Other Writing
Here’s a piece in The Guardian about Taiwan’s election and an essay in Paris Review about the re-release of the canonical film “City of Sadness.”
I’ve been writing at a weekly newsletter that my husband Albert Wu and I started. Here’s a viral piece about moving to Taiwan, which explores impasses in marriage and hierarchical assumptions that the way upward is from East to West. And here’s another about becoming a new mother and how the spunky girl-heroes of Miyazaki’s films inspired me.
A very fun roundtable on the French writer Eric Chevillard’s versatile prose at the Los Angeles Review of Books. In conversation with Jeremy Davies and Daniel Levin Becker.
“Cobra Kai, the Twilight of American Empire, and the Allure of Paramilitary Violence” in the Los Angeles Review of Books. In this piece Albert Wu and I discuss how Cobra Kai shows the thin line between being a victim and victimizer, and how the memory of humiliation is one psychological origin of paramilitary violence.
“What Replaces Prisons?” in The New York Review of Books. I review Danielle Sered’s recent book Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and the Road to Repair. I discuss the extraordinary potential of restorative justice, as well as its limitations, and how it relates to the movement for prison abolition. “Throughout Until We Reckon,” I write, “we see people—mostly poor people of color—meeting each other, holding each other accountable, making promises, attempting together to repair their lives.”
"How to Disobey Your Tiger Parents, in 14 Easy Steps" in the Sunday Review at the New York Times. If you rebel, you can retain your dignity—and theirs.
"How Recording My Audiobook Brought Me Closer to My Immigrant Mother." On the scariness of reading aloud and my attempt to build intimacy with my mom. In Literary Hub.
"There's a Reason Demagogues Despise Books." On how poetry and books nurture the interior life in an Arkansas county jail. In Signature Reads.
"Writers Recommend." On my writing process and what I do when I'm stuck, in Poets & Writers.
"Connecting Through Literature." On how high school teachers might use Reading with Patrick in a classroom. In RHI Magazine.
"Letter from Paris." On teaching in Paris after the November attacks. With Albert Wu, in the LA Review of Books.
Those Who Leave. On Elena Ferrante and the stranglehold of ideologies in the 20th century. With Albert Wu, in The Point.
Animal Feelings. On orcas, elephants, apes, the lawsuit against Sea World, and how animals grieve. With Albert Wu, in Public Books.
Imperfect Strollers: On Teju Cole, Ben Lerner, W.G. Sebald, and the Alienated Cosmopolitan. On the 21st century flâneur, dislocated and wayward. With Albert Wu, in the LA Review of Books.
"Scientology: The Mystery Sandwich." On Scientology, Tolstoy, and the highs and lows of religious faith. With Albert Wu, in the LA Review of Books.
"Take the Good Life and Be Happy." On the FX series The Americans and whether ideology can win against its greatest threat: the comfort of intimacy. With Albert Wu, in the LA Review of Books.
"I Dare Not": The Muted Style of Ha Jin. On the Chinese trope of the exiled scholar-hero, and where Ha Jin fits in. With Albert Wu, in the LA Review of Books.
In Hell, "We Shall be Free." On evil and liberty in Breaking Bad, with Walter White as Milton's Satan. With Albert Wu, in the LA Review of Books. This was selected by LARB as one of its best pieces in television criticism.
"The Miraculous Privilege of Existence." On Marilynne Robinson and her world of quietly radical encounters. With Albert Wu, in the LA Review of Books.
"The Lost Student." On leaving behind a student in rural Arkansas. In The New York Times Magazine.
