Woman. Warrior. Writer.
Wendy Chin-Tanner Vol. 4 No.7 June 5, 2023
Meet Woman. Warrior. Writer. Wendy Chin-Tanner!
How did you come to author your life?
I was called to write at a very young age and was fortunate enough to find some early success in high school and college. In my senior year, I was approached by a literary agent. It wasn’t a good fit, and I took this as a sign that I wasn’t meant to be a writer after all. I went back to graduate school to study sociology and stayed in academia for almost a decade before the birth of my older daughter prompted me to write again. I wrote my first poetry collection on maternity leave and I haven’t stopped since.
Wendy Chin-Tanner is the author of the novel KING OF THE ARMADILLOS and the poetry collections TURN and ANYONE WILL TELL YOU. She is the editor of EMBODIED: An Intersectional Feminist Comics Poetry Anthology and cofounder of A Wave Blue World, an independent publishing company for socially conscious graphic novels. Born and raised in NYC, she was educated at Cambridge University, UK and lives with her family in the Hudson Valley.
What I appreciate about Wendy’s voice is her honesty about caregiving, how these responsibilities prompted her to develop a poetry form. She writes truthfully about women’s lives as they claim a writerly self in a world that has been defined through their response to patriarchy.
TEACHING and WORKSHOP
My website is undergoing some updates. Stay tuned…
OPPORTUNITIES and NEWS
Grace Hwang Lynch (Asian/Asian American Women’s Creative Writing Workshop) is the Grand Prize winner of the Betty L. Yu & Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prize! Her workshop cohort may remember an earlier version of her winning piece “Salty Like Tears”! YEAH! Keep going—we’re there with you!
Nana-Ama Danquah was February’s Woman. Warrior. Writer. and her classic memoir Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression was on the WCWW syllabus. Writers, please take note: all too often we don’t think about the longevity about a book. There’s a new25th anniversary edition of this work.
Check out her personal tribute to Ghanaian author Ama Ata Aidoo an author, poet, playwright, and first published African woman dramatist.
Looking for women musicians: if you have 45 seconds of instrumental music on Spotify, please submit to shan@hawaiipublicradio.org
Syllabus Authors/Guest Writers/Workshop Alum, send your writing news/links for inclusion in the next WWW newsletter!
Highlights from HPR’s The Conversation:
Council of Korean Americans founding member Betsy Kim: feelings of belonging as an Asian American.
Nate Hogsten from Kaimuki Compost Collective: women customer base.
May’s Woman. Warrior. Writer. Mindy Pennybacker: Surfing Sisterhood Hawai‘i: Wahine Reclaiming the Waves
Thoughts
Coming off AANHPI month, I’ve been pondering Asian American – I recast it for the context of aesthetics and art.
East Asia, South Asia, and West Asia…the thread of similarity or difference. How do we vie for respect and acknowledgement within the context of nation? The commonality of Othering? How does this affect individuals/community?
Categorization is crucial to the American nation-building project. Native Native Hawaiians not Pacific Islanders—what does it infer regarding government administration, state versus territory – and how does it translate in terms of dollars and loyalty? Colonialism and identities within the context of the State. There’s much to think about.
Contact
Going to Korea Peace Action: National Mobilization to end the Korean War in Washington D.C. on July 26/27? Drop me a line.
Writing Tip
Put on a piece of music that represents the mood or theme of what you are writing. I play Erik Satie and my Pavlovian response is to sink me into the mood of my story…
Call to Action
Seriously, pass on this newsletter!
Fall 2023 I hope to open two FREE one-time workshops to women (Master Narratives and How to Write Your Divorce Story) through the WWW Scholarship Fund. I would open this up to all newsletter subscribers. But I need to fund it. Buy Woman. Warrior. Writer. merch and see how women change the world one story at a time.
Aloha,
Stephanie