This time last year, I thought I had a lot of story writing ahead of me. Sadly, I spent a big chunk of my year trying to put my life back together while juggling my day job.
In case you don’t know, my day job is being a doctoral student. It is also my night job, I guess. A more detailed answer: I’m a space scientist studying how ionospheric heavy ions impact Earth’s magnetosphere. I also serve as a student representative in a National Science Foundation (NSF) program pertinent to my field. Speaking of, the workshop where I organize the student activities is coming up at the end of June, so things are getting busy. In addition, my preliminary examination for my doctoral degree is happening in July. (The doctoral degree process varies by school, but at my institution, the qualifying exam usually happens around the second year, and then the preliminary exam once there are some research results. The final exam is the last exam before earning a doctorate.) For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been extra hard at work on my thesis. There’s still a lot of work to be done before my prelim, and I have about five weeks before my thesis draft is due and a week-long conference in-between. Wish me luck and lots of strength.
Maybe you saw the subtitle and wondered what the writers’ retreat was about. The official press release isn’t out yet, but I’m a Lambda Literary Emerging LGBTQ+ Voices fellow in speculative fiction! Big thanks to my partner for helping me with my application remotely back in December when I was in Taipei for the winter.
I have updated my author website to include my newest bio. In my previous projects, I customized my bio to the story — mentioning antenna research for Awakenings: A Cute Mutants Anthology and space research for A Milky Way Home. This current version is very close to what I submitted to Lambda Literary, and therefore, its emphasis is more on the sci-fi part of my background. I’m super excited to learn from the iconic Charlie Jane Anders and other queer writers in my cohort.
If I’m being truly honest, 2023 was rough for me. I hit my third- and fourth-year doctoral student slump and started to feel overwhelmed all the time. Back then, I was also managing an undergraduate lab that develops virtual reality tools and leading a research team on gender studies in engineering. However, even after I quit everything else to focus on my thesis work, I still couldn’t muster the energy to be as productive as I had hoped. I sought help at my school’s mental health clinic and counseling center. It helped, sort of. Since I was always trying to catch up on my paper writing, I told myself I could start writing stories again once I get through this rough patch in my degree.
I did not get through it.
But it’s okay. Things are better now, perhaps because I now have looming deadlines, and I’m slowly allowing myself to dream about my stories again. For the past year, disallowing myself to fully enjoy fiction writing had indirectly worsened my ability to focus on my day job. Recently, I’ve finally started spending more time with the cast of my next long-form fiction project. Maybe after my prelim, I’ll start outlining. I am hopeful that there will be progress this summer.
Since my last newsletter, I’ve read 138 books. Here are some highlights:
Fiction
Chlorine by Jade Song (William Morrow, 2023): A sapphic literary horror I couldn’t look away from. It’s about transcendence, mutilation as liberation and self preservation.
Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao (Feiwel & Friends, 2024): I loved how platonic love is described and shown, and I feel like this story healed something in me as an aroace-spec person! This is the not-romance book I didn't know I needed.
Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood (G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 2023): I just really loved Mallory and Nolan and how deeply they both love chess.
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi (Atria Books, 2022): This is a messy and hot bi4bi DILF story about love and grief and being alive again.
The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia (Tachyon Publications, 2022): A Persian-inspired fantasy novella about colonialism, genocide, and pandemic.
Nonfiction
Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency by Chen Chen (BOA Editions, 2022): A poetry collection on familial love as trauma and wordplay across Mandarin and English. Chen Chen is also a faculty member at this year’s Writers’ Retreat for poetry, so maybe I’d get to hear him talk.
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi (Metropolitan Books, 2020): It’s “Free Palestine” until Palestine is free, baby.
I’m slowly finding pacing in my life, but maybe it will always be a struggle. It’s okay. I’m continuing writing because I have so many stories I want to tell, and one day, you’ll get to read them.