THE TRANSLATOR’S DAUGHTER has landed after a long & arduous transit. I can’t wait for you to meet her!!! 😭😭
Order from your local indie or
Come to an event
I just went into a bookstore, bought a book, then asked “hey I’m a local author, would you be interested in carrying my book?” and the way she brushed me off SO QUICK, asked no questions, wouldn’t even make eye contact with me 😭😭
Having family and a support system near where you live is a form of generational wealth. It’s an invisible advantage that’s unnoticed and taken for granted unless you don’t have it.
Look, I get it. Not every bookstore is going to stock my book. Shelf space is limited. But you don’t have to shoo me away like I’m some aggressive panhandler 😭
@sakeriver
I feel like this is a statement about storytelling. If the video had been 20-30 seconds, it wouldn’t have gotten the same reaction. But the fact that it goes on for so long makes you *invested* in the outcome, like Go, Lemon, go!! Like the raccoon that climbed the building...
Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan won Oscars for playing ASIAN IMMIGRANT PARENTS who are doing their best in a country that doesn’t embrace them. Usually the parents settle for having successful children, so this recognition is even more meaningful, necessary & healing 😭😭😭
At the start of the pandemic my son & I started folding an
#origami
#crane
for every day of lockdown. We posted updates at 100, 200, 300, 365 & 400 days. We decided we would end it when whole family was fully vaxxed & all restrictions lifted. Today we folded our last one,
#465
.
My son hasn’t hung out with another kid in 6 months and we were really afraid this birthday would be a huge letdown. Thanks for sharing our joy over this goofy gift! 🙏🏽😄 When I’m not tweeting about bread, I write things like this:
After my dad died in 2016, my nephew adopted his dog (they live in Taiwan). I’ve been so grateful to him ever since. Just saw this photo on FB and I can’t stop crying... he got him a RAINCOAT 😭😭
The sad thing is, I don’t think I ever had a bad experience at a bookstore *until* I became an author. I LOVE indie bookstores, spend a lot of money in them & want them to stay in business! Most bookstores I’ve approached have been lovely, but for some the support is only one-way
I woke up realizing that everything I write about my parents is in the past tense. There’s no more memories to be made with them. Not many people I know my age have lost both parents (2014, 2016) & my only sibling (2010). I don’t think I’ve ever said out loud how lonely it is.
I’ve been reading lots of great essays by Asians/Asian Americans but one I haven’t seen yet is, how does one navigate racism when married to a white person? Most of my Asian friends have white partners and I always wonder how or if they can have honest conversations about this...
Since this is blowing up: I 🩷 bookstores and know they’re overworked/understaffed, and rejection is a fact of life. What saddens me is I went from being an enthusiastic customer & community member to feeling like a *burden* just because I inquired about them carrying my book 😞
To live in fear of being shot at a parade, school, movie theater, place of worship, office, grocery store, shopping mall, concert, you name it…
THIS IS NOT FREEDOM.
Thank you for validating my feelings—now I’m in solution mode. Here’s a suggested script/web copy for bookstores to communicate with authors who approach about selling their book. See how this conveys the same info but in a *much friendlier* tone?
@LidiaYuknavitch
I am thinking, our astonishment at the grieving orca reflects a terrible blind spot in our culture. No one who has lost a loved one stops mourning in one news cycle. We carry the grief for longer than anyone ever knows and but it is invisible, which only multiplies our pain.
OVER THE MOON TO SHARE MY FIRST BYLINE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES!!! 🤩
I wrote about me & my son making an origami crane for every day of the pandemic—a way to pass time, make something beautiful out of the pain of isolation & visualize the impact of COVID.
At the start of lockdown my son and I began folding an origami crane for each day of isolation. In late June we reached 100 days. This week we reached 200 and they barely fit on our large dining table. On one hand, it’s a beautiful art project meant to pass the time... 1/2
TBH I much prefer the Sinéad timeline to the Barbie timeline (but sad, sad news). One of her many gifts to us was a radically different and unapologetic expression of womanhood: angry, defiant, full of grief, unwilling to conform to anyone’s expectations but her own.
OMG PINCH ME!! My essay about folding origami cranes with my son during the pandemic is in the print edition of the NYT today—p. 6 of the Sunday Styles section. This is wonderful and surreal 😭😭 You can read it here:
@originalspin
Yes this was chillingly described by
@MsPackyetti
as letting women like Warren do the “custodial work” of running a democracy while the men get the credit/title. This fills me with murderous rage 😡
Friends, I’ve been sitting on this news for awhile but I am **overjoyed** to share that my memoir THE TRANSLATOR’S DAUGHTER will be published in Spring 2024 by
@ohiostatepress
in their Machete series!!! 🎉🎉🎉 😭😭😭
Thanks to
@thesusanito
for this gorgeous calligraphy 🧡🧡
We're thrilled to announce that
@GraceLP
's
#memoir
in
#essays
, THE TRANSLATOR'S DAUGHTER, is forthcoming next year in our Machete series!
