 Welcome, friends. We'll get started momentarily. Hello, hello. If someone from the audience could let me know they see my screen and hear my voice. That's always helpful. And you will see in the chat box that I put a link for tonight's library announcements and links to our presenters. And this is a living document that we'll keep up with as our presenters speak to and add any resources that they talk about to this document. Okay, I'm assuming you can all yay thank you. I now definitely assuming can all see and hear me because you have spoken. All right, we're going to get started with library announcements. So, as I mentioned, thank you for being here this evening. We are one celebrating API heritage month, and coming to a close of that celebration, but not a close of honoring API creators authors writers poets. We celebrate API creators all year round with a special highlight in May. This is also part of San Francisco public libraries on the same page literary campaign, where we encourage all of San Francisco to read the same book. This is generally a bi-monthly campaign. So Vanessa's book will be celebrated and honored from May to June. But we also have a special June also. It's an odd special June celebration which the book covers hard to see 100 boyfriends in June, Brontes pernell's book will be a June special edition pride on the same page. And don't miss Brontes and Alvin or laugh in combo on June 1 and pick up the book now to library. All right, library announcements. Welcome to the unseated land of the aloney tribal people. We want to acknowledge the many Ramya Tisha lonely tribal groups and families as the rightful stewards in the lands on which we reside. Our library is committed to uplifting the name of these lands and community members from these nations with whom we live together. The library encourages you to learn more about first person culture and land rights and are committed to hosting events and providing educational resources on these topics and you can find that in that link that I placed in the chat box. SFPL is not a neutral institution and stands in solidarity with our Asian community and our black community and we condemn all of the horrendous violence against Asian. We condemn the horrendous violence against Asian and Asian Americans in our community state nationwide, both the reported and invisible crimes. The library stands in solidarity with our Asian communities, neighbors call and colleagues distressed and hurt by these attacks. We acknowledge that these events are complicated by the entanglement of anti black and anti Asian Asian stereotypes and that anti Asian and anti black racism both uphold white supremacy and we are all harmed by these structures. The library stands for libraries for all, and we all have a stake in dismantling white supremacy for a true multiracial democracy. We love this quote by Grace Lee Boggs activist libraries are trickling open we have three open at the moment for browse and bounce and many open for curbside pickup and many more to come soon. Please continue to wear your mask when you come business. Hello, if you don't follow Chinatown pretty on Instagram do so now the best and most wise and stylish seniors ever across six Chinatowns across America, and they will. Valerie and Andrea, Andrea will be here tomorrow to talk about their book and their Instagram fame. We have a couple more programs, celebrating API, the romance of Chinese poetry featuring Clara who and Google master David long. And if you don't know Clara she is everywhere she is a poet of all poets. She even has a wrap up there which I will, I'm going to put it in the chat box later because it's just so amazing cute. So Wednesday our poet laureate tango as Martin brings us poets from Mississippi. So sort of silver linings of shelter in places we get to host all these people from all over the world and all over our own country so join us for that. We're stepping straight into summer stride I can't believe it. It's insane that we are there, but June, July and August we have so much planned for you, including this amazing event, also brought to us through tango. And we're celebrating Marlon Peterson's book bird uncaged an abolitionist freedom song, and Marlon will be in conversation with Casey laymoan who has a book called heavy, and his new book long division has just been republished both of those books are superb bird uncaged was I could not put it down. I'm really excited to get Casey laymoan in our library for so long so I'm really excited about this one. So please come and so some support for these two, two, three authors that we have. As I mentioned summer strike it's here. It's time sign up. Get your reading in get your iconic summer strike tote bag it's gonna have that adorable SF libraries love libraries. And do your reading come to all of our events, and I'm going to breeze through to this. So as I mentioned this is part of our on the same page. Campaign and we are honored to have celebrate Vanessa walk. I have been doing this job at the library for two and a half years, I think, and from day one Vanessa has been popping up at library events in my email. She not only so support for our library but support for all the authors and all the writers out there and is always championing for other writers so we love that about Vanessa and her book a river of stars has been nominated twice for an on the same page. And now it has come up again and finally got through what was also nominated on the shortlist for a one city one book campaign. There there by Tommy Orange was selected. Vanessa is an award winning bestseller author and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle her novel a river of stars was named to the Washington Post and NPR is best books of 2018 list. And has been called a marvel by oh, oh from magazine and delightful by the economist, her short story deceit and other possibilities. A New York Times editor choice, receive choice or received an Asian Pacific American award in literature, and was a finalist for the California book award and new American voice, new American voices award, or forthcoming novel for Ben City will be published in spring. 