Bonnie Tsui is a journalist and longtime contributor to The New York Times. She is the author of American Chinatown, winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature and a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. Her new book, Why We Swim, was published by Algonquin Books in April 2020; it was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a Boston Globe bestseller, and an L.A. Times Book Club pick and bestseller. Her first children’s book, Sarah & the Big Wave, about big-wave women surfers, will be published by Henry Holt for Young Readers in May 2021.
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Transcript
Rachael Herron: [00:00:00] Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.
[00:00:16] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #214 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. And if you watch on the YouTube or you might just be able to hear the smile in my voice, I’m so excited to be sharing with you today my interview with Bonnie Tsui for, for her book, Why We Swim. As you may know, I have become a swimming aficionado in the last year and a half or so. I never would have taken winter off had I known that come March, I would not be able to keep swimming the way that I wanted to. So when I saw her book in the store, I had to have it, I grabbed it, I read it, I loved it. And she was kind enough to come on the show and talk about the writing and talk about swimming a little bit, and I just couldn’t be more thrilled to have spoken to her. So I hope you do enjoy that, which is coming up and around here, things are moving briskly. I am about 62,000 words into the book that I’m writing. And actually right now, today, I’m having a little bit of a panic moment where I realized as usual, I don’t have a plot and maybe I need to have a dark moment that I’m moving toward and maybe I need to have something that makes that dark moment happen. [00:01:41] So this afternoon I will be spending some time actually thinking, using some of the intellection quality from the Clifton strengths that I need to write my books, so I’m kind of looking forward to doing that and rejiggering some things. What I don’t do in a first draft ever is go back and fix anything that would bog me down and I would never move forward. But I do need to remind myself of what’s actually in the book. So about at this point, every time during a book, I like to, I have a little process that I do to look over the book and kind of remind myself of what’s in there. What my goal was, who these characters are, it’s time to get in there and just touch these things again, so I’m kind of excited to do that. Also, it means that I don’t have to do my word count today because my work is actually going to be rejiggering. And I’m only going to spend a few hours this afternoon doing it, doesn’t need to be done again. And then tomorrow I’ll be right back into the first drafting again, which I’m still really loving. So, I’m a brand new person when it comes to that kind of thing. [00:02:47] What else is going on? It has been just very busy lately as I closed out one section of 90-days-to-done and 90-day-revision, and this is your official announcement. It is probably, I’m going to say almost, most definitely your only announcement that you will get, if you have been thinking about joining 90-days-to-done, I actually opened two sections this time because of demand and the first one is full. It filled up almost instantly. And I have about four slots left in the second section. So I’m going to tell you a little bit about what 90-days-to-done is about. So this is, this is what it is. The section that is open, we’ll meet on zoom starting January 1st, going through March 31st, we’ll meet on zoom at, on Tuesdays at 4:00 PM Pacific time, 7:00 PM, Eastern time. So if that doesn’t work for you, you can just tune this out. But this is what we do in 90-day- to-done. It is for people who want to write their books and it’s just been taking them longer than they thought. It is for people who have never put up word on the page. It is also for people who have half a book, 75% of a book, but just can’t get to the end. It is for novels and memoirs. What it is not a useful class for is nonfiction. [00:04:12] That is about, you know, how to start your business, that kind of really straight up nonfiction. But if you’re writing a novel or a memoir, this class is for you. It is creativity within constraints. You have 90 days, you don’t have six months. You don’t have a year. You are not wasting time. You do the work because of this constraint and be, and what is the really magic part is that it will be better. Your work will be better because of that constraint. I like to remind people that it is never easy to find the time to do the writing of your heart. And it only gets harder as we move forward in our lives. So the time is now, if you want to do this, what else are we doing in this class? I’m just looking at the page here. If you are interested in this, you could go look at it rachaelherron.com/90daystodone the number 90, nine-zero days to done, what you get in it is accountability. You get the one hour weekly live class where there are, a rotating hot seat where we talk about your work. Each meeting is recorded and shared afterward in case you can’t attend