 Good evening everybody Welcome welcome. Thank you all for being here tonight. It's nice to see folks in the beautiful corrett auditorium in Person we can spread out here You have seen the slides going by of all the amazing things that we have going on so you know, we are still in summer stride There's still time for you to do your 20 hours of reading Coming to events like this exploring our city and getting your iconic SFPL tote bag Hope you all know what I'm talking about because if you don't Back at the back table. You can pick up your tracker fill it out. Take it any library branch and get your free cute as ever tote bag We want to acknowledge that we occupy the unseated ancestral homeland of the Romitush aloney peoples Who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula? We recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland and as uninvited guests We affirm their sovereign rights as first peoples We wish to pay our respects to the ancestors elders and relatives of the Romitush community There are some things coming up since it is summer stride. We've been celebrating a month of themed Events August is celebrating food. So our next two events coming up will be Miyoko's creamery the vegan powerhouse who's got the corner on the market on vegan cream cheese cheese cheese butter mozzarella Everything so she'll be here next Saturday this Saturday the 13th 11 a.m. There's gonna be samples and then the following the 20 I Want to say Sunday the 23rd is a panel of Bay Area food co-ops So I don't know if you know about all the food co-ops in the Bay Area, but we'll have errors Mindy bakery We'll have Other avenues one of my favorites will have the deep who are from Oakland and Community cultivating who are from Benisha and they'll be talking about the past president and future of food co-ops in the Bay Area One city one book is coming up if you don't know what that is with doing this for 17 years It's our largest literary campaign and our selection for this year this round the years have now Morphed into weirdness, right? So 17th one city one book is this is ear hustle unflinching stories be fine behind prison bars And this is Nigel poor and Earl on Woods will be joining us on the main stage November 3rd Moderated by Piper Kerman from Orange is the new black Books will be hitting all libraries all 28 locations and your book mobile September so look for that there'll be book clubs and then two months of programming that align with the topic of ear hustle Alright Without further ado tonight's three amazing authors Definitely not to miss. We're so excited to have these three Women and their new books Kirsten Chen is an award-winning best-selling author of three novels her second novel Barry what we cannot take was named a best book of the season by electric literature the millions The rumpus Harper's Bazaar and in style. It was also shortlisted for Singapore's literature prize Her debut novel soy sauce for beginners was an Amazon best-seller and an Oprah magazine editors pick Chen has received fellowships and awards from Steinbeck fellow program Hedgebrook and the Napa Valley writers conference among others Her writing has appeared in the cut real simple Literary hub Zizava and more she lives in San Francisco teaches creative writing at University of San Francisco and Ashland University's low residency MFA program her latest book counterfeit is available now Also, all three books are available from our friends of the library at the back table Or you can place a hold on them through your library card Vanessa Hoa is an award-winning best-selling author and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle her novel a river of stars a river of stars was named by the Washington Post and NPR's best book of 2018 and has been called a marvel by oh the Oprah magazine and Delightful by the Economist her short story collection deceit and other possibilities was a New York Times edition choice received and received an Asian Pacific American award in literature and Was a finalist for a California book award and a new American voices award her new novel for Benton City is available now Ingrid Rojas Contreras was born and raised in Bogota, Colombia Her first novel fruit of a drunk fruit of the drunken tree was the silver medal winner in first fiction from the California Book Awards and a New York Times editor choice her essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times Buzzfeed Nylon and Guernica Rojas Contreras has received numerous awards and fellowships from bread loaf writers conference Vona Hedgebrook The camp but Camargo Foundation and National Association of Latino Arts and Culture She is a visiting writer at st. Mary's College and her new book the man who could move clouds a memoir about her grandfather a curandero from Colombia Who was said to have the power to move clouds is available now? And they are all available like I said on the back table from our friends of the San Francisco Public Library All right. Thank you all and without further ado Vanessa Kirsten and Ingrid Yes, I'm Kirsten Chen my new novel is counterfeit It's the story of two Asian-American women who band together to grow a counterfeit handbag scheme into a global enterprise shattering the model minority myth along the way the main character is a Straight-laced rule-abiding lawyer named Eva Wong who gets pulled into her old college roommates counterfeit handbag crime ring and For a while, they're enormously successful but eventually that comes to an end and Winnie mysteriously disappears leaving Eva to pick up the pieces So I'll just read a short excerpt and in this excerpt Eva has traveled to Guangzhou in southern China to complete her first assignment for Winnie the one thing to know about Guangzhou is it is the fake handbag capital of the world