In it, Prasad tells a different kind of
#immigration
story that will appeal to anyone with a complicated relationship with home and belonging
Almighty Chrome: Please grant me the strength to close the browser tabs I no longer need, the courage to act on the ones that are still open, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Thank you all for your support, it means a lot to me 🥹 If you want to buy my book, please order from your local indie bookstore or directly from my publisher who offers a 20% discount and free US shipping 🙏🏽🙏🏽
It’s really, really hard to be productive, focused, celebratory, or even just normal right now. Between COVID, violent racism, and unrelenting gun violence, our brains and bodies aren’t designed to handle this level of constant threat and suffering.
We were woken up by whoops and hollers and cars honking throughout our neighborhood!
❤️💙❤️💙❤️💙❤️💙❤️💙❤️💙
Congratulations, Joe and Kamala!!!!
❤️💙❤️💙❤️💙❤️💙❤️💙❤️💙
Trump: YOU’RE FIRED!!!!!
What’s a small pleasure you indulge in to cheer yourself up? My usual ones (buying makeup/skincare) aren’t doing it for me anymore, and my clothes are getting tight from eating my feelings... Would love some new inexpensive ideas.
As a writer with a demanding day job, sometimes I can’t shake the feeling that I’m getting left behind because I can’t work on my writing every day. I 🧡 celebrating all your wins and hope it will happen for me too some day
.
@edyong209
: “A country that, 7 months into a pandemic, still cannot ensure that its healthcare workers have enough gowns and gloves and protective equipment is not going to be able to distribute a vaccine in an efficient way. It simply isn’t.”
AUTHORS OF TWITTER: Psssst did you know you can get your book cover made into earrings on Etsy? I wear these to all of my book events for The Translator’s Daughter. Best $20 I ever spent 🙌🏽
Re: Guernica, I am alarmed & upset that my writing has appeared alongside an essay that attempts to convey empathy for a colonizing, genocidal power. As a Taiwanese person, my solidarity will always be w/ people struggling for self-determination against hostile, occupying forces.
Welp here’s my favorite part of going viral, where people assume the worst & start attacking me. I’m not asking underpaid bookstore workers to “coddle” me. We’re on the same side! We love books & want to sell more of them! Don’t treat us like we’re enemies, that’s all 🥺
But the more I look at it, it reminds me of the AIDS Quilt, a memorial to those we’ve lost. More than 200,000 people have died of COVID in the US alone. Let that sink in: Each one of these cranes represents 1,000 people who were loved and are no longer with us. 💔 2/2
I’ve seen a few people tweet about their writing intentions for 2021. I haven’t made any specific goals yet, but I do have one awesome thing planned for January 🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽
Ok thanks for educating me… I’m not a “local author” I’m traditionally published and distributed and just coincidentally live in the same zip code as your bookstore 🙃
The hardest part of writing is the THINKING, so many endless hours of reading, observing, contemplating, changing one’s mind, reading more, occasionally talking, but mostly just thinking before anything feels worthy enough to go on the page
I think I’ve reached my limit of “Is Taiwan next?” articles. I’m tired of it always being framed as “what will China do” instead of “why Taiwan deserves for its sovereignty to be recognized.” Can we please just appreciate Taiwan based on its own merits?
Thrilled to unveil the cover of my memoir THE TRANSLATOR’S DAUGHTER avail March 2024 ✨✨✨ You can PREORDER NOW from my publisher (use code TRANSLATOR for 30% off + free US shipping). I spent 20+ years writing this book & can’t wait to share it with you!!
@moorehn
What’s uncanny to me is that she writes exactly the way a man might write about women, it’s both dismissive and completely smug about “winning” in an unfair system
19 years ago today I married my husband secretly. His company said they would no longer sponsor his work visa so we tied the knot at city hall. Afterwards, I had to go to my MFA workshop where I received feedback on my memoir as though it was just any other night. No one knew.
Ijeoma Oluo, author of SO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT RACE, lost everything in a fire a couple days ago. She & her partner escaped w/ the clothes on their back. She’s not asking for donations, but you can support her by buying her book:
One consequence of being in isolation for so long is I now get overstimulated more easily. I used to be able to crisscross the busiest parts of Tokyo (shopping! museums! snacks!) for 10 hours a day, but now I’m tired after 2-3 hours outside the home. Anyone else feel this way?
Thank you for validating my feelings—now I’m in solution mode. Here’s a suggested script/web copy for bookstores to communicate with authors who approach about selling their book. See how this conveys the same info but in a *much friendlier* tone?
I just went into a bookstore, bought a book, then asked “hey I’m a local author, would you be interested in carrying my book?” and the way she brushed me off SO QUICK, asked no questions, wouldn’t even make eye contact with me 😭😭
I’ll just come out and say I’m not ready to give up Twitter and the literary connections and community I’ve built here. There’s more than enough grief in the world and I honestly can’t handle any more right now. I’m in denial.
