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The Writing: What writing unproductively means
As writers, anything that we write or reflect towards is, an act of bearing witness. There are multitudes of moments - some that go down smoothly, some that shred all the way down - but I do not believe anything is unproductive.
Thank you, Yanyi. I think of the virtual event you led a few weeks ago, Sick at Heart. It was so healing, so generative. I need that again. After something like this happens, I also find it so difficult to write. But at the event you shared Reginald Shepherd's words from Why I Write and this line, "My aim is to rescue some portion of the drowned and drowning, including always myself." This reminds me that my memoir about my experience as an Asian American woman, being on the receiving end of gun violence. But it's not just the telling of that moment in my life years ago and how that moment echoes, it is how it still depicts life in America today. This formula of male anger, easy access to guns, the savage moments before death and sorrow, how many repetitions of this do we need? I'm too angry, too full of echoes to write today. So I'm giving myself permission, like you, to be visible in my anger, if only here and to myself.