Where the Official Record Ends: An Interview with Vanessa Hua
by Carolyn Gan
Carolyn Gan talks with Vanessa Hua about her debut novel, the importance of community, and the impact of becoming a parent on her writing.
Carolyn Gan talks with Vanessa Hua about her debut novel, the importance of community, and the impact of becoming a parent on her writing.
“I like binaries, but only if I get to play with them and break them down”: Lillian Li answers all Emily Nagin’s questions about writing her debut novel, Number One Chinese Restaurant, out next Tuesday from Henry Holt.
From the Archives: J.T. Bushnell on Amy Tan’s “Rules of the Game,” a “quintessentially American story, one that has roots in a literary tradition that dates back to Flaubert and Chekhov.”
“I think when I look at culture I’m trying to look beyond two opposing worlds. I’m looking at the smaller works at play. Family culture. Work culture. In many of the stories in the collection some of these come in conflict with one another.”
Rone Shavers talks with Karen Tei Yamashita about her National Book Award shortlisted novel I Hotel, and in the process the two touch on everything from the role of history and memory to the process of writing, to what one’s politics and culture says about the nature of storytelling itself.
Reading Deanna Fei’s debut novel, A Thread of Sky, rescued Kate Levin from a giant post-MFA funk. In this conversation with Levin, Fei discusses the role cultural identity plays in a writer’s persona and work, the value of unknowability, the secret to writing great sex scenes, the reason she watches Jersey Shore—and more.
“Writers can almost be defined as professional outsiders. It’s part of the job. You often have to step outside of a situation to observe it—to choose the right details—to reshape a mess of events into a narrative.”
Yiyun Li (Gold Boy, Emerald Girl) discusses with Angela Watrous what it means to be an American writer; the elusive process of revision; the art of transforming stories into screenplays; and the act of talking aloud to famous dead writers.
Hyphen Magazine and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop have named Sunil Yapa as the winner of their 2010 short story contest. From the announcement: Hyphen and The Asian American Writers’ Workshop have selected the 2010 Asian American Short Story Contest winner, Sunil Yapa, who penned “Pilgrims (What is Lost and You Cannot Regain)”, a poignant story of anguish and reconciliation. Yapa is a recent graduate from the MFA program at Hunter College in New York City. His work has appeared in Pindeldyboz: Stories that Defy Classification and The Multicultural Review, and he has received scholarships to the New York State […]
As a young girl, Marie Mutsuki Mockett accompanied her father to antiques fairs and art galleries, observing lively debates over Japanese lacquer and porcelain. Her talent for zeroing in on the telling detail, as well as a connoisseur’s appreciation of the aesthetic tradition of Japan, both blossom in her debut novel Picking Bones From Ash. Lee Thomas sits down for a conversation with Mockett that spans child prodigies, the downside of unlimited freedom, the upside of nonprofit publishers, and the nature of travel.