live, but I do expect you to attend most of them live because that’s where, so much of the good juicy-ness is, is talking with each other about our work. You get a detailed plan of action every week I teach something new, while at the same time you are writing your book. There is homework, it’s a doable word quota based on your goals. There is no critique in class. However, you, there is a way that you can share some of your work with me. First drafts are too early to critique that kills writers, it stalls writers in their tracks. This is not the class to do that. But the accountability, that action plan is there and you get community, these communities that I put together in 90-days-to-done, they stick together. They stay together. [00:06:13] My classes that ended last week have already met this week without me to continue meeting together and supporting each other. Just wanted to share a couple of testimonial quotes, and then we will jump into the interview. But Beverly Armie Williams said about 90-days-to-done; “This wasn’t the first novel I’ve ever finished, but it may well be the least painful one I’ve written. Don’t get me wrong, I love to write, or rather, as the saying goes, I love to have written, but if I’m going to have written, I got to write. And 90-days-to-done provided the space, helped me carve out and commit to the time and built a supporting, supportive writing community in order to get that novel finished. Best of all, Rachael offered craft lessons, useful as a brush-up if you studied writing and priceless if not, answered any and all questions without making me feel dumb and a weekly meeting that was the cornerstone of our community. Rachael’s lessons and handouts are clear, smart, and sensible. Just what a writer needs during the thrills and bumps of getting a novel done in 90 days. And actually Beverly just finished 90 day revision with me too. So that was awesome. [00:07:15] And M Donald says, Rachael Heron is a gift. I’ve taken a ton of classes, both online and in person, but this is the very best class I’ve ever taken. I went from zero words written on the book I’ve dreamed of writing for years, to writing the end for the first time ever in 90-days-to-done. I never thought I could do it, but she showed me how. So that is enough of a commercial for this class. Again, I said, four slots left. They will probably be gone by the end of the weekend. But you can always go check rachaelherron.com/90daystodone. If the classes, both classes are full, there will be a signup form where you can get pre alert the next time I opened these. That’s how these classes filled so fast because people were on the pre alert list. So do put yourself on that if you’re interested in 90-days-done, or 90-day-revision. 90-day-revision filled practically before I opened it with students who were in 90 days to done who are guaranteed a slot in 90-day-revision. Most of them just moved right over. So that means it filled without me opening it. So I do apologize that that was a class that you were hoping for and what else? I’m just feeling very grateful today. I’ve got a candle burning behind me. I am about to write after I pushed send on this podcast, I’m going to jump into the book and start to rejigger. And I just freaking love my job. And I’m so grateful that I get to do it. And I’m so grateful to you for listening. And, when you reach out and tell me that you liked the podcast that you listened, that you were writing because of something that somebody said on the podcast, it makes my whole life. You can always reach out to me at Rachael at RachaelHerron.com, or find me wherever I am on the internet. And I would love to hear from you. Okay, let’s jump into the interview. I know you’re going to love it. And I know you’re going to want to swim afterwards. All right, we’ll talk soon, my friend.Rachael Herron: [00:09:11] Well, I could not be more pleased today to welcome to the show, Bonnie Tsui. Hello Bonnie!
Bonnie Tsui: [00:09:16] Hi, Rachael. I’m so glad to be here with you.
Rachael Herron: [00:09:19] I have been looking forward to this so much. There, there are times when, you know, publishers send me books and then, you know, automatically I get to speak to the writers. But my favorite thing to do is when I pick up a book and love it, and then reach out to the author and get them here and you, let me, let me give your bio first. And then I’ll, then I’ll jump into heaping praise upon your head. Bonnie Tsui is a journalist and longtime contributor to The New York Times. She is the author of American Chinatown, winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature and a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. Her new book, Why We Swim, was published by Algonquin Books in April 2020; it was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a Boston Globe bestseller, and an L.A. Times Book Club pick and bestseller. Her first children’s book, Sarah & the Big Wave, about big-wave women surfers, will be published by Henry Holt for Young Readers in May 2021. So, wow. And I have this theory about your book and, and tell me what you think, and you might think I’m just completely off base, but I think it couldn’t have come out at a better time.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:10:26] It is super weird. Okay.
