Growing up, I had to cobble together a scarecrow of things I loved from various different writers. — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
I think it was really important for me before I 'debuted myself' in front of the world to have a private life… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
I really had to develop a core. I had to figure out, at my core as a writer, what did I value?… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
Poetry was my dirty little secret when I was a fiction writer at Iowa, and then fiction became my dirty little secret… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
When I was a graduate student at the Iowa Writers' Workshop for fiction writing, I felt both coveted and hated. My white… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
Of course I want the things I write to reflect well on me or anyone who might feel represented by me, but… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
I think being a writer is being heavily attuned to the absolute absurdity of things you take for granted, and I think… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
I went to school in California, at Stanford when I was seventeen, and I lived in San Francisco until I was twenty-three,… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
I hadn't ever worked with an 'editor' until I was 26 - although that could be partly chalked up to the MFA… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
I grew up in a Chinese American enclave where the person who lived down the street had literally lived down the street from my… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share
I think it was really important for me before I 'debuted myself' in front of the world to have a private life with my… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share
When it comes to love, maturity often gets a bad rap - second love is boring; it's practical. It's what our parents feel for… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share
I seem to be drawn to these smaller forms, and I seem to be drawn to things that can be written and also read… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share
Asian American success is often presented as something of a horror - robotic, unfeeling machines psychotically hellbent on excelling, products of abusive tiger parenting… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share
When I was writing stories about Chinese American characters in my fiction classes, I'd get comments like, 'You should consider writing more universal stories.'… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share
We lived in one of those half-basement apartments, and on our first night of being in America, someone reached through the grate that protects… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share
That's what people expect: They don't want to read a slight novel. People don't want to waste their time on anything less than 'great.' — Jenny Zhang Copy Share
My privileged upbringing and education and linguistic fluency gave me such proximity to whiteness that it stung all the more to still find myself… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share
I still catch myself trying to become the object someone imagines me to be, but then there are other times, when I am free,… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share
How do we form a coalition of resistance without obliterating our differences? Not all lives matter, and we are not all the same immigrants. — Jenny Zhang Copy Share
It's like a weird mindset to wake up and want to be wanted. Like, I want to be wanted so much already... and I'm… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share
Does self-acceptance ultimately require another person, or is there a kind of love that does not dabble in the dream of a perfect twinship? — Jenny Zhang Copy Share
It's okay if someone is disgusted or offended by my performance. It's just a performance. — Jenny Zhang Copy Share