and Fake handbags are sold out in the open in these giant shopping malls just like regular merchandise It was late morning and the mall bustled with wholesale shoppers wheeling Oversized suitcases that would soon bulge with merchandise to be fanned out across shelves in Manila and Buenos Aires and Moscow Tucked away in the very back of the complex 0 421 was modestly decorated and badly lit and had no sign above the entrance Winnie would later assure me that their workshop produced some of the most authentic looking bags She'd ever come across but they kept the good stuff hidden away whenever they were tipped off about a police raid. I Told the attendant a model thin young man with hollow cheeks that I worked for fun when eat And he offered me a stool and a glass of hot tea before calling to check on my order It's ready. He announced and then went back to tapping on his phone I looked around wondering what I was supposed to do next pick the bags right off the shelves Was that the Gabrielle right there in the corner? Could I pull out my phone to discreetly compare it to the picture? I'd saved earlier that morning An older man burst into the store He was short and muscular sporting fashionably ripped jeans and pristine white high tops Nice to meet you nice to meet you come with me. He said without bothering to introduce himself. I was confused Where now he was confused where to get your bags. Oh, I said good. Let's go He led me down a back staircase that reeked of cigarette smoke You're American. He asked scanning me from head to toe. Yes, that's why my Chinese is so bad He left it's decent So where are we going? I asked he pointed into the indeterminate distance down the road He walked briskly dodging motorcycles ignoring traffic lights And I thought to keep up raising the palm of my hand to drivers in both a gesture of apology and a plea for them To break before they hit me We passed another massive shopping center that specialized in the metal hardware that festooned bags and belts and shoes I didn't dare ask my companion how these stores all of which sold the same few items could possibly survive side by side That's how little I knew It would take me a few more months to grasp the size and complexity of the counterfeit accessories trade The man turned out a narrow street and stopped in front of a shabby-looking apartment building here I asked I'd expected a warehouse with security. Maybe a receptionist. He shot me a side long look. Yep He pulled out a ring of keys and unlocked the front door I followed him down a darkened hallway listening for any signs of life beyond the walls Sniffing the air for cooking smells the building was eerily still if for some reason I had to scream would anyone come to my aid He stopped before the last door at the end and I sized him up He was only a couple of inches taller than me But when he pushed open the door his forearm flexed displaying ropey muscles bulging veins He flicked on a light a slim length of neon yellow glinted in his back pocket a box cutter I took a step back hold on I said pulling out my phone and studying the blank screen Sorry, I have to take this call. He left the doorjar. I typed a message to Winnie This man older short muscular wants me to go inside his apartment to get the bags This can't be right. I stared at the screen willing a response to appear Who knew who else was inside that apartment waiting for a naive American to stroll right through? I removed the money from my wallet to measly 20s and jammed them into my bra I laced my house keys between my fingers and wondered if when push came to shove I'd really dare gouge out an eye. I checked my phone no response The man's head popped out around the side of the door startling me ready. What choice did I have? I stuffed my phone in my purse and went inside Bulging jumbo size garbage bags filled the floor of the main room which was unfurnished except for two plastic chairs and a Plastic table with an overfilled ashtray all pushed up against one wall The door clicked shut and I heard the man turn the lock Sweat surged beneath my arms, but my mouth went dry behind my back. I clenched my fingers around my keys Want something to drink? I stammered. No, thanks He picked his way to the kitchen and emerged with two green bottles of beer one of which he held out to me I shook my head and he shrugged and deposited the spare on the plastic table He pulled the box cutter from his pocket extended the blade and deftly popped off the bottle cap before taking a long swig I don't want to take up too much of your time I said speaking loudly to drown out my thrashing heartbeat He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and pointed the blade in my direction. I sucked in a breath You and Feng Wen Yi how long have you been working together? What was the right answer? I said only a short while, but we've known each other for 20 years She's very capable. He said but it sounded like a question. Yes. She seems to be good at her job He whacked the box cutter like a finger. Yes, too good. I could not parse where this was going She got me in trouble with the big boss. He said he doesn't like the price. She bargained me down to make sure she knows It's a one-time thing I'll pass on your message. I said I don't make decisions. I follow instructions. I'm supposed to inspect the shipment now He stuck the box cutter in his back pocket took another swig of beer and belch softly So where are the bags? I asked my keys tumbled on to the floor and I bent to retrieve them He narrowed his eyes. Why so antsy you're in a rush the lie gushed out of me. Yes, actually my family is here in Guangzhou I'm meeting them for lunch my husband and son your husband. He's American. I knew what he meant. Yes What does he do? He's a surgeon. How old is your son 12? I said and