Rachael Herron: [00:10:28] weird.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:10:27] So first all it is weird to be putting out, you know, a book about swimming in a time when most people couldn’t swim. And we talked about that a little bit already, but, it is, you know, of course the silver lining of that is that people had time to think about their relationship with something. Something that they probably took for granted, you know, and, you know, again, like many silver linings of this like crazy ass year would be that, you know, there’s some time for contemplation. There’s some time for appreciation of all of the things we’ve lost, but also what we will so acutely appreciate so much more on the other side of this. And of course swimming is one of those things and you know, of course over the arc of what is it, eight months now that, you know, many people have been able to return to the water, whether it’s open water or some of the local pools have reopened. And they are coming back with, you know, it’s just like, a ferocity of appreciation and just attention to the moment. And so, I also think like, you know, people had time to write, you know, I have been the recipient of just these glorious letters, you know, highs and lows, people are saying, I’ve cried when I read your book and I thought, that’s not what I thought was going to happen, you know? Like I’m like, you know, this book is an appreciation of swimming and how much, of course, I personally appreciate it, but also the, sort of framework of it as like this inquiry into our human relationship with water and with something and it is a very curious relationship because we are the really unique in, terrestrial mammals and that we have to be taught how to swim. We don’t instinctively know how to do it from birth. And so that’s an interesting, you know, sort of like mind, like tickle, like you have to kind of wrap your head around that and you know, and so this book is explores so much of, of what it is that fascinates us about water and why want to get into our call to it. And, yeah, it’s, it was strange to, to, I would not have been able to anticipate this moment. None of us could, but it’s, you know, that’s the silver lining.
Rachael Herron: [00:12:42] Yeah. Yeah. I think I mentioned maybe in my email that I was, I I’ve always been able to swim, like I was taught when I was a kid, but I was taught by some, you know, somebody’s dad, maybe my own dad, I don’t remember, in a, in a, you know, somebody’s pool and I’ve never, I’d never done it well. And I, last year I’d gotten, or maybe two years ago, I’d gotten really into the idea of swimming and I took lessons, real serious lessons and learned that it doesn’t have to be this flailing out of breath, like panting, just trying to keep yourself alive.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:13:13] Doesn’t have to be a struggle.
Rachael Herron: [00:13:14] And it shouldn’t be a struggle. I want to, as, as my teacher said, you know, the more you relax, the better your swimming is. And I had never known that and she taught me how to just stand on top of the water and move. And I had been having these real celebrations of, you know, the body and being in the moment, I think there’s no better place for me personally, to be in the moment than in the water.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:13:35] Yes.
Rachael Herron: [00:13:36] And I regret every single day of this last winter, when I didn’t go to the mills pool, which is my pool. I would drive by and I would see the steam rising off it and I thought, no, it’s just, it’s just too cold. I’m not going to get in there. I don’t think I’ve ever regretted anything more. Lying on the couch, just reading your book and absorbing it. I think I was just your perfect target market to get into that deep contemplation. So before-
Bonnie Tsui: [00:14:01] Thank you. I also love to hear it. I just want to say that I love to hear that about your experience taking lessons and, and, creating this new relationship with water that was easy. Like that’s the thing that I wanted to communicate with the book for sure.
Rachael Herron: [00:14:17] And it was absolutely in the book, the, the beauty and the magic. I’ve always thought it’s magic that we can enjoy being inside a medium in which we cannot survive. You know, if you pull me one inch under, I won’t live through it.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:14:31] Right.
Rachael Herron: [00:14:32] And hold me there, but, but otherwise it’s just the, it’s the place where my body feels the best, you know? And it always has been, I’ve always been a person who wants to be surrounded by water, but, and embracing that. And you and I talked a little bit in email about how I have embraced open water swimming. And I actually did, I did get to aquatic park and it was wonderful. I’ve only been there once.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:14:52] Great job.
Rachael Herron: [00:14:53] Yeah, it was. Are you still swimming out there? Where are you swimming?
Bonnie Tsui: [00:14:57] I am. So where I had been swimming a lot over the pandemic was that Keller beach in Richmond. So on the East side of the-
Rachael Herron: [00:15:06] Wait, I haven’t seen that I’m in Oakland so that
Bonnie Tsui: [00:15:08] You should go there and it’s great. It’s a similar, in that it’s a protective little cove
Rachael Herron: [00:15:17] You’re blowing your mind right now.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:15:19] Yeah. So look it up.
Rachael Herron: [00:15:21] I’m going to go, like, maybe like after this podcast, I’m just going to go throw on my. Do you go, do you go wetsuit or no wetsuit?