2022. And you can get river of stars, and to see another possibilities at our library, or your favorite local bookstore. Tonight, Vanessa is in conversation with the elites for hours, who is the recipient of a 2020 run a jaffy foundation writers award, and recent Steinbeck fellow at San Jose State University. Her writing has appeared in best American short stories 2016 Kenyan review, Bellevue library review, asterix, and Southern review Colorado review and elsewhere. And let's say we let's have received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan. Alright friends let's turn it over to our authors tonight. Thank you so much. Anisa that was a wonderful introduction and I'm so grateful to SF public library I missed the physical space yearly but I swear I'm checking an ebook out for myself or my kids. It was like every other day. And thanks to all of you who are joining tonight. And, and I'm very excited to be in conversation with you Lisa one of my very best writing friends or friends no qualifiers. So. Hi Vanessa. Hi, everyone at home. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll be discussing an in conversation about a river of stars Vanessa has Vanessa was thrilling right of a novel. I thought we would get started with Vanessa if you could give us a little taste of the of your amazing prose before we just talk. Thank you so much for the opportunity from the opening and you Lisa has seen, I saw this draft and manuscript form and was in fact sitting across from me many times, writing together at the writers writer so it feels very special to be reading this aloud. So, a river of stars. Last young first told her about perfume Bay, she tossed the brochure onto the dashboard and reached for a slice of dried mango. Shaking his head, he took the bag, but before you could stop her, she snatched a slice of chewy sweetness. During her pregnancy, he begun scrutinizing her for scrubbing advice, some backed by science, but most by superstition to protect the baby. She shouldn't eat mangoes as their heat would give the baby bad skin. No watermelon whose chill would cool her womb. No bananas, which would cause the baby to slip out. No water chestnuts mung beans or beans sprouts, either the list of traditional provisions grew each time she attempted to eat. She drifted into the next lane. She told him to keep his eyes on the road. He gripped the steering world and told her his plan. He wanted to send her and their unborn child halfway around the world to perfume Bay five star accommodations located outside of Los Angeles. After she delivered staff would file for a social security card for a certificate and passport for their baby, their son, his sex recently confirmed would give them a foothold in America. Hopefully he could sponsor a green card, Scarlett had said. For now, you'll get rid of me. Clever plan boss young. At the factory she called him boss young and she kept it up in private to reminder that she was a deputy manager, and not a shower jet, a mistress, a gold digger from a discus or disco or a hostess bar. Boss young reached into the glove box for brand new US Atlas that he must have hand carried from Hong Kong. Hope unfurled in her chest. She always navigated on their weekend drives. And with this gift, she pictured them traveling across America together. The hospital you'd deliver in would be top class he said the hospitals are good in Hong Kong to she said boss young frowned Hong Kong was also home to his wife and three daughters. So I'll, you know, that's the opening and I'll I'll leave from there and let's say what starts off as complicated gets more complicated. Thank you so much. I, I love that section. And, and that is, as Vanessa, as you mentioned, that wasn't one of the early drafts that I read. What strikes me about what you read is that, you know, there's all these rules imposed on women and especially like pregnant women and like traditional cultures. And this book is very is so full of very strong characters and women who just defy all of the restrictions that are put on them. And, and when I first, when I first, you know, when I first when I first read your book, I, I was like, Oh my God, this is like pregnant Selma and Louise. Yes, this is the best premise for a book like it's so exciting you don't hear, you know, you don't read a lot about, you know, pregnant women on the run and doing all kinds of crazy things. But yeah, so I guess I read or I read early drafts and there were so many wonderful, so many wonderful things in the, in the book that I felt like didn't make it into the final version. And I was wondering if, is there anything that you wish you had kept or like something that like really just like when you, you know, and you had, then I was been out like a couple of years now but is there still something that you're like, Oh my God, I, I wish I could have held on to that and for whatever reason, you know, the editing process is so can be so fraught. But yeah, is there anything that Well, you know, it's interesting and I think in a, and I don't know how many writers are logged on tonight but you know the path to every book is not like an arrow shooting straight to the finishing line or straight to the target. I think sometimes people will ask well how long did it take you to write the book. And I'll say well I first started getting an idea for it when I was pregnant with my twin sons who are turning 10 this year. So, and I was living in Southern California and that's when I began hearing about these maternity tourism centers. I'll get to your question but I just want to kind of explain and then just, you know, the neighbors were baffled they were wondering why these pregnant Chinese women were showing up in their cul-de-sacs why the garbage cans overflowing with diapers, you know, it was like a brothel in reverse. And, and, you know, it was intriguing to discover that they were as my narrator Scarlett were coming here a month or two. So that they could give birth and their children would get us citizenship. So in terms of the novel how it initially began every chapter had a different narrator. I was imagining something like Jennifer Egan's Goon Squad. And I knew it was a risk, because sometimes, I mean, I think the question, you know, was Goon Squad actually novel or was it a short story collection or, you know, is that for someone else to decide. So, but so portions of this novel, it was always Scarlett story but there were different points of view, say from Daisy's point of view from Daisy's boyfriend. And actually, and