then wondered why I'd bothered to lie I pictured Ali and my imaginary 12 year old crashing through the door to rescue me The man closed the distance between us and like one giant muscle my entire body tensed When his hand went for his back pocket a cry rose in my throat. He pulled out his phone My son's 10. He said almost as big as yours He thumbed the screen and offered an image of a chubby boy spinning a basketball on one finger I could have collapsed onto the heap of garbage bags in relief Very handsome. I said Thanks Kirsten I'm really excited to be here tonight with Ingrid and Kirsten and we were talking about how our second and third books Are coming kind of coming out on the same cycle. So that'll be 2018 and now 2022 So I'll be reading from Forbidden City, which is about Chairman Mao's teenage protege and lover who becomes a poster child for the cultural revolution And it's a project that was 14 years in the making About a third of my life. So if any of you out there are writers with long projects That seem to be set by dead ends and wrong turns all I can say is keep the faith So I so I'll be reading I first got inspired to write the book when I was watching a Documentary about China About a decade and a half ago and up pops this photo of chairman Mao dressed Surrounded by teen giggling teenage girls who look like Bobby Soxers You can come have a look later if you want But I was astonished and it turned out that Mao was a fan of ballroom dancing In fact, he learned from an American in 1937 Agnes medley who traveled to the rebel stronghold teaching them a fox trot and square dancing And in the years and decades that followed he had these cultural work troops of young women He partnered with on the ballroom and in the bedroom And what really struck me was that particularly in the cultural revolution when a time when so many rivals We're getting taken down right and left Some of these young women were remained in his inner circle were his confidants Despite so much chaos going on in the country So I'll be reading from chapter one where may my main character All she knows is that she's been selected for a mysterious duty in the capital At the to serve the party Forbidden city At dawn Mao filled our wooden tub with hot water She hadn't bathed me in years and wouldn't have done so again until my wedding day a Few meters away my sister slumbered Later, I'd wonder if they might have been pretending the parting gift to offer me the privacy. I never had there Ma squatted behind me and poured ladles of water over my head the scent of dust and sweat rising off in the steam The drops trickled 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 me she murmured when I tried to turn around she gripped 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 hand 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 shape-shifters who roam the twilight to lure travelers of Disappeared girls run away or raped kidnapped or killed She knew 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 Ma helped me step into pants and a tunic that she had patched and pounded clean in the river She braided my hair into a coil I gave in to the gentle tugging in to the mesmerizing firelight hoping that I would be transformed like the braid Intricate and beautiful and strong as a model revolutionary Shifting my eyes. I tried to hold still to keep from disturbing my mother's work It was an hour spent on me alone for what seemed the first time in my life Gazing into my mother's wrinkled face. I realized that she'd once been my age Leaving her family to marry a man. She had never met She didn't know she would endure beatings from her husband endure the curse of daughters the death of sons and Swallow suffering as often as air If she had known would she have left her village? That was how we survived by not knowing what was ahead She pressed a wooden cup into my hands a murky brew that gave off the smell of boiled pond scum Sipping it. I winced my tongue curling back on itself. She pushed it towards me again, and I half gagged What's this? I asked Instead of answering she handed me a pouch filled with tiny lumps the color of bone their stench even more intense than what she brewed The earthy scent reminded me of donkwai the golden flowers and stritty roots. We gathered every autumn a Desperate neighbor had come asking for it after she'd given birth twice within a year It helped keep a baby from taking hold After I started my women's flow Bob warned me against walking by myself at dusk telling me to bolt from men who got too close Why he never said but I understood the curves that made me clumsy and set my running off kilter Also invited the attentions of men who could ruin me Drink this every morning. Ma now said I finished the brew and set down the bowl Every morning I repeated then swirled my tongue against my teeth to get rid of the sour bitter taste The party's Jeep arrived with a groan and a rattle as the hen squawked Bob climbed out of the bed Ladled me a bowl of porridge and dropped in thick slices of salted turnips. I ate while standing holding the bowl close to my face He did too My father's fingers were the finest part of him nimble whether mending a basket or plucking a radish as a teenager He'd left for the provincial capital to make his fortune Although he'd wanted to work in a textile factory He returned a year later missing his little finger a failure that still defined him and our family in the village I was used to the stump, but his long fingers curved around his bowl now seem lonely his hand missing its smallest part He turned away and coughed wiping at his mouth My family never said anything about his cough yet another ailment among us that lingered and Festured like the sores that never quite healed the scratch that persisted the irritation in our