A conversation about Anna May Wong and the history of Asians in Hollywood — One of the delights of writing for Medium and Substack is the opportunity to meet fellow writers who are on your wavelength. That’s how I got to know Katie Gee Salisbury: we’re both biracial writers of Asian descent, and we both write about Asian-American history. Katie, based in Brooklyn, is…

How telling my story launched my life as a healthy human and writer — Anyone who saw me in my teens had to know something vital was amiss; I was drastically underweight and phobic about getting fat. Yet my mother vetoed my request to see a psychologist. She didn’t trust the Freudian brand of analysis that was current in the ’60s. She didn’t want…

Author of East-West novels and all sorts of nonfiction, ghostwriter, MFA advisor, former painter… and current photopainter! — Novels! If you love novels about Americans in Asia and Asians in America and the families that form between them, you may have read my fiction. In the 1990s I published two novels, Face and Cloud Mountain, based on my family’s mixed-race history and my examination of my own Chinese-American identity:

Indexed Quick Links here: — My Bio Race, Family, & Relationships Books, Writing & Creativity Psychology, Health & Wellness Photo Essays

From MFA Lore’s Write On! Roundup #3 — Welcome to MFA Lore’s third Write On! Roundup. This is a feature of my newsletter Aimee Liu’s Legacy & Lore where you get to ask the questions that are currently vexing you in your writing life and I try to answer as best I can. This week‘s first question focuses…

A key question for every memoir writer — Many, if not most, memoir writers at some point wonder whether they should write their first-person story instead as a novel, perhaps in third-person. These options represent two layers of separation from the foundational experience, so let’s take them one at a time. 1. Should you write your story as a memoir, or as a novel? There’s no universal rule here, but first…

Must-reads for fiction and memoir writers — Every serious writer needs guidance. There’s no shame in turning to the pros who have come before you for guidance, advice, inspiration, secrets, or just plain basic information. Writers love to blather on about originality and experimentation and creativity, and it’s true that every truly great book breaks new literary…

The late great Cai Emmons wants to give you fiction writers an award — Writers tend to be introverts, but we love community. I know. We’re walking contradictions. So be it. I cherish my writer friends, so I was devastated to lose the extraordinarily gifted, funny, and generous Cai Emmons to ALS this year. Others on Medium were, too. …

Narrative perspective involves more than POV — Most writers think of POV as the First-, Second-, or Third-person voice telling a story. But point of view also refers more broadly to your authorial vantage point, or narrative perspective. And in that sense, it’s a much more nuanced issue. Imagine that you, the author, are the camera lens…