it was funny, I think later I was looking at a review and a reader said oh I wish you got more more of Daisy and I was like, you know, so so do I but in a way, going back to the birth metaphors I think there were portions of those sections that ended up still in the book. I don't know if you've ever heard of the vanishing twin. It sounds cannibalistic but basically, when twins are sometimes in utero, it starts off as twins but then a portion kind of ends up only only one baby. So one of them sort of vanishes inside the other so I think, in that same way, I think things that I, you know, was there wasn't room for in the book, still, you know, perspectives let's say, still ended up in the book, but but told through scarlet size and then some of the chapters actually did end up in disease and other possibilities. So there was a Kingsway, there was a subplot involving the boyfriend that ended up in my short story collection instead or Old Wu, our beloved Chinatown bachelor in the novel it's his sort of like it's referenced that he goes off to China and comes back with a bride and so in the short story collection, we actually that's where we get to see his adventures so if you are kind of curious for I don't want to call them outtakes or even besides but they are some of that universe exists in my short story question. Yeah, no, the your stories are certainly not outtakes, they're pretty amazing. And yeah, since we're talking about your stories like so how do you. When you started working on a River of Stars, did it start out as a story, or was it like these collection of stories some of which ended up in the story collection, or like, like what made you stick with it. Yeah, it's interesting, I think so I think I remember kind of going back. As I said, I wrote it sort of in the aftermath of the birth and it's sort of like sleepless nights mind erasure can't really remember but then Gmail Gmail had, you know, Gmail like spelled out what the what it was basically about nine months after giving birth was when I turned in my first short story based. It was basically the, the scene all the way up until she hijacks the, the, the van at the maternity house at the hospital. And so that was my, you know, in a way it's sort of like, I had been trying to write after giving birth but I like the symmetry of like it took me nine months to grow my babies and then it took me sort of another nine months to sort of like be able to ramp up again, and, you know, be able to write a short story that was like whole and complete. And then I was working on other projects but that's something about the characters kept tugging at me and I don't think every short story. I don't feel that way about every short story. But with this one I definitely and you know it actually even got published in Zizava which is another wonderful local Bay Area West Coast magazine and has been a huge supporter of my work. And so it ran as a short story in there, but yet I still felt like I'm just going to keep going and see what that feels like. And I, you know, I think it is hard. I think, in some ways, and my, my novel that's coming out next year for Ben City also began as a short story and I think it has more to do with, and we can talk about the difference between short stories and novels, you know, besides length, but I think it would be too hard for me to be like, I'm going to sit down today and start a 300 page project that will take years of my life. I think it's easier for me to think like, okay, I'm, I have this premise in mind I have this character I'm going to see how far I can toss the ball for the next like 1520 pages like I can, I can manage that that seems like I can get my, my head around. Although I will say this and you, you actually also read an early draft of this I have a novella coming out next month on audible. And that was 40 pages which I think I guess is a shorter novella but it was it was like kind of interesting I was like, okay. Again, it was in terms of just thinking about different forms like, did I know I was going to sit down and be like, I'm going to write something extra long, or is your I think the story eventually finds the form it's supposed to take. Yeah, and I know you've been, you've been asked about this before. This is what happens when you're really good at more than one thing. You're an award winning journalist, as well as award winning fiction writer. So yeah, how do you. I like, I know, you know, your journalism career informs your fiction and, you know, like, how do you, how do you navigate that and actually, this is a slightly selfish question. What I want to know is like, how do those two sides of your work like how do they influence each other in terms of the like actual work, like as you're working. Like are there sort of things you, or processes that you use in journalism that you use in fiction vice versa. Yeah, great question. And I think for me, at the heart of it, I want to shine a light onto untold stories. That's something I do in my fiction and nonfiction. And I've also just a very curious person and I'm like, I just want to know what people's stories are and as a journalist I felt so honored. I've had those moments when people do feel safe and comfortable letting me help them tell their story. And I think the storytelling comes from the fact that I'm the American born daughter of Chinese immigrants. And I think from early on, I could understand that the world inside my house was very different than the world outside of it and just trying to, to make sense of that. Whether that was through through observation or through, you know, going to the library and reading lots of books or also just again, as a journalist realizing I could go out in the world and, you know, wonder aloud like why is that and then kind of follow, follow that thread. So in terms of how both inform each other. There's a couple things that come to mind I think with, you know, I love doing both my weekly column I just filed that for this Friday I love how it gets me out in the world, engaged with other people in the community, other readers like I've curated reader poetry for National Poetry Month all of that has been so deeply meaningful and amazing and I'm so grateful for that relationship, because it sort of gets me out in the world and whereas a novel is like a years process and there's lots of