COVID is a bitch, y’all. I haven’t slept in 2 days, have barely eaten anything, and I have the most catastrophic chronic headache.
I never stopped being careful. I can’t pinpoint a particular moment when I probably got it. Trust me, this is NOT MILD. Keep your masks on!!! 😷😷
Today’s my birthday. I’m always ambivalent because it’s when everyone goes back to school/work & no one remembers. Even though I’m not young anymore, a birthday this time of year represents newness & possibility, like the first footstep on fresh snow.
I am always emerging 🦋
If you’re not congratulating someone on Twitter at least once a day, you’re doing it wrong. Amplify your friends! Share great writing by people you’ve never met! Applaud other people’s good news! If all you talk about is yourself and your writing, it gets boring pretty fast.
I’ve written a literary essay (4000+ words) on my experience of being a mother in diaspora. If you’re a litmag editor who’s interested, please DM me (paying outlets only). 🙏🏽
@BlckBolex
@Blackamazon
I can think of 7,592,086 people who deserve to be called out as arrogant and not one of them is named Megan Rapinoe. Seriously how dare he.
Scenes from "Enclosure", performance art, in which Philippines born artist Bea Camacho crocheted a cocoon for herself in 11 hours without interruption
#WomensArt
@jenmercieca
The last time I was this gutted was when Elizabeth Warren dropped out. The last time I was this full of combustible rage was when Kavanagh was confirmed.
In 2010 my brother passed away at 46, only 9 months after cancer diagnosis. My dad, overcome w/ grief, adopted a puppy & named him after my brother. After my dad passed in 2016, my nephew adopted Teddy. Grief never dies, but I’m happy to see Teddy celebrating his 10th birthday ❤️
I wrote this essay 3 years ago, before the pandemic, thinking it would appeal to a niche audience. But COVID has meant that millions of people have experienced parenting in isolation as well as grief from afar, so I believe this essay will resonate for many.
IT’S HERE: I wrote about the grieving orca, Louise Bourgeois’s monumental spiders, and the loneliness of being a mother in diaspora without a support system. This experience has shaped me more than anything else & it took me years to write about it.
Got home late after a reading and dinner with friends. Was tempted to have a glass of wine & dessert, but instead I’m reading about
#WarrenForTheWin
and
#FinishHim
and Liz Warren’s extraordinary debate performance & fundraising results which is 1000% MORE SATISFYING
I walked into a bookstore at SFO & asked if they would consider stocking my book, bracing for rejection. I’d heard they’re only interested in bestsellers, business & celebrity books. Gave the manager my postcard, he looked it up & said yes!!!! Hahaha now I’m drunk with power 😈
THRILLED to share that my manuscript, The Translator’s Daughter, is a finalist for the Black Lawrence Press Immigrant Writing Series!! Deepest thanks to
@BlackLawrence
and the judges, and congratulations to my fellow finalists 🎉🎉🎉
I’m having an out-of-body experience. I’m seeing my idea taken without attribution and implemented by someone else as though I never existed and it is soul-crushing.
Full disclosure: My husband is not white, but we are different races & we have a biracial son. We talk about racism a fair amount (esp. after the last 4 years) but it’s different. It’s really clear to both of us that white supremacy (not whiteness) is the enemy.
Horrible. Some people would rather go to jail than get a lifesaving vaccine. And this is another reason there’s a shortage of frontline workers. Why would anyone want to make minimum wage at a job where you’d face harassment or worse?
3 people arrested for allegedly assaulting an NYC restaurant hostess after she asked a group of diners visiting from Texas to show proof they had been vaccinated before seating them.
I got the BEST unexpected Christmas present!!! I randomly came across my Publisher’s Marketplace announcement which I somehow missed back in April when I was traveling. This is the writer’s version of seeing my name in lights. Look, THAT’S MEEEEEE 🤩😄😭
Pub date: March 5, 2024
Yeah congrats everyone on getting the vaccine/your literary acceptance/making a perfect gingerbread house/etc. but did any of you leave the house today wearing four different kinds of leopard print?
Thank you for this history. The decision to revoke Taiwan’s UN membership in 1971 was a huge crisis and setback. Here’s a pic of me protesting this decision with my mom in NY in the mid-1970s
50 years ago today, the Republic of China was replaced by the People's Republic of China at the UN. Since then, Resolution 2758 – which only refers to the "Chiang Kai-shek" regime - has kept Taiwan out
@MargaretKLewis
@jamestwotree
@julianku
Said this to my essay class the other night & realized it applies in a work context too. You don’t have to accept all feedback. Prioritize feedback from people who CARE about you. When people who don’t care about you give you feedback, it’s often more about them than you.
Can I be real for a minute… I’ve spent 8 years making friends & building a platform here & I’ve appreciated this community SO much. But now that I have a book to promote, I feel like everyone’s disappeared & my posts are invisible. Is it the algorithm or are y’all tired of me 😭