eyes that went on for so long We forgot we lived any other way. I Stared at his hand the smear of blood undeniable yet when I looked up. He wordlessly ordered me to ignore it. I Set down the bowl unable to finish more than a few bites Difficult as his life was it was all I had ever known When mom brushed down stray hairs at the crown of my head my resolve disappeared in the urge to cling to my parents overwhelmed me Bob lifted my elbow to lead me to the door Gentle not rough. This gesture gave me the strength to leave Thank you. I'm I'm so happy to be here as well and Really loved hearing you both read so And thank you to SFBL for hosting us today I'm gonna read from a memoir and the memoir is about My grandfather who was a curandero and people said that he could move clouds and curandero is kind of a Mestizo like medicine man and so in his in his lineage he came from a whole lineage of of curanderos like him and Only the men could be initiated except He didn't feel good about any of the sons that he'd had He he felt like all of them wouldn't be good for it the only person that he thought could do it was my mother and Women couldn't become curanderos because it was said that something very bad would happen that there would be some kind of tragedy that would occur and she What happened was that she had an accident where she fell down this empty well When she was eight years old and she went into a coma and she lost her memory And then when she came back to She could see she started to see ghosts and to hear voices and so the family said that she'd Come into the lineage through this accident that she had the story gets wilder So what happened after that is that in 2007 I had an accident Where I was biking and someone opened the the car door into the into the bike lane and I crashed And I lost my memory my family got super excited about that and Yeah, but I didn't come back with with any powers to their disappointment So I'm going to read to you from this Chapter where it just goes back and forth between my mother's accidents which happened in 1964 and then my accident which happened in 2007 the well in the mountains of Ocaña in the streets of Chicago two incidents 43 years apart in Ocaña, Colombia in 1964 the same well behind which Nona had crouched and hiding from Nono and his machete was empty The ledge stones had been pulled apart All that was left was the hole that tunneled into the ground which mommy's cousins wanted her to cut to see Come so Hila. Let's go look at the hole Mami knew the well water was gone Nona had explained that construction workers had drilled into the mountain and Were rerouting the ground water into pipes so that the whole neighborhood could have water in their homes Mami was looking forward to that to turning on a faucet and watching the water spill But she could not get excited about some opening in the ground But you don't know darkness like this dark her cousins protested. It's really nice. You can almost lose your breath looking down Mami thought about it the darkest dark She knew occurred every new moons night in the bedroom She shared with her sister Perla when the silhouette of their curtain and mattress could be only mutedly described Maybe she would like to know a darkness more absolute The three of them the cousins and mommy mounted the dusty slope to the cliff Ledge stones laid scattered in the grass in the middle of it all was the hole From where mommy stood she could tell by the richness of the dark that the hole was deep The cousins skipped right up to the edge their long black hair dangling over the darkness They yelled hello and giggled as their words stretched and distorted on their way down There was no telling where the hole stopped being a hole Mami was too afraid to move any closer, but one cousin offered her hand come so Hila will look together Mami liked this cousin. They passed whole afternoons playing tangara and hide-and-go-seek Stealing fruit from neighbor's trees and taking naps at the haunted crest of Christo Ray Mami took her cousin's hand together. They stepped to the hollow Mami stared at her toes touching that black circumference at the light Diffusing over the rows of stones that lined the well and had once showed up water She leaned over to make sure but she knew it was true Never had she seen darkness like that gnashing black which whirled and howled down the distance of that hole Mami breathed in the damp moth-eaten air an updraft filled her ears and then an eternal hush Just before everything goes blank The last thing Mami remembers is a hand on the small of her back giving her a gentle push In Chicago, I found the dress so beautiful the silk so rich and lush I didn't care that Mami made an international call to my cell phone to warn me that the dress was bewitched Earlier that morning. I had emailed her a photo of the dress on a hastily composed message I present to you the new love of my life It was a black Vera Wang which I bought on impulse during a flash sale. I wasn't trans the second I laid eyes on it I wanted to be enveloped in it for the black to hide even my toes for the train to leave a stigian wake behind me I rolled my eyes at Mami over the phone Annoyed that she could not acknowledge the beauty of the dress Especially when I had already taken it to the seamstress for alterations and couldn't return it It's new. How can it be bewitched? You listen to me Ingrid Carolina. That dress will turn you into a widow. I sighed a dress will make my husband die I'm not even married. Just listen. I'm telling you to stay away from that dress. I heard you I said by which I did not mean I will listen to you When the seamstress called to tell me the dress was ready to be picked up I got on my bike and pedaled as fast as I could to make it to her shop before it closed I never arrived