I am delighted to be on this blog tour. My turn to answer the 4 questions about my writing process.
Teresa LeYung-Ryan: I’m smiling as I answer this question. I am working on two projects. A prescriptive nonfiction project – Build Your Writing Life In 22 Days (the second workbook in my 22-Day series); and a narrative nonfiction project – I’m actually writing my first memoir. No more hiding behind the protagonist in my first novel Love Made of Heart: a Mother’s Mental Illness Forges Forgiveness in Daughter Ruby. By the way . . . the working title of my memoir is Moon Crone Driving Without a Steering Wheel: How this Writer Journeyed Through Early Menopause, Depression, and Love.
Teresa LeYung-Ryan: There must be other authors who have written/are writing about being a writer, surviving menopause, and living with depression. Probably my work carries a distinctive voice because I am a female Chinese-American immigrant from Hong Kong with these experiences – lived with a beautiful mother who suffered mental illness and the cruel stigmas; escaped from violence when I was a young woman; worked in a government agency, a public agency, as well as in the private sector; blessed with a caring community of extended family members, colleagues and friends; use all my literary works (fiction and nonfiction) to inspire adult-children of mentally-ill parents to speak openly about the stigmas and find resources for their loved ones AND to speak out against injustice and violent behavior.
3) Why do you write the subject matters you write about?
Teresa LeYung-Ryan: How can I not write about mental illness, stigmas, rejection, joys and sorrows, the immigrant experience, poverty, and saying NO to everyday meanness, injustice, and violence? The act of writing is the way I express my memories, observations and intentions. An artist might employ paint, canvas, wood, and metal to do her/his work. I am a writer; therefore I employ words (choice and placement of words) to do mine.
4) What is your writing process?
And, I rewrite/update my presentations. For example, on June 10, 2014, 4:00-5:00om I’ll be in California at the San Mateo County Fair’s Literary Arts Stage as a feature guest on “3 Short Plays with 3 Playwrights hosted by Darlene Frank” with the other two feature guests Ollie Mae Trost Welch and David Hirzel. I’ll be performing “What Am I Going to Do Now?” which is a new monologue for my “Talking to My Dead Mom” series.
Then on Saturday, June 21, 2014 I morph into Coach Teresa LeYung-Ryan when I present “Build/Fortify Your Writer’s Platform & Fanbase” at California Writers Club – Tri-Valley Branch in Pleasanton, California.
Soon, I shall be working on presentations for the San Francisco Writers Conference!
Please click here for more info about my events. Please click here for resources for writers – including links to California Writers Club and Women’s National Book Association.
My darling friends/colleagues give me writing retreats – I get so much done when I’m with dear hearts, especially the past two years with Elisa Sasa Southard, Margie Yee Webb, Vicki Weiland, Mary E. Knippel, and Lynn Scott. Thank you writing-sisters!
Also, in June, I’ll be with California Writers’ Club colleagues/mentors including Winifred McCaffrey, Margaret Davis, Diane Warner, Darlene Frank, Bardi Rosman Koodrin, Laurel Anne Hill, Christopher Wachlin (president of SF Peninsula Branch), Mary E. Knippel, and thirty other talented writers. Click here for schedule of literary events with CWC members at the San Mateo County Fair.
Now I pass the torch to two fabulous colleagues – Mary E. Knippel and Yolande Barial – who will be on the “My Writing Process” blog tour, so, please visit them at their blogs on and after Friday, May 23, 2014.