dead ends and wrong turns and you just sort of could get stifled if that was like the only thing for me I feel like it would have been just like too much in my head. And I think as my journalism training has helped my novel, my book writing because I have the discipline of sort of knowing the first draft is not the last draft so it doesn't have to be perfect I just have to push through. And, you know, spreading daily, and also being open to being edited I mean words matter I will sort of fight over a comma I think it's important but also just not being too, too precious about, you know, things, you know, just being open to to feedback and suggestions, and I think for my journalism, definitely I gained a much if you if I look at my early journalism stories like from college it almost reads like a court transcript it's just like quote quote quote last quote instead of really looking for narrative movement. And just like how do we open this how do we circle back so it's in a satisfying way how do we make this person's character come alive on the page. So I think in those ways both practices nourish one another and but I also will say this. Sometimes people ask like oh how do you do all, you know, do all this, you know, I don't have Hermione's time turner. Unfortunately, so I can't do three things in one one hour but I'll do things like I've compared this to sort of almost like you, you bake a chicken one day. The next day, you, you strip it down and make it sandwiches or whatever and the third day you boil it down for stock and so in that same way. And remember I, there, there's all the stuff about trying to postpartum birth practices in a river of stars and so I was curious about it and I went and I looked at three scientific papers and then I went to the South Bay where I interviewed women were doing this listen to this and I did a sort of braided narrative essay of that, plus research and then some of that research then ended up in the novel. So, and it's stuff I was curious about anyway so all, I don't know it's sort of like a sort of joke like, can you write life off as a business expense. I think, as a journalist or a fiction writer you are always sort of like going out in the world and figuring out, yes on one hand you're engaged with the world and and, but then there is this possibility of sort of transforming it in your work. Oh my God, the chicken thing was brilliant. I'm going to try to remember that as I work on like not as many things as you're working on. But I wanted to talk a little bit about so you mentioned, you know, being a first generation American your Chinese American Dominican American and you know the stories knowing that like things at home are not necessarily the way things are outside and I read you had an article on KQED about Amy Tan and her PBS is doing a documentary on Amy Tan. So you wrote about that and you wrote about how when you were young, a few years before she published the Joy Luck Club. You read her story Fish Cheeks in 17 magazine, and that it was the first time you had read a short story about a Chinese American teenager. And so, you know, we know that representation matters and you know the way in the same way that Amy Tan influenced you, you are now influencing other writers. And you know emerging writers and so I know that for me like as like a writer of color, I feel like I don't want to feel like like I should tell only one kind of story, you know, there's multitudes and what I love about a reverse of stars is that it's, you know, it's a highly original and propulsive moving really fast story with these Chinese characters that are especially the main characters scarlet and then daisy these very strong-willed women and how do you like is there any advice or anything to say to like emerging writers of color that sort of, you know, like how you navigate that that feeling that, you know, we have to tell one kind of story. Well, and I will say this, and it's just been so exciting to see this flourishing of by work by Beepok writers, Asian American, Latinx, you know, native indigenous like black it's just, it's, I feel like it's been time and it's been very exciting to kind of see it starting to happen. But but in terms of just, you know, I think there was a time where in college where I thought, well, you know, I knew I'd wanted to be a writer ever since I was a kid, but I had thought like, oh, I was I think for a time I was writing sort of like terrible and baby knockoff stories where it was the characters it was like in New York and you know the characters were all white because I thought, well, that's what literature with a capital L is, you know, stories about white people. So, but but then I began after I began getting exposed to writers from various diasporas, you know, in college or you know as I, you know, the syllabus sort of like K through 12 of the early 90s, I began realizing like the strength in that and the power in that and really wanting in my fiction and and in my journalism to tell the story that only I could tell and only the way I could tell it, just understanding the words value in being able to to see the world in a specific way that was informed by my culture by my family by, you know, who I am and, and that's why it's, it's, I feel so grateful. I'm not going to say it was easy there were times where you have to sort of like, almost take everything at like two or three steps back to explain like, why is the story. Why are we human, all that so, but, but I think, again, that's why you realize, you know people like Maxine Hong Kingston or Amy Tan, people, they open the way so that people could come after them and then my hope for Max is to then further help open the way for for other people who have been coming up. That's, yeah, that's great. And, and I think that because. So I, I was, I read another article this past week that was in the New York Times about just about publishing. And I think it was, I don't remember what it was called so like, like, how white is publishing or something like that. What the authors did was they tried to sort of quantify, you know, how, how, like, how, how many writers of color are actually publishing and they, they, they were two numbers say they I think it was from 1950 to 2018. They added up those numbers and then they also just did 2018 alone. So, for the first number. It was 