on my way there a car door opened in front of me and I crashed The last thought I had before denting the door twisting in the air and cracking my head on the pavement was of Mami of How delusional she had to be to believe that a black dress could have such power as to undo me Nono was hacking So that's my my mother's father. Nono was hacking into a kakota tree when a desperate need to find Mami gripped him He could hear a thin ghostly version of her voice calling to him Papa papa He dropped his machete left it stabbing the grass and sprinted to the house to ask each of his six other children If they had seen her Nobody bore word of Mami. Nono darted outside to the dirt road The house of Christo Ray were built on cement foundations two feet above the road So that when rains flooded down the mountain the houses remained intact Nono's family all lived next to one another uncles and second cousins all around Nono appeared down the road. It was possible Mami had gone further down the mountain to have breakfast at a strangers Mami was always behaving like a stray cat When Nona sent her out to sell pineapples Mami enchanted whoever crossed her path with stories and after a while When it seemed to natural she let them know her favorite food was fish and that she would come eat it if invited No, no hopped down onto the dirt road and made his way to Mamadi as he spotted Mami's two cousins sitting next door dangling her their feet over the road Staring off into space quiet He bounded to their side. Have you seen so Hila? They looked at each other so Hila They said the name as if trying it on their tongues for the first time. I have not seen so Hila. Have you? No, I have not seen so Hila you either. No, not today. Not today. No, I'll stop there. Thank you I'm I'm so fascinated by What it was like to to write a second and go from The imagination of my first novel and then finding another story And I wondered for you all like what was the Either like the moment of Genesis for this second book or what it was like to switch from one idea to another Well, I think it's been said. How do you know you're done with a book? when you're so sick of it you can't look at it any longer or You fall in love with another book So I think my experience is a little bit different in that Forbidden City is the first book I ever drafted, but the third one I published so Just it's a long and winding story, but just briefly it came I wrote it in grad school. It came close to selling in 2009 Didn't realize that the recession would have any impact on the publishing industry and in fact it did So it came close to selling but didn't and I was heartbroken Breaking out in hives just worrying as they kept that my agent at the time was You know trying to sell it to smaller and smaller publishing houses But all I could do was continue writing and for me that meant continue to work on my short story collection and To begin what would become a river of stars the the first novel that I ended up publishing in 2018 that book is a pregnant Chinese Thelma and Louise and Much of it is said in San Francisco's Chinatown where the two pregnant women hide out But yeah, I mean I think You always I remember talking to a book editor who said oh everyone has a first novel shoved in their desk And I thought okay. Well, that might be true. It's still very painful But yeah, I mean I think I was able to start on the next project and in even say on the project I'm working on now because Although this book just came out in May And I want the best for it as it enters the world I'm now caught up in the world of the next book that I'm working on So you're committed to like the four four-year cycle We'll see What you just said Vanessa about how you know your you know Book is done when you're too sick of it to even look at it really resonates with me And I think because of that I've seen through the years This is my third novel that each book is a very very clear reaction to the book that came before So to give you an example my first novel soy sauce for beginners is set in contemporary Singapore. It's Centered on a family business That's an artisanal soy sauce factory and it has a protagonist that on the surface looks very much like me And so I would go on book tour and the first question that I would get is does your family own a soy sauce factory and if so What is the soy sauce called because I googled it and couldn't find it and I was so Kind of irked by having to answer that question and say no, you know, it's fiction That for my next book I wrote historical fiction set in 1950s southern China And I was like nobody will ask me if this character is me because I wasn't born in 1950s And so that was my kind of reaction to that even though it was subconscious and so when it came to this book Now I can see very clearly that when I was working on my last book Barry what we cannot take it was a book that required an incredible amount of research And that was kind of the largest challenge that I had to overcome in order to write that book And I remember that one day after a really hard day of research I turned to my partner and I said listen the next book that I write is gonna require zero research And it's gonna have to be out the only topic that I know about and that is designer handbags And so I said that as a joke, but eventually, you know, I can't because of various circumstances It grew into this kind of crime caper involving the counterfeit handbag industry Which in the end required a lot of research But my kind of avenue in was really was really this desire to Feel expert for once in something that I was writing. How about you? I? Yeah, I love that idea of books being a reaction to what yeah, what you're experiencing I I feel like mine. Yeah, so I wrote an autobiographical novel first And it was the story