things that he likes about himself but the picture that shows up on my phone is just a blank page.“Having ...
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March 15, 2020On Research
I can be nerdy, at times. I love exploring libraries and getting lost in the archives, as one might expect of someone who’s written two historical novels. My first novel, After the Bloom, focuses on ...
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April 25, 2018On respectable narratives and why diversity on the page matters
Growing up, I was very particular kind of Chinese girl. I attended Chinese school on Saturdays. I took piano lessons. My report cards were always the best in my class. I played first clarinet in my school ...
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August 11, 2020On Returning to Pen & Paper
The last time I wrote a story in a notebook must have been back in elementary school. I can remember handwriting in the thin cahiers we were given, double spacing my writing as instructed. Because I was ...
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March 23, 2020On Road Maps
Before beginning a project, is it worthwhile to do a detailed outline? Or is it preferable just to dive in? I’ve tried both approaches. In writing my first novel, After the Bloom, I outlined extensively. ...
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September 01, 2022On Shooting Stars and Poetry as Fuel
To live at all is to grieve;but, once, to have it all at onceis to see a shooting star: shooting starshooting star.Arthur Sze (From Shooting Star) I read a poem every morning. Not because I have a pile ...
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September 12, 2014On Silence in Poems
“To reveal all is to end the story. To conceal all is to fail to begin the story." Robert Kroetsch, The Lovely Treachery of Words.Where is there silence within the poem? Where on the page? Emptiness? ...