95% white. And then in 2018. It was, I believe, about 90% white. So there's a little bit of progress, but certainly not enough. And, and I think that I people's perceptions get skewed because a lot of writers of color have won major awards. Recently, recently, you know, you know, the Pulitzer and National Book Awards and lots of awards. And, and so it feels like there's a lot of us out there, but there, there aren't. Is there anything like that can help that the like is there anything that like readers can do to like help writers of color, like, besides buying their books. Yeah, yeah, that's a great question and I, I think, and you know something that I mean we could talk all day about sort of like the publishing industry and just sort of what direction it's headed in and you know, just very tangibly, aside from like getting the book, reading it with your book club, requesting it at your local library for purchase. One thing I always say is buy local from your local bookstore but review it on Amazon, because amazingly, even if it's just one line or one sentence that makes a huge difference. Because I think sort of in the aggregate things like Amazon or Goodreads. It's for better or for worse, like how many reviews an author has does become sort of like a mark for for some buyers and so I always make it a point for my friends, you know, emerging writers or establish ones to to as soon as I finished the book I that I that I review it on on one of these sites because I think, again, it just, there's so many ways in which you understand that publishing dollars or publishing dollars maybe go towards only a few titles or, you know, frankly for the celebrity authors who are people who you know how to get a bestseller be already be a celebrity. So, so things like that Amazon review that one sentence Amazon review can make a difference. Yeah, and also requesting the book from your local library. Yes, making sure that those books are carried so that, you know, lots of other readers are, you know, are influenced by writers color. Yeah, one of my favorite things is I think I looked at the as a public library page and it was like, for our event page it was like if you like this book you, you may like these I just love. I don't know it feels like the books are in conversation with each other and the same way that authors are in conversations with each other and it's just, I love looking at your shelfie and just see being able to see just more than one by a BIPOC author, you know, on a show and a whole row is like just the best feeling. Yeah, and I mean librarians are awesome. And you just want to, you know, be in their conversations and you know, be like recommended by them it's like, it's going to be such an honor. Yes. And, and the library makes an appearance in a river of stars. When Daisy, she's studying for the GRE, I believe it is. Or she's studying for the SAT. The SAT for the SAT, right. Yeah, so that was great. And actually I'm working on my next next book in the opening chapter involves the scene at the library so come to me for my for library content in my fiction. I have a feeling you'll be doing another one of these conversations with the library, especially with your with that book. Yeah, so I wanted to ask you about, and I believe that was the Chinatown library. I wanted to ask you about Chinatown in San Francisco Chinatown in your book. So a lot of the story takes place in California there's some scenes like backstory in China. But most of the story takes place in California, a little bit in LA but mostly the Bay Area and I feel like this book is very much like a love letter to the Bay Area. I love, I love your descriptions of San Francisco. One of the things that I think you capture really well is just the scene the late night scene of like tumbling out of a bar and, you know, going to a food cart. It's giving to the book before our event and that was especially poignant right now because it's like you know we've all been locked in and I was like oh my God this is so beautifully described I feel like I'm back there for better or for worse. But, yeah, so I loved just this whole world in Chinatown. The, you know, when like when immigrants like, or in another country they often like lumped together and, you know, to in order to like, you know, make a way. And, and I think, and like as there's one scene where mama saying she ends up in Cupertino there's a Chinese community in Cupertino and going to the Chinatown there. And, and you say that, you know, we describe that it's got all you know the food and the markets and music that are like common to like all the Chinatowns around the world and I loved what you said that it was an attempt to remake, remember and reclaim. You know, in the book Chinatown San Francisco Chinatown story much as a sanctuary, although it's, it's complicated and not everyone is welcoming. And you said you certainly capture those nuances and in the book. How did that part of the story evolve. I just, yeah, like, did you set us to write a story that was so centered in San Francisco Chinatown or did it, like how did, yeah, how did it come about. Yeah, and thanks again for reading so deeply into my work and I too miss a bacon wrapped hot dog after a long night of drinks. So, so it was interesting. And I think when it was the short story it ended with her fleeing the, the hospital in LA. And so, at that point I had no idea where she'd end up. But in some ways, it made sense for her to hide out to find a haven in San Francisco Chinatown, which is the oldest in North America and, you know, whenever I would do book talks like I'd asked like who's been to Chinatown like a big tourist attraction, but you know and as a kid growing up, that's where we go for dim sum or groceries. But as a journalist, I would gain access, I began to gain access to boats up on the second floor, the third floor the fourth floor where you see the laundry hanging and you realize is this whole other world. And, you know, SROs that were originally designed as sort of bachelor apartments because of the Chinese Exclusion Act that really wasn't, you know, kept families out for many families out for like over, you know, six years and, and but now because of the way things are, like, that's where, you know, available housing was and I remember walking through and the doors were open because you know the