of an immigrant family who ends up as a refugee family in the US And they're fleeing the violence of the 90s in Columbia I did a lot of research for that one and I think I went the other way where I wanted to even I think what what was exciting for me was to do To switch genres completely and to do nonfiction But I really loved I guess I've always really loved the the research element of it And for this book it was really fun So that felt like a change because for the novel I was just reading a lot of newspapers and reading a lot about You know car bombs and violence and guerrilla groups at the time and then for this one. I was just interviewing people about Things that are not easily defined or you know, you can't quite comfortably talk about them like seeing ghosts You know having conversations with people about what it is that they thought they'd seen and what it is that they thought they'd experienced and Yeah, getting kind of like multiple accounts on strange occurrences like that So it it did feel very different But yeah, I I do feel like there it's kind of very reactionary the way that I am kind of going through Well, it just made me think about how all three of our books are about topics that maybe fall outside of any official record and so Did you feel a particular urgency in telling your family story like things that wouldn't necessarily be in a textbook or that had To be found through or a history of say elders who you know, who knows what what how much time is left to get those stories Yeah, I was completely thinking about that I think with with my novel too I was I was concerned with the part of the political story that we get or like the part that is reported in the news and how the reality of You know falling in you know with the guerrillas that it would be a very complicated situation And one character in my novel is kind of threatened into Collaborating with with the guerrillas. So I so I felt like that was kind of an under reported story And then for this one, I did feel like the I if I've seen any story like this I've seen it in fiction and I hadn't seen it in nonfiction So for me because it's my family and it's you know, these are my the stories of my family and like what we where we come from and what we Yeah, the stories that we tell about ourselves That it became so important for me to put that into the record. Yeah Did you did you feel that way? Well, definitely with my character may I felt She did she was emblematic of the millions of young women who have a hand in shaping history But don't ever make it into the official record Don't even end up as a footnote whether that's in China in the 1960s or in the United States in 2020. So I think As a journalist and as a fiction writer, I've always been interested in shining a light onto untold stories and I think You know my three books some are contemporary historical But but that's sort of one of the guiding forces behind it. I think how about you Kirsten. Yeah I mean, I don't know that I set out It's interesting that you described all our books are as being kind of a part from the official record I don't know that I set out to do that But when I have you know, we've all been kind of touring for our books And I have gotten a lot of reader responses where people say like oh, so refreshing to read a story with two Immigrant characters behaving badly and you know, you said that about your previous book River of Stars it's an Asian Thelma and Louise and Obviously, you know, I didn't set out to kind of break a stereotype Although I was interested in subverting the model minority myth and so yes in that way Yes, but it did strike me how rare that is um, I remember You know, this book was picked for the Reese Witherspoon book club, which was incredible incredible honor But part of the vetting process for that is kind of inside baseball Or the vetting process is that they do a mock book club to kind of see what kind of you know How the book would do in a book club setting who's who's in the book club the staff Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, they do like a mock book club to see how a book You know, I I don't know too much about the process But they do that to see what kind of questions will come up and you know What kind of what are the discussion points and one of the things was you know Is it okay that this is a book that in some ways celebrates or you know Is at least centered on two women behaving badly and then their ultimate conclusion was but shouldn't Characters of color be allowed to behave badly just like any other characters of color and just like any other characters rather And so that was something that I've you know, I've been thinking of Just by seeing the reader reader reception of this book How long did this one take you to Um writing it. Um, this one took me four years, which is actually very fast For me, which sounds kind of odd But as you all know, books take as long as they take and often for me five plus years And I think part of it was because I started it in 2017 Right after the election, which I know I think we all have talked about how that was an incredibly Hard period for many reasons but creativity You know for creatively, I think a lot of us didn't write for most of that year Um, and so I think when this idea finally came to me and it and it is, you know, very much A book that is set post-election. It's it is also happens right after the election of 2016 I think when the idea finally came to me, there was like a combination of like rage and relief That sort of fueled the writing. Um, how about both of you? Um, well, I heard you say it took how many years 14 years 14 long years. Yeah I I I think with this book, I there was the story was so complicated and it just involved so many different story lines That one of the things