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Woman. Warrior. Writer. Natashia Deón

Meet September’s Woman Warrior Writer Natashia Deón!

Natashia Deón is a two-time NAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Literature, a practicing criminal attorney, and author of the critically acclaimed and widely-reviewed novels, The Perishing and GRACE, named a Best Book by The New York Times and awarded Best Debut Novel by the American Library Association’s Black Caucus. A PEN America Fellow, Deón has also been awarded fellowships and residencies at Prague’s Creative Writing Program, Dickinson House in Belgium, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Professor of creative writing at Yale, UCLA, and Antioch University, her essays have been featured in The New York Times, Harper’s, The Los Angeles Times, Buzzfeed and other places. Deón founded REDEEMED, a criminal record clearing and clemency project that pairs professional writers and lawyers with those who have been convicted of crimes.

How did you come to author your life?

I came to author my life first as a lawyer and then again as a PEN America Fellow while I was completing my first novel GRACE. As a Fellow, I began teaching creative writing for 826LA and in high schools throughout Los Angeles. That fellowship changed the course of my life immeasurably.

Follow Natashia’s links & socials for updates on her writing, activism and life!  www.natashiadeon.com@natashiadeon (IG, Twitter, FB)

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Educators Reading & Writing Woman. Warrior. Writer.

Woman. Warrior. Writer. Vanessa Hua

 

Meet May’s Woman Warrior Writer Vanessa Hua, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and author of A River of StarsDeceit and Other Possibilities, and Forbidden City. A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, she has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, a Steinbeck Fellowship and honors from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Asian American Journalists’ Association. A Bay Area native, she teaches at the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. www.vanessahua.com 

How did you come to author your life?

Years ago, on a reporting fellowship in South Korea, I told another journalist that I’d always wanted to write a book. She looked at me and said, “Well, then, write a book!” Dinnertime small talk, but her words resonated with me. I realized that if I truly wanted to achieve this goal, I needed to make it a priority. Writing in the mornings before work and at lunch and on weekends wasn’t enough; I needed to center my writing, to put the best part of myself in it even as I juggled other commitments.

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Belief and Philosophy Blog Educators Reading & Writing Teachers Woman. Warrior. Writer.

Woman. Warrior. Writer. Anne Liu Kellor

In the spirit of Maxine Hong Kingston, our WOMAN WARRIOR tribute presents women writers, creators, and leaders. Here we can learn, better our own lives, and change our communities. For API Month 2021 I would like you to meet Anne Liu Kellor.

How did you come to author your life?

The process of coming into my power is ongoing. I first learned to claim what I want when I traveled alone to China, my mother’s birthplace, in my twenties. Then, for many years, I stubbornly held onto my trust that I am meant to be a writer and teacher. I submitted my memoir to over 100 presses and agents, while juggling motherhood, a rocky marriage, and self-doubt. During the pandemic, I finally divorced, which forced me to take entrepreneurial leaps of faith with my career and work harder than ever.  This September, my memoir will finally launch—a book I’ve been incubating for over twenty years. This feels like only the beginning.

Anne Liu Kellor is a Seattle-based writer, editor, coach, and workshop facilitator. Her memoir, Heart Radical: A Search for Language, Love, and Belonging, was praised by Cheryl Strayed as “insightful, riveting and beautifully written.” Heart Radical traces Anne’s three-year sojourn in China and her struggle to claim her voice as a mixed-race, bilingual Chinese American woman.

Pre-orders are available now: www.anneliukellor.com