rooms are so small but like kids sort of running around and sort of everyone in each other's business and it's, you know, it's like a small town and there's comfort in that but then yet talking to a woman who said she was from Southern China and she said yeah my apartment was nicer in China, but we're here for the opportunities and so I think it made sense for the character to kind of try to find her her way there and to navigate that and to also I'm just, you know, there's such an energy to Chinatown all those grannies with their their elbows and you know, don't get in the way of them at the market. And yet it's a place where I think there's services or these these family community centers where so there's this like sense of tradition. And so it's a very special place and, you know, I hadn't gone for a while during the pandemic, but then we went sometime around Chinese New Year and like there were streets were closed off for you know firecrackers and went to the new playground which is fabulous and it just really cheered me up in my whole family to feel like we could support this neighborhood but to kind of see that it was it had, you know, endured. Yeah, that's great and but so the novel that you're working on now or I don't know if you have you have you handed it in or it's it's it's newly newly baked. It's my editor says she's looking through it it's about to go to production, which means it's about to get copy edited so it's it's slated for April 2022 but it's so it's moving down the track. Okay, so it's so you're like in labor. Yes, it's maybe it's crowning. Sorry, I had to, you know, this book is very much about mothers and I just yeah, yeah, the connection there. And, but that one is set mostly in China. Yes, but it does sort of begin and end in Oakland or in San Francisco China town as well. Right, right. Okay. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that because I think so we're going to go into questions in a little while I'm not sure if any some mentioned that but maybe you can tell us a little bit about it and you can see and people can definitely So, yeah, and I would, I'd love to share about forbidden city because it's sort of been on my mind because I'm sort of been deep in it. So, interesting fact, forbidden city, a river for been city it will be my third book to be published but it was actually the first book I wrote. So I wrote it in grad school with, you know, 070809. And at the time and this will be interesting I think for those of you who are sort of interested in publishing or maybe just interested in the backstory of books. And at the time, someone I had two other friends with books about to go out on submission, and that's what they call going out on submission, and they mentioned oh this is actually the third book I wrote and I remember thinking. Hope that's not going to happen to me. And so, lo and behold, their books did sell mine came close but did not. And as I say close only matters in horseshoes and hand grenades. And so I was heartbroken but all I could do was sort of put it away and work on other books work on deceit and other possibilities work on a river of stars but you know I kept feeling and that might have been the end of it I remember talking to an editor and said, because you know you feel like an imposter like you you feel like, you know why didn't this book sells like everyone has a book in a drawer, and I am like, easy for her to say. And so, but I kept returning to it and when a river of stars sold they were able, my, my wonderful agents were able to sell Forbidden City on the strength of its first 50 pages, and I also have completely rewritten it. It's a very different book from what it was in 2009 I kind of needed to realize who the narrator was talking to. And that changed everything, everything. And I think maybe in general like thinking about audience, not in terms of the reader but like in the world of the character who are they addressing is is like a really important question. I couldn't believe. Anyway, so that's so to tell you what the story is actually about. What happened was, maybe even longer ago, maybe 15 years ago I was watching a documentary about, you know, modern Chinese history and suddenly on screen flashes, a picture of Chairman Mao surrounded by what looked like, you know, young Chinese women dressed in socks or you know, checkered shirts little flared skirts and I was just astonished. And I looked into it and turned out he bought Chairman Mao as a fan of ballroom dancing and of young women. When some of you may have read Chairman Mao's doctor, he wrote a memoir and in his memoir he kind of says like, for these women it was the highest honor of their lives and that was sort of like the end of how he believed it was for them but I knew it had to be more complicated than that. So Forbidden City is set during the eve of the Cultural Revolution, and kind of imagines how one of these women might well have shaped the course of China and of this youth campaign. So I feel really lucky that I've read a version of it and it's absolutely enthralling and just so interesting to get this sort of imagined back story of these women and in this time. So, I do we have time, can you read like a little snippet of it because it's really really just beautiful. Oh, sure, sure. Okay, I'll read the first page from one of the open from the opening chapter. Okay. Forbidden City. On the day of my departure, Ma filled our wooden tub with hot water. She and bathed me in years and wouldn't have done so again until my wedding day. She squatted behind me and poured ladles of water over my head, the scent of dust and sweat rising off in the steam. The drops trickle down my nape, my shoulders, my chest, every part of me cherished. I leaned into her hands. Her breathing became ragged and I felt her trembling through my body until we were both shaking. Little May, she murmured. When I tried to turn around she grabbed my shoulders. The water in the tub had gone lukewarm and I shivered the hairs raised on the back of my neck and arms. Ma, I asked. She didn't answer. She dried me in circling strokes, her hands slowed as if to delay our parting. It was the tenderness I'd always crave from her. Though she must have heard the fear in my voice, she couldn't face me. Not then, maybe not ever again. She would no longer warn me about fox