that I that I really felt that I needed before I could go on was getting the first chapter, right? So I wrote the first chapter over and over again for seven years Um, yeah, so I have like this, um folder in my computer. That's just The first chapter tries and there's maybe like, I don't even know how did you know when it was right? It just it felt It felt like it was doing all of the things that I wanted to and it felt like I wasn't kind of giving anything a way that I didn't want to Um, like politically, I mean um Yeah, and then the rest of it I wrote Um, so I I came upon the right the the right chapter or you know, the right version of it in this universe in this I was While I was on tour For my novel. So this was in 20 probably 2019 at that point Um, and then I wrote I wrote the rest of it during pandemic. So I also wrote this one very quickly. Yeah Yeah, I remember being blown away by an early version. I think I heard you read in 2013 or for the felon awards. Do you remember what year that was or yeah? Um, I and I for that I was I I wrote my part of the amnesia accident So I I wrote that and I didn't think that that was part of the memoir back then Um, so yeah, so really like the me understanding what what the story was Well, yeah, it was like a really long journey into into that. Well, I mean that's I think that's why it's so exciting We're so lucky to live in san francisco in the bay area all these wonderful readings. Um of things that aren't yet books But someday might and it's just like an opportunity to be able to remember when you read from this book in 2009 Yes at bread loaf. Yes. I mean and like here we are I am so curious though because um because both of you write fiction and nonfiction and I don't at all I only write fiction if you can talk about like working into genres like how you know A story is going to be fiction versus nonfiction. What are the joys and the challenges of that? I would love to hear your answer first Well, it's interesting because one of the next next projects. I'm contemplating is an essay collection so although I regularly write for the chronicle every week and Uh a column it it's been interesting kind of Writing in a longer form and also think trying to think about what the overall organizing principle will be I think it's going to involve time and foraging Which is a pandemic Habit or way of life that I picked up passion that I picked up Where do you where do you forage? Oh anywhere My neighborhood. Um, I mean I think just there's Wild plums wild mint blackberries miners lettuce Yeah, it's it's always you're gonna be my apocalypse buddy. Okay Oh, you are I already know ingrid you seem like someone with great knife skills axe skills. Yeah, I can I can contribute that But but just in terms of your question, I guess With uh with fiction. I'm always interested in exploring where that official record ends and so Maybe things Maybe with with nonfiction or with essays. I'm exploring things that Can be sort of Known or stated or at least I'm willing to pull back the veil to say like this is is nonfiction whereas fiction I feel like I have the freedom to to I don't know to go wherever my imagination goes and still have that cover. How about you? Yeah, um, I I think that with I one of the things that I asked myself is Is this story going to be more interesting as fiction or as or as nonfiction? Um, you know with the memoir It was just clear if I can interview people about seeing ghosts to me. That's just so Just it's it's you know, it should be memoir to me That's so exciting and I think if I told it as fiction You know adapted it that way that it would almost seem like it belongs in fiction. So just becomes less exciting to me um And I do agree though, Vanessa with this part about the willingness to pull back the the veil because I think nonfiction memoir Requires so much of the author um, because you have to you know, you have to um, it's it's truth making, you know, it's your you're telling everybody's truths um, and You have to be willing to do that. And so some stories are like um I'm not willing to do that publicly, but I can do it through the veil of fiction and I can kind of do a very similar Truth telling or even be more truthful in fiction because I have that veil Did you ever you mentioned your first novel was autobiographical? Did you ever consider that in memoir form or was it I did I think I one of the first things that I did was Trying to write it as an essay. I thought that it could be an essay And I wrote one paragraph and was terrified and I was like That's a good that's a good way to tell too. Yeah Here is overwhelming or actually I think terror in general about whether you should embark on a project is Is a motivating force not to necessarily run away from but that like you have very strong feelings about something That have to come out in whatever genre you you suppose Um, I think we have time for a few questions if anyone Or if there's any online Hello out there Oh, there's a question ISL Gucci Lv Chanel I've been asked this question before What would be my bag recommendation? Well, I'll promise that with just a little you know now that I've been on tour I get asked a lot of questions about handbags Which I'm happy to answer because I consider myself an armchair expert on handbags like I said But one thing that has been interesting Having to talk about it a lot is that I feel like prior to writing a book about handbags My love of handbags was very pure and unequivocal I was just like a fashion lover and I never had to talk about it because writers really don't care Like nobody ever asked me what my bag was and now that I have to talk about it for the first time I am like actively interrogating why it is. I love handbags and so my you know Maybe I will write an essay about this someday, but