Bonnie Tsui: [00:15:28] I have gone both, just depending on the water, but I, I was, I was especially careful in the early days of pandemic because you know, you’re, you’re out there by yourself. Sometimes I would be swimming with, sort of at a distance with friends, but, just not knowing what the conditions were and then becoming comfortable with them. To, to not want to get in trouble in a way that would risk anyone around me. So I was very careful with just, temperature and all that cause not again, not knowing. But I mean, now I definitely would wear a wetsuit. It’s pretty chilly.
Rachael Herron: [00:16:05] I’m glad to hear that. Perfect. Okay. So can, so you are writing about all of this and doing all this, but you’re also a longtime contributor to the New York times. Can you tell us a little bit about your writing process when and where and how do you get it done?
Bonnie Tsui: [00:16:20] Sure, yeah. I mean, I’m clearest and best in the morning, you know? I, the ideal, my ideal writing day is that I get up early and either I go surfing at first light or I get a couple of hours of writing and thinking it and, and then I, you know, I would hit the pool. Like that’s what was my normal routine was where I would go to the Albany pool near here. And, actually I got to swim and I got a lane reservation at the Albany pool this morning so I,
Rachael Herron: [00:16:53] I’ve been trying to make one, I keep, I keep missing it cause I’m not a resident. So I’ve gotta go,
Bonnie Tsui: [00:16:57] The next round will be in a couple of weeks, I think. And it was sort of like old times because I, I woke up early and I kind of did a little bit of fiddling around and writing and then I went to the pool and I came back and I was sort of getting ready for, to talk to you. And I got a little bit of writing in and I just thought like, it’s, it was a little bit of this normalcy that I, that I like with my writing practice and I mean by like two or three in the afternoon, I’m fried, like I just can’t really hold big thoughts. And so I like in the afternoon to be in the input mode, I’d like to be reading and just, you know, lying on the couch, just, you know, being, having other people’s words kind of flows through me. And then, I use Scrivener to write, and it’s a fantastic program, especially for like long form work that I wrote while we swim using that program. What I discovered is that, there’s like, you know, you have Scrivener installed on your laptop, but also I have it on my phone so that if I’m lying on the couch and reading something and I have like, a moment of insight, and I want to note it down in the document that I’m working on, I will just take my phone, open it up and I can type it in. And the ease of that, you know, sort of like friction removing some of the friction to like make notes in the work itself. I really love that. So like, I, again, like it’s the morning is at times when I need to be thinking bigger, clearer thoughts, and then sort of the afternoon, I let myself drift a little bit and putter around and, you know, I, I read a ton. And so I, I need that, you know, creative juice going from, from that conversation in my mind with other writers
Rachael Herron: [00:18:47] That is, that you’re basically describing my perfect day too. I get too caught up. I get too much email and I’m always doing that in the afternoon instead of lying around reading.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:18:56] Yeah.
Rachael Herron: [00:18:57] But lately my goal has been to get at least two hours of reading a day.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:18:59] Yeah.
Rachael Herron: [00:19:00] Just got to fit it in somewhere. So,
Bonnie Tsui: [00:19:01] Yeah, for sure.
Rachael Herron: [00:19:02] What is your biggest challenge when it comes to writing?
Bonnie Tsui: [00:19:06] I think that the mushy zone, when the idea has yet to coalesce and solidify, I have trouble with that because I’m sort of like, I got this feeling, maybe that I, it’s around some topic that I want to write about. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what the specifics are, I don’t know how it would, what shape it would take, but it’s just sort of like this tickle and the weird thing is that once it finally solidifies into specifics where I’m like, oh, this is the argument, this is the, this is the, this is the thread I can pull to you know, create a piece, I feel like an idiot because it seems so clear. Like, why didn’t I, it’s so obvious. And oftentimes that comes out in conversation with
Rachael Herron: [00:19:49] Yes.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:19:51] Right. Even, not even writer friends, like friends, close, just people I love having conversations with, and so, I have really missed that. And I actually, I was talking to a couple of writer friends of mine from the San Francisco writer’s grotto over the last couple of days, and, you know, the, the absence of daily chance, spontaneous interactions, you know, when we would be in our writing, writer’s collective, and, you know, I would even have been in my office and I would kind of come out and get like a cup of tea or something, and I’d run into someone in the hallway and have like a 10 minute conversation that just got my, got me excited and got my brain going in a different direction and solv- and, and sort of obliquely solve the problem that I had been having. Like, I miss that so much. I really missed. So, so now it’s just more difficult to activate that, you know, the idea to the solid, tangible thing to really like tackle and chew on, But I, I think that what I need really need to what’s become clear to me is that I need to have more conversations like this. You know, this is very, it gets my energy up and my brain going in a way that’s very stimulating and I miss that.