fairies, shapeshifters who roamed the twilight to lure travelers of disappeared girls run away or raped, kidnapped or killed. She knew that I had no choice, she had no choice but to give me up I can now see and didn't want me thinking about the dangers ahead. In that moment though, I hardened against her against my fear and my anger. She couldn't help me, and I didn't need her. The picture of the chairman on the wall seemed to nod in the flickering light. He alone would protect me on this journey. Oh, I cannot wait until this is out in the world and everyone can enjoy this amazing book. All right, well, I don't want to hog all the questions, we should probably make some time for audience questions. I think Anissa is going to jump in. Yeah, we have a lot of questions in the Q&A box, despite me of course forgetting to mention that we have a Q&A session course every time. You're so vivid, are they modeled after people you know in real life? So I think there's no one that's like, oh, Mama Fang is this person or Boss Yong is this person. But they I think they were in fact informed by my reporting or by my sort of understanding of the dynamics. I think say, you know, Scarlett for example, I did reporting in China in 2004 and in 2008. And I just I remember going out one night with some of the factory girls and we were playing some dice game whose rules I never understood, but involved drinking I just drank when I was supposed to. But I just saw how, how in some ways like their life was hard, they worked for, you know, routinely six days a week. But in some ways they had a freedom unlike anything their parents had ever known and it was it was just fascinating to try and kind of understand like, well, who could this, you know, how did this, how would these girls grow up and having grown up under sort of the one child policy, like how would that inform how they thought about having kids and what that all meant and then just even someone like Mama Fang. I just reading about these entrepreneurs in China who make, you know, something out of nothing like the box, the cardboard box queen of China that you may have heard of where people all the Americans we were, you know, all the boxes that good virgin cardboard were just getting thrown in but then she shipped it back and then was selling it back to the US like it was just, it was just, but yet, and Mama Fang also there's a much older archetype in Chinese classic Chinese literature about sort of the, the matchmaker who sort of like had one hand and, you know, in everyone's pocket and being able to sort of add that as a part of her character that was that was really fun to thank you. How about, how does fiction writing change slash improve your journalism. So, I talked about it a little bit but I think definitely I have a much stronger sense for for narrative. In the first journalism, you have to report on what happens in, you know, you don't want to sort of hide any flaw or weakness in your reporting by trying to cover up with like pretty writing. And I think it definitely has made me think about character dialogue, I mean every every craft element I would use in thinking about a short story or in a scene of a novel like you can bring that to to to a column or to a piece of nonfiction as well. And just a shout out to our YouTube friends if you have questions we can bring us back as well. I'm going to combine two questions here about experiencing and writing about the Asian story through that lens, and also scarlet and daisy come from different upbringing cultures and have moments where they clash. Do you have advice on how to resolve such conflicts when one comes from a more traditional Asian upbringing versus one who comes from an Asian American upbringing, and how can we encourage more open empathetic conversations across the vast Asian community. That's an amazing question and something that I think we've been thinking a lot of broadly just with, you know, the Asian, you know, the hate crimes against Asian Americans. But then even sort of questions about our Pacific Islanders being erased or fully represented in things like Asian American Pacific Islander month like, do they, you know, are, are these categories. You know, are they doing more harm than good and just like kind of thinking about the way the different ways in which we can elevate different people's stories and but I guess first of all I'll just talk about the characters and then sort of like my thoughts about community and sort of like empathy and storytelling. Yeah, I think one of my goals with the river of stars was, you know, the, the Chinese community is not a monolith, there's no one way that people immigrate there's no one way that people. They have different they speak different dialects they their education level the their immigration status all of that is all over the place. But so often as with, you know, there's that danger of the single story or just the fact that when there is a narrative scarcity that any one story that sort of makes it all the way through takes on greater significance or weight just because there's so few stories out there. And so one of the things about a river of stars is just Scarlett and Daisy. You might think they're, you know, they don't they don't necessarily see I di in the beginning. They're both heavily pregnant and they do have to in the end come to rely on each other and sort of form this, you know, found family. I think just thinking about the community overall just, you know, just making sure that that that the voices that those with sort of a platform or privilege do realize that you're like oh it's not even just like oh I need to be generous and make like it's for everyone's benefit if you know this is about like how do you how do you make sure that all the voices are being represented fully and strongly and you know what are the ways that we can support and and and hopefully through that storytelling or through that personal connection begin to change, you know, foster that understanding and I wrote as a journalist I've written about Letters for Black Lives, which was a online campaign where it was directed at community makers about sort of what the movement was all about and they did it in 2016 and they didn't update it version in 2020. And then separately I've I story I did for the New York Times has also talked about the ways in