When I was writing stories about Chinese American characters in my fiction classes, I'd get comments like, 'You should consider writing more… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
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… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
I'm drawn to the figure of the ungrateful subaltern as a trope in literature. In real life, it is often dangerous to… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner, who founded Lenny Books together, also happen to have exquisite reading tastes - from obscure small press… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
I just submitted what I had to the 'Octopus Books' contest open reading period, and they said they wanted to publish my… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
'Alphabet' by the late Danish poet Inger Christensen. It's a book-length abecedarian poem. It's an activist text but also a portal to… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
I like to keep a book underneath the pillow that I'm not sleeping on so I can reach over and grab it… — Jenny Zhang Copy Share Image
The reader who likes my stories, I think they would see the violence on the surface, but I think they would also… — 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
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 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