Rachael Herron: [00:21:08] I miss that too. That, especially that’s, that chance, spontaneous conversation. I was, I was part of a really amazing women’s co-working space that didn’t actually make it through the pandemic and I just, I really, really missed that. But yeah, that, that, that coalescing, that feels so, so like you said, inevitable, like how did I not see this? There’s even a level at times where I’m like, that’s so obvious and I didn’t see it. Can I trust this? Is this even good, even though, you know, it is, you can feel it. So what is your biggest joy when it comes to writing?
Bonnie Tsui: [00:21:38] I really love reporting. So I love going out and reporting and talking to people and collecting their stories and having them share their stories with me. I find that so, invigorating and exciting because it’s like they have invited you into their world. They’ve opened the window into their, you know, whatever their reality is, they, you know, are a marine biologist or they, you know, or construction worker or they’re, an emergency room doctor. I just feel like, I always feel very lucky to be able to have that momentary connection. And then I like, I, I also really honor that trust, and I love this sort of like the, the phone calls we’ll have afterwards that feel very intimate or the email exchanges or the text exchanges or whatever. And then, one of the most satisfying thing for me is of course, like you finished a story, polished it, you’ve really honed it. And then you get the kicker just right. And then you’re like, and then just send it off, it’s gone. Like, that’s very satisfying. I mean, sometimes it comes back to you and then you’re like, and then they’re like, yeah, no, that’s not good. But I do think that when you finish it and you hit the tone just right to your ear, your internal ear, like that’s very satisfying. And there’s something to be said about you being true to your own, you know, your own voice and your own, where your thoughts and your conclusions take you and certainly it’s, I, I really enjoy that editor interaction too, but, when you feel that it’s right on your own, before you send it on, like, that’s very satisfying.
Rachael Herron: [00:23:29] There’s nothing better than that, and I really want to make clear that your, that intimacy that you foster with your subjects and a joy with which you do that part of the work is so clear in your writing. I just kept, you know, and I, I read so many books as well, but, but my wife knows when I was lying on the couch, reading this book, I just kept sitting up and saying, I love every word of this. I loved it when I was just with you, just with you in the water. And then I loved it when you were with these incredible other athletes that you’re talking to. And it was, you have such a way of bringing. The factual and the, the reportage into your work, but also remaining, very consistent to that intimate tone you have with the reader. And I feel like I learned a lot just from reading your book, just how to do that? So thank you so much. I’m going to say it again. Why we swim? Everybody should go get it. I picked it up on a whim. Can you share a craft tip of any sort with us?
Bonnie Tsui: [00:24:32] I was thinking about this question and it occurred to me recently that there is no substitute for printing something out and sitting with it. I mean, okay. So we’re all, there’s a many, in many ways, it’s so much more efficient and convenient to just be like fiddling around, you know, in the document, digitally moving things around. And, but when you kind of get to a certain point where you feel like you’ve hit, you’ve hit the limit of that, and I, and I felt that way recently and I printed it out and then I sat down with the pen and I think it’s, this is, I’m old enough to, remember the transition from like writing by hand, like writing creatively by hand to, like having it start, start and finished on the screen.
Rachael Herron: [00:25:28] Yeah. Yeah.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:25:29] Like when I was a kid, like in high school and I would write, I would write longhand and I love doing that. I actually remember getting my first laptop before going to college. Oh God, I’m so old. I was just like, oh, this is cool, you know. And we would type like nonsense things to each other on the screen, but it was weird to move like creative thought from pen and paper to the screen. And there was like,
Rachael Herron: [00:25:54] I think I’m your age. And I absolutely remember that transition.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:25:58] And I was like, there’s so much possibility there, but it’s also, it’s a different way of thought it’s faster and you don’t have the time to, I think there is and, everyone knows this and there’s science supporting this, like the, the tempo, the pace of handwriting. It’s just a different connection you have with your thoughts and writing and creativity. And so, I think to, to have interject times when you, with whatever piece you’re writing, I think even a really short piece would benefit from that, even though probably most people wouldn’t necessarily take the time to do it, if they’re working very quickly and have a short deadline. But I think to have at least one time when you’re printing it out and you look at it and then you, everything is seen in a, you just see it in a different way and engage with in different ways. So like that from, even in this day and age of like, get out that freaking piece of paper and your pen and just, you know, like get at it.
