Remembering a creative community that truly was magical — One of my favorite childhood books was the Elizabeth Enright classic, Gone-Away Lake. The novel centers on an old resort hidden deep in the woods that once had been a grand colony of elegant houses and extraordinary residents of a bygone era. I was enthralled by the story for reasons…

Years before he invaded Ukraine, she tried to warn us that Putin was committing war crimes — The original version of this article, coauthored by Aimee Liu and Deborah Jones, appeared the week after Anna was assassinated — on Vladimir Putin’s birthday in 2006. Two years earlier, in her book Putin’s Russia, Anna attempted to alert western readers to the totalitarian threat that Putin represented to Russia…

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:

Barriers of language and immigration helped hide the truth about family left and lost in China for 80 years — My father was his family’s gatekeeper. Born in Shanghai in 1912, the eldest of his biracial siblings, he was raised to straddle East and West. He kept the peace between his Chinese father and American mother. And as the one member of his family who corresponded with those he’d left…

She Inspired Thousands to Survive and Thrive Through the Power of Creative Generosity — One woman’s creativity and love can change the world. The artist Carolyn Hall Young embodied that fervent belief. An accomplished painter and graphic designer, Carolyn was a pioneer in the fields of mobile digital art and car audio design. But as mentor, spirit guide, and all-around life force, she harnessed…

My agent told me to destroy my first novel — and propelled my writing career — My agent told me to burn my first novel. It really was that bad. But how I responded provides some damned good lessons on how — and how not to — launch a writing career. I had an agent because I’d already published a first book, a memoir about anorexia…

Fighting to be an American in World War II — My uncle Herb was an American war hero. Except, he was Chinese. The explanation for this seeming contradiction will sound familiar to many immigrants, but it came as a shock to me. Born and raised an American, I took my family’s right to U.S. citizenship for granted until I grew…

Body, Food, Family, and the Pantomime of Love — For the first five years after I reached my adult height of 5’6”, I forced my weight to remain below one hundred pounds. You want thin? I’d pantomime while obsessively counting calories, performing jumping jacks in the kitchen, or walking mile after mile after mile. I’ll give you thin! Because…