Meet April Woman. Warrior. Writer. Grace Talusan!

How did you come to author your life?

Being a writer is powerful. I’ve felt the energy in a room change because of something I’ve spoken aloud. I’ve had intense encounters with readers who have shown up at events so that they can tell me in person what my words meant to them. For many years, I wrote without any hope of an audience. That may sound sad, but it was clarifying. I developed a regular writing practice as bridge to myself. There is little in our lives that we have control over, but we can try to make choices within our circumstances. I already have so much, more than I ever dreamed of, and I try to make the best of it.

Grace Talusan is the author of The Body Papers, which won the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing and the Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction. She teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program at Brown University.

Photo by Alonso Nichols

NOTE: The Body Papers is superb. It was on the 2021 syllabus for Asian/Asian American Women’s Creative Writing Workshop.