Rachael Herron: [00:27:01] I really, I really do that when I’m very stuck and in fact, right, right before the pandemic, I was, I was in the co-working space, I remember this, I printed out a chapter of a book I was writing on because I was so frustrated and I literally got out the scissors and I went back,
Bonnie Tsui: [00:27:13] Oh, that’s so great.
Rachael Herron: [00:27:15] Like if I put this paragraph here that, you know, and it was really fun, it felt like playing again, you know. And it did create that connection. Yeah. That’s beautiful. What thing in your life affects your writing in a surprising way?
Bonnie Tsui: [00:27:28] Well, I have to say it has been in the last few years swimming.
Rachael Herron: [00:27:30] Yeah, I was gonna say it probably is.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:27:31] For sure, because before I wrote this book, I did not think about it like that. I did not inquire or interrogate why it is that I feel that, you know, going into the water immersion is beneficial to me. I just, I just thought about it more as, as pure exercise, you know, to kind of getting it out, getting out the eye out and then, and then sitting down, but really it’s now having really spent time interrogating that and talking to researchers about it, you know, doing a lot of reading and then understanding like observing very finally very attentively my own experience. You know, what am I thinking about when I’m in the water? How do I feel afterwards and sort of like what happens in the process of writing this book? And this is the last section of the book, especially on flow. It was very eye-opening for me. It, it, and it was sometimes weird. And I’ve said this before, where I would go and go for a swim and I would in the morning and then I would say to myself, okay, what am I thinking about? What do I see? What do I taste? What do I smell? And then I would be in the locker room, like, you know, typing into my phone and then I would come home, then I would sit down and I would try to channel that again, but because it was, had just happened or, and I’ve been thinking about as I was doing also many like metal layers, really wonderful. And then I would read poetry or read some, creative work about swimming that kind of got at it from an, again, from like the oblique angles, like just the, I loved, exploring that. And, and I understand now, in a much more conscious way, how immersion, is related to my creativity is related to my writing practice in my life and how I feel I can access those parts of my brain.
Rachael Herron: [00:29:29] That is truly inspiring and I desperately want to go get in the water. I don’t care what water it is. It might be, it might have to be the bath tub today.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:29:36] After this conversation, you’re going to send me a photo. I’m like, I’m out, you know. Your hair is wet.
Rachael Herron: [00:29:43] And I can’t wait. Okay. So what is the best book that you’ve read recently? Your book is the best book I’ve read recently. So what is yours?
Bonnie Tsui: [00:29:52] You flatter me.
Rachael Herron: [00:29:53] I don’t lay it on the stick for, for most of my guests. I swear.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:29:57] I, I have, so I read mostly, I read a lot of books, but mostly I read fiction unless it’s related to, which is weird, right? I mean, unless it’s related to something that I’m working on, but I think it’s because fiction is so transporting, it just gets me out of my head. I just fall into the story. And I mean, I think it does feed back into my, my actual work as a journalist and a nonfiction writer because it, the creative ways that novelists or short story writers handle or poet, poets, handle language and handle reality. I kind of do take lessons, but they’re sort of like subconscious lessons in that right, and language and all that. But one of the books that I really loved recently was, is, is a novel called Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha, and it’s so good. It is a very, it’s a novel about, like the intersection of lives, you know, and it takes its inspiration from a real life event, which is like, you know, in the nineties with, in LA, there was of course the race riots and, and, but also that it, it traces back to an event of, the shooting of a young black girl who, in a community store, who was buying, I think it was like a bottle of milk and the owner, the Korean owner of the store shot her, thinking that she was shoplifting or there was an argument and there was, so it was like a huge, and I remember this from when I was a kid, like there was a huge, you know, it was a huge moment in the news. And then of course, like the sort of larger societal racial justice and movements and things that follow that response to that was like in the community was really horrific, but also like called up a lot of things that had been sort of bubbling under the surface for a long time. And of course, incredibly timely now, in this, in this particular moment, a historical moment now, and the fact that she wrote this novel, and, it’s just like, it’s a gripping story and the characters are so finely drawn, they’re so vivid and she wasn’t able to inhabit these characters and they’re, you know, it’s fictionalized, but it draws on very real events and, but she’s able to inhabit the characters and bring them to life in a way that you just, again, like this was like a distant memory for me, but then it has been kind of called up, in, in recent times and it feels so freshly timely, riveting and profoundly moving and, like an act of generosity and love to like, put that out in the world, like, and how the characters kind of feel the consequences of, of their family’s actions and everything. Everyone is connected, and I just was really affected by it. I really loved that book. And I think it actually came out well last year.