which people are trying to have those ongoing conversations it's not about talking down to anyone. But just sort of making space for that continual conversation. Hopefully, you know, it nothing happens overnight but just, but just knowing that those conversations are possible painful as they are. Thank you and welcome back you Lisa. Just a second. I love this one. Have you thought about doing an SF foodie book slash cookbook. Right at this. Actually, it's funny. I don't know, Pete readers of my column they also know that I've gotten among my pandemic hobbies be I have my sourdough starter but I also really gotten forging. I was just, I was just on the hunt for some green walnuts I'm going to make some Nechino, probably in the next month I made it for the first time last year. And I do love cooking or and eating so I think all those things will will end up in some shape or form in any book I write whether or not it's a San Francisco cookbook or food book per se. Thank you. Let's see. I loved your book looking forward to your next one. Can you tell me how you make your dialogue work so well. Thank you. I think they've always said there's a couple things I always say in workshop and like dialogue can't just be a transcript it's, it has to feel like sort of like the most intense or distilled moments and also, it has to feel like, and I've tried to figure out like do I totally understand what this means but dialogue is what you do to people do to each other. So what's at stake and even if they're having a conversation about not putting the milk away like what's the underlying power dynamic and you can sort of figure out that it's not just sort of information that has to be conveyed, sort of like the subtle, you know, that the stuff that's running under the surface is subtext like that's subtext is very powerful I think with the dialogue. Sorry, sorry, I'm not skipping out I'm trying to keep up with all of your writing links in the chat and folks I am putting all these links somebody just mentioned an article about forging that she wrote about so I'm putting that in the chat. Well, while she's looking all I'll show off baby Yoda. I'm in love with jolly being channeled. Yes. Yeah, you lead to gifted me this during the pandemic he showed up. And I will. Yeah, as anyone else thought that the Mandalorian is about like a single dad just trying to make it but not having enough childcare. Anyway, that sounds like a universal story. Let's see how about so in the book club last night we all thought this was really set up for a sequel, or an option, or another book we want to know what happens to the babies. Well, I did get a note at the novel was optioned for a movie and I got. I was recently communicating with this screenwriter so it's still, they still have something in mind so I'm very curious to see what might come of it. But as for these ladies and their babies. I guess never say never, but I think for me I feel like I've been on a journey with them. And for now, they are they are where I'm happy for them to be. I wish them well, I have not thought about where they have are right now specifically about. I will accept that I suppose. Okay, one last question and I, it's a hard one to choose from, but how about, can you talk about the shift from short stories and deceit and other possibilities to novel writing. How hard was it you, how hard was it for you to shift, and what recommendations do you have about structure in that shift. And I think you lead to, I think we've talked about this before because you lead to is also a short story writer and a novel writer and you can check out her amazing short story in best American short stories. What year was it 2018 or 2016. Okay. I think I've, I felt that in some ways, a short story is closer informed to a poem, because it's more about a turn or a moment in a person's life, whereas, or a character's life, whereas a novel is sort of like this, this journey and I don't think a novel should feel like a really long short story or like a short story every 20 pages, like the arc shouldn't feel. I don't know if I'm using the math wrong I'll just use my hand like it shouldn't feel like a ball with like a very consistent arc. It almost has to feel like it's a, I don't know racket ball. Maybe building up toward the root but sort of like you don't it's like sort of a little bit back before going forward and so the movement is different. But I mean, of course, I just remember the first time where I realized that I was writing novel it is intimidating you're like do I know how do I get to page 25 and but then just sort of realizing there's every word counts in both forms, but there's, I don't know you you have time to sort of there's a different momentum and a different way of settling in. I just, I don't know I think with both short stories or novels if you're trying to figure things out take a book that you love, and figure out what happened on in the first page what what happened in the first third by the midpoint what what happened and sort of backwards engineer it. In some ways you are absorbing it through osmosis those those that storytelling structure. It's what we've been exposed to all our lives. But but taking that time to sort of like again, reverse outline it or backwards engineer whatever you call it I think can can help you make that transition. Thank you so much. I am coming back on screen with you all. Thank you so much you Lisa and Vanessa always for being such an amazing supporter and I knew they were going to have resources just bam bam bam. So I tried to keep up in the chat. But as I mentioned in the beginning, this document is a living document. And all of those links are in there. You can find Vanessa at the library, you can find Elisa at the library and we'll be watching for Elisa and more writing from her as well. And like I said Vanessa thank you for being such a supporter of not just the library but of other writers we appreciate that so much. And I want to thank you both for being here and giving to you our library community. I know our library appreciates that we know you know we're not the highest paid place in the world but we appreciate you being here in our community, double appreciates it. So library. Thank you library members library community we miss you we love you we'll see you soon Vanessa Elisa thank you so much. Thank you.