“His arrival in Australia is a pivotal moment: The lack of documentation, losing the written Chinese version of his name, this is where it all starts, with this seemingly simple process of entering the country and declaring himself. Everything goes awry from here.”
“Within the context of how I grew up, I’ve often had to revisit and ask the question: If I were a parent trying to raise a child in a certain environment, how would I want to control the ways that their body is seen and being seen?”
“There is something magical about airports, train stations, bus stops, etc. … They make us think honestly about our between-ness and our aloneness and our inescapable connectedness.”
“My very proper Southern grandmother would definitely frown on the personal essay and the memoir because it divulges too much, and privacy and keeping your business to yourself—especially your mess—are both hallmarks of being a lady.”
“Writing ‘Eighteen Takes on Being Jewish’ has made me a bit more comfortable with being the kind of Jewish person that I am—but I still struggle with the question of belonging to a Jewish institution such a synagogue.”
“I wanted the architecture of this story to feel recursive, and I hope that ultimately the meditations in the museum are in conversation with the experiences that happened outside of the museum.”
“I think I actually owe teen girls and queer people coming into themselves on the early internet way more than I owe a single literary figure for getting me through this inspirationally.”
“But writing helps untangle the different threads in the web of relationships: with my family of origin, with the language and literature, with a certain way of seeing the world.”
“It was only after I was able to look at this story as if it was about a fictional character that I think I made the connections and patterns that brought it to life.”
“I’m interested in cultural and aesthetic dimensions of human relationships with other animals, so naturally this “puffin problem” was a topic that spoke to me.”