Rachael Herron: [00:33:01] This is a very, this is always a very selfish question for me, because this is how I build to my TBR pile, but you said it was your House Will Pay by Steph Cha, is that right? Okay. Fabulous. Just went to the top of my list. Thank you very, very much. And now can you tell us, tell us maybe the log line or the premise behind Why We Swim although we’ve already talked a lot about it and where can we find you and it, and all of that?
Bonnie Tsui: [00:33:26] So, Why We Swim my elevator pitch. It’s a cultural and scientific exploration of our human relationship with water.
Rachael Herron: [00:33:34] It’s beautiful, yeah.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:33:35] And you know, it is, structured, you know, of course the question is presented in the title while we swim, and then it’s structured in five different thematic ways we can answer that question so, first of all, first and foremost, survival, right? We have to learn how to survive the water life and death, it’s a very, very, very easy thing to understand. But I explore all the different ways that what survival means to us, right? As a species and, and then moves to once swimming can, you know, you can swim for survival, it can mean so many other things. So, wellbeing, you know, health healing, and then community, you know, in a team like with your shared tribe and, and, competition, of course, like it’s the subsuming of, you know, the, the life-death, you know, adrenaline in sport, right? So in competition, we just really love the absence of like having to really swim for your life. Like you, you know, you do it against the clock and then flow, which is what we talked about, a little bit already, but just, what does it mean, you know, mind, body to be experiencing the state of flow where you just are completely lost and immersed in something that you’re doing, that you lose all track of time and also self, right? You are really one with whatever it is that you’re doing. And what if you did that while you were swimming? Like what, what does that, I kind of explored that a bit and, it was really such a, I, it was a joy to write the book. I mean, I think I thought about it for many years. I struggled with the structure kind of thinking like, do I really want to do this? How would I do it? It’s such a huge topic. Why am I doing it? And I want it to be a frame that help other people’s stories, right? So again, I’m a journalist, but I’m also like a character in the book, your guide.
Rachael Herron: [00:35:31] Which is my favorite kind of non-fiction honestly.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:35:35] Yeah. It’s, well, it was hard to figure out how to do it right though. You know, it’s always the balance of how much of yourself, how much of your characters and are those and, and do those butt up against each other in weird ways and certainly because, as a journalist, I write in a certain mode and it as a, you know, an essay as I write in a certain it’s more personal and so how to meld the two and I feel very, I’m really happy with how it turned out, but it could have gone horribly wrong there.
Rachael Herron: [00:36:04] There but for the grace.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:36:07] Exactly.
Rachael Herron: [00:36:08] I, I, every time you would switch into another mode in the book, I would be at the same point, disappointed that I was leaving the mode before and excited to move into the next one, which was, it’s always a sign of a good book to me. The flow is what kind of interests me almost more than anything. And I do have that in the pool and I am not an open water swimmer yet to the point where I have any flow yet I am definitely trying to exist.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:36:35] Yes, but that’s also like that acuteness and that ferventness, I think, is very cleansing.
Rachael Herron: [00:36:41] Yes. Totally.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:36:42] In a, like you are erase everything else that you’ve been worrying about because you’re so consumed.
Rachael Herron: [00:36:48] There’s nothing else. There’s no like, novel deadline. There’s no coronavirus.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:36:53] Yes. Exactly.
Rachael Herron: [00:36:54] There’s just, I need to make it home. And you’re
Bonnie Tsui: [00:36:56] Great. In a messed up kind of way. It’s great.
Rachael Herron: [00:37:01] Well, I want to keep you on the line after we say goodbye, because I would just want to pick your brain for one second about, Keller, but, thank you so much for being on the show. This was fantastic. And thanks for your book.
Bonnie Tsui: [00:37:10] Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/
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