adoptee authors
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For the fourth consecutive year in 2024 I read over 100 books, tracking not only the titles and authors, but author demographics, as well as genre, format, and publication year. This year I also switched from Goodreads (owned by Amazon) to StoryGraph (Black and women-owned) for online tracking, though I also keep my own detailed
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Essays and horror and poetry, oh my! This month I had the chance to interview adoptee author, Jenny Heijun Wills about her new essay collection, Everything and Nothing at All, recently named one of Globe and Mail’s best books of 2024. The book will be widely available it the US in 2025, and I felt
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I am excited to announce the Spring 2025 publication of my first chapbook! Standing atop the line between fact and fiction, life and livelihood, actor and audience, Performance Anxiety interrogates the ways in which adoptees, women, and Black bodies are called upon to perform; examining love, lust, duty, and destruction in a world without a
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This September, I continued working my way through James Baldwin’s oeuvre in honor of his 100th birthday last month. I also got a jump on spooky season with three thrillers: Truman Capote’s classic, In Cold Blood (1965), Disha Bose’s Dirty Laundry (2023), and Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby (1967), which I had the pleasure of reading
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I had the good fortune this month to return to the Yale Writers’ Workshop, where I spent two weeks talking about craft with talented and inspiring authors, published and soon-to-be. But that also meant less time for reading, though I am well ahead of my annual reading goal of 100 books, having completed 70 at
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It was like October in May this month, as I stumbled my way into three fantastic dark and twisty novels, all drawing on historical, literary, and newsworthy inspirations to tell their stories: Grievers by Adrienne Maree Brown, a pandemic-era dystopian fiction novel set in Detroit; James by Percival Everett, a retelling of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry
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This month I was once again reminded of the stark difference between adoptee stories told by adoptees, adoptee stories told by non-adoptee allies, and adoptee stories told by those who use us as plot points, perpetuating inaccurate and harmful tropes. I read books that are examples of all three in April. Please support adoptee
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Another Black History Month of reading in the books though, quite honestly, I don’t read any differently his month than any other month; any month is a good month to read Black authors! Still, I thought I would use this opportunity to highlight the Black authors I read this month here, in case you’re looking
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January is the month of new year’s resolutions, and I have to confess that, after reading 178 books in 2022, my resolution last year was to actually read less. I think maybe I was concerned about letting my introverted tendencies “win” over other parts of me? It sounds silly now, but after having missed my
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This year I completed a whopping 180 books! (A breakdown of genres and author demographics will come separately, along with recommendations for broadening your reading in 2024). In the meantime, here are my favorites: 10 nonfiction and 10 fiction. Grab them from your local library or favorite indie! Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning (2020)
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