Parent, grad student, writer. I write stories about Asian American women, their parents, and their children.
Sticking the landing
This MonthI moved myself in, moved L in, started him in 3rd grade, started myself in 19th grade (OUCH lol), got my Ohio driver's license, tags, and registration, signed up for library cards, found my critical mass of 5-6 local mom friends from a delightful spectrum of past life stages, cooked a bunch of tasty food, started working on one of my book projects again, hiked and paddleboarded and found fossils, and went to Meijer, Costco, and Trader Joe's more times than strictly necessary. I am happier than I can remember being in my adult life. Here's a line I'm proud of that I wrote this week in draft 2 of Just One Date: They stood facing each other in the doorway, neither able to move forward without the other stepping aside. That is all. RFS (Request for Suggestions)Do I keep writing this newsletter? I have accepted that getting a query-able manuscript and biking 36 miles are not happening this year, and frankly I'm totally fine with that because I've gotten everything else I wanted. (See above.) Does anyone want to just hear me yap about my life, or is that what Instagram is for? Let me know what you think! What I'm ReadingLet's be friends on Storygraph, the non-Amazon version of Goodreads that comes WITH CHARTS ABOUT BOOKS! I forgot to yell about Throwback by Maurene Goo, who always puts out YA bangers but this one had a depth that I feel like her previous books haven't reached. Freaky Friday mother-daughter homecoming queen story if you're into that sort of thing. I read The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down for school. It's about a Hmong child with intractable epilepsy in the late 1980s and the conflicting beliefs and practices of her family and the doctors trying to treat her. Not a light read but an enlightening one. The Library of Borrowed Hearts is exactly the type of "falling in love through notes written in the pages of a book" plus found family plus just the right amount of grumpy sunshine romance that isn't just a romance book that I like. The writing wasn't the best but I do not care lol. Now I am reading The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling and realizing that I truly just need to figure out how to write cute lower-stakes YA and my publishing career would be set. AcknowledgementsI'm drafting the acknowledgements section of my book little by little every week. Thank you especially to Claire who unpacked my business casual wardrobe and picked up Trader Joe's for me on my first day here and is the fun-sized little sister I now have. |
Jennifer Duann
Parent, grad student, writer. I write stories about Asian American women, their parents, and their children.
I've taken pottery wheel classes throughout my life, and I've always struggled with pulling the walls. (Well, I've struggled with everything, but my last round of classes in 2022 finally helped me nail down centering the clay and staying centered, mostly by slowing the fuck down. And if that's not a metaphor for my life, I don't know what is lol) Pulling the walls is the process of moving clay from the bottom of the piece out and up away to form whatever shape you're going for. Historically,...
I'm experimenting with the format of this newsletter, inspired by Maggie Frank-Hsu's delightfully honest newsletter, Momsplaining. I don't really have a plan for this, so here's the concept of an essay. I’ve been wondering since we moved here if it matters, the 25ish minutes a day I spend walking to and from the bus stop waiting to send off and receive my child for the day. Does it matter when I wave to the bus with an army of other parents? Does it matter that I am there after school to walk...
This Week By this time next week, I will be in my new home in Cincinnati, Ohio. After more than a year of waiting, working, and advocating, it is finally time for a new chapter of my life to begin. My brain and body are very tired (because I spent the day moving boxes and also, uh, refinishing a not-small piece of furniture that I acquired yesterday, and also, uh, acquiring another not-small piece of furniture, I PROMISE I WILL STOP NOW) so here's a poem I wrote a few weeks ago that is at...