it is no it's now quite fraught I remember doing a podcast right before my book came out and the podcast Ho said very sweetly. She wasn't trying to like stump me. She was like so tell me Why is a handbag? Why does this cost so much? And I was like no reason There is no it's not really better quality. It's not really no reason besides the tag that is on it and you know So that was a long answer, but I would recommend I would say If I had to pick a brand that I really love A kind of under the radar brand Loewe is a brand I really like I still think it's good quality for the for the amount of money that you have to spend And it's not like super logoed. Where is it from made in Spain? Okay Thank you all that was great. I have a question for Vanessa. Could you talk more about your research process? How did you kind of get the information that you needed to write your book? Oh sure So I guess first off a huge thanks to libraries everywhere, especially I love interlibrary loan. It feels like you have access to every book anywhere And so I I remember that I was still living in southern California at the time And I was putting in so many requests when I went to do the pickup the librarian said, oh, you're Vanessa. Why? Because I was just hauling in stacks of you know, whatever books I could find whether You know, and so I read all the the historical accounts that were available But it's funny. It'd be a meeting. It'd be about a tense meeting of Officials, but I'd be most interested in like, oh, what kind of couch were they sitting on? So so I combed what was available and took what was most useful I also traveled to China. I got a fellowship in grad school And was able to go to villages West of Beijing and and talk to people grannies about their time during the cultural revolution And just you know and because this project took Such a long period of time a more information became available later And some of that information in some ways Substantiated what I'd already guessed at in my imagination. For example There wasn't anything in English written by any of Mao's former young lovers, but then I found some translated interview maybe two or three years ago and The dynamics they described in the dance troupe were as I had, you know written, right? Or or even there's a moment where she's standing on shore in Hong Kong on these mud flats and looking back on China And I wrote the scene before I ever got there and when I got there it almost felt as if I'd Somehow willed it into being which of course I hadn't But it kind of just speaks to the power of imagination and then With the the training I had as a journalist and doing the interviews or tracking down research or following the footnotes. I think helped me Write the book, but just one last thing though. It is always important to With historical work not to get too much into the weeds Because in in in some ways those accounts have already been written And I've read them and you don't necessarily want to to read that in a novel So for me the the focus was Figuring out using it as the floor and not the ceiling To my imagination, so yeah Thank you Did you find Ingrid that you used research differently for your novel versus your memoir now? I'm curious I I think I did Because the the research for the novel was so political and for this Book the I found that the research that I wanted I couldn't find actually So I I couldn't find it in books. So I had to do a lot of Oral interviews and just going to places walking around talking to people type of work Yeah, and just asking weird questions Which is great. What did you have for breakfast? We do have a question from The online audience and that is for Ingrid Will the book be in Spanish and did you do you write in Spanish? Also, it's a three it's a three-parter Um, how does your family feel about the book? Okay Um, yeah, the the book will be in Spanish. It comes out in Spanish in September And we're having an an event with SFPL and medicine for nightmares bookstore And I I write in English. I write in English. Um, I've I've written in English ever since my family migrated from Colombia and one of the things That happened in that time was that for me just are the experience of of losing everything and just having to move and leaving everything behind Kind of required a new language For me and it was a very interesting time because I had very rudimentary understanding of English So I'm I didn't keep any of what I wrote then but I'm very curious about what it would have even sounded like um and I I think over time as I Just continued to move around in South America with my family and then eventually made my way to the u.s that English became the language of migration for me and so now Because I've I've thought of it that way then it feels Wrong for me to write in Spanish directly Yeah, like it doesn't feel It feels like I'm skipping part of my own trajectory or part of my own history um And the last part so my family hasn't read yet But I've I've gone through and told my mother Um just kind of done an oral telling for her of what's in the book and she's she she she loved that She's very happy that she's on the cover Oh, you took photos for the book right your photo your own photos are in the book. Yeah Yeah, I took there's there's photos in the book I um traveled with a Polaroid camera And there's some old family photos that are that are in there as well I love that and so yes as Ingrid mentioned September 9th medicine for nightmares in Spanish Ingrid will be there and they're also having a book club. So check out medicine for nightmares Thank you so much everyone and there are books available in the back if you want your book signed I'm sure they will do that for you And thank you for coming tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you so much