Headlands Center for the Arts

Artist Statement

“Occupying too much space has always been an unforgivable sin,”
– Umbrellas Unfolding in Hearts of Rain, Hon Lai Chu. December 2014.

My fiction and nonfiction primarily centers on my experience of being a third culture individual, and nonimmigrant in America. I’m drawn to borders, lines, and laws as ways people use to curate themselves. When does the individual become the national? What is man-made and what is innate? What do you lose or gain inside boxes? I use non-realist elements like science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism to highlight what it means to belong, commit, and attach to a culture, and what happens when those cultures estrange and interrogate one’s inherent ethnic upbringing.

While at Headlands

I plan on:

• Completing “Descendants of Dragons,” a speculative short story collection set in an alternate Asia exploring the personal implications of history, politics, and relationship to the West.
• Editing “Extraordinary Aliens,” an essay collection on what it means to be alien in America today by blending personal narrative with reportage and cultural criticism.
• Drawing on the open, vulnerable Marin landscape for my writing and Headlands’ military history for my metaphors.

Selected Works

“Gems,” Cosmonauts Avenue, March 2018. Short Story.

“Filter Feeding,” Cleaver Magazine, March 2018. Short Story.

“The Greenest Gecko,” Tor.com, February 2017. Short Story.

“How to be Extraordinary in America,” The Offing, June 2019. Essay.