Speaker 1: What do you do in life doesn't go according to plan?
Speaker 1: That moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
Speaker 1: or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
Speaker 1: is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
Speaker 1: by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
Speaker 1: with a guest to talk about the times they were
Speaker 1: knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
Speaker 1: Some stories are funny, others are gut wrench but all
Speaker 1: are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
Speaker 1: every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
Speaker 1: answers one question. Now, what anybody ever said anything that
Speaker 1: you didn't think of and you think, oh, that's that's
Speaker 1: not a bad idea, or oh all the time? And
Speaker 1: I love it, especially students I think they read the book.
Speaker 1: They'll say to me, you know, you have a lot
Speaker 1: of eggs in your first novel, and eggs are often
Speaker 1: a sign and religion about rebirth. Did you intend that
Speaker 1: to be a rebirth? And I'm like, you know, I
Speaker 1: should say I absolutely meant that, but the truth is,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I really love that interpretation and I didn't
Speaker 1: do it consciously, but I love that you saw that
Speaker 1: and I might kind of steal that from you. And
Speaker 1: I like eggs. I like eggs. That's why they were
Speaker 1: in there. You know, I had a character who ate
Speaker 1: hard boiled eggs, and it's because I like hard boiled eggs.
Speaker 1: But you know, when they see that meeting, I'm like,
Speaker 1: there could be something to that, And I love that idea.
Speaker 1: For me, that means that I did my job, that
Speaker 1: the work can kind of stand on its own and
Speaker 1: have meaning on its own, even if it wasn't something
Speaker 1: that I consciously meant. That voice you just heard is
Speaker 1: New York Times best selling authors celesting I asked Celeste
Speaker 1: to join this show because I loved her new book,
Speaker 1: Our Missing Hearts. I loved it so much so that
Speaker 1: I wanted to learn everything I possibly could about the
Speaker 1: woman who wrote it. Now it sounds corny, but the
Speaker 1: entire time I was reading the book, I actually felt
Speaker 1: like I had a companion. Celeste is that talented of
Speaker 1: a writer. In addition to Our Missing Hearts, she also
Speaker 1: wrote the novels Everything I Never Told You and Little
Speaker 1: Fires Everywhere, the letter of which was made into a
Speaker 1: mini series starring Carrie Washington and Reese Witherspoon. I loved
Speaker 1: catching up with Celeste. I loved learning about her process
Speaker 1: and hearing about the now What moments that most inspired
Speaker 1: her writing. Welcome Celeste ng to Now What. This is
Speaker 1: my podcast and I can't think of a better person
Speaker 1: to to talk to. I'm I'm a huge fan well likewise,
Speaker 1: so I'm so thrilled to get to talk with you.
Speaker 1: I have to start off by saying I loved your
Speaker 1: latest book, Are Missing Hearts. It was so powerful and
Speaker 1: so heart wrenching and beautiful. How would you describe the
Speaker 1: real idea of the book just for our listeners? I mean,
Speaker 1: I think of it as a book is really fundamentally
Speaker 1: about a mother and a son. A son who is
Speaker 1: looking for a mother who's left the family some years before,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't really understand where she's gone, why she's
Speaker 1: left him. He resents, you know, for obvious reasons that
Speaker 1: she hasn't been there, and he goes looking for her.
Speaker 1: And when he finds her through a lot of help,
Speaker 1: I think he starts to understand her and her life
Speaker 1: and their whole relationship in a different way. And that
Speaker 1: voyage from innocence to experience, you know how, and when
Speaker 1: a child experiences that, you start writing it in two
Speaker 1: thousand sixteen. It changes you then decide you don't know
Speaker 1: how you want it to end. Talk me through a
Speaker 1: little bit about that sort of process of kind of
Speaker 1: coming into understanding where you wanted the story to go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had an idea of where this story was going
Speaker 1: to go, but I didn't know how to get it there.
Speaker 1: It felt like something new to me because I realized
Speaker 1: I wasn't writing a story that was strictly realistic. My
Speaker 1: first two novels take place in the real world, in
Speaker 1: our world, and I knew that this book was going
Speaker 1: to exist in the world that wasn't exactly like our world.
Speaker 1: It wasn't you know, there aren't flying cars and robots,
Speaker 1: but it was our world with sort of the volume
Speaker 1: dialed up a little bit. All of the sort of
Speaker 1: dangers and things that feel present in our world are
Speaker 1: very present in this world. There's a lot of nationalism,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of racism um, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of hatred. And so when I started working on the book,
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to put it together. I didn't
Speaker 1: know if it was a place that I wanted to go,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know how to do that. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't until the pandemic hit and I think we were
Speaker 1: living in our real lives in this atmosphere fear. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking back about how we were washing our groceries right,
Speaker 1: and we were like wiping down the mail because we
Speaker 1: just didn't know. It felt like there were threats everywhere.
Speaker 1: I started to kind of viserally understand what it might
Speaker 1: be like for these characters in this world that's also
Speaker 1: full of fear and where there's a almost invisible assassin.
Speaker 1: Can you explain what Packed is a metaphor for? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Packed in the novel is a law or series of
Speaker 1: laws that's been passed and the country has gone through
Speaker 1: a hard time in the book, and to kind of
Speaker 1: restore order, they've passed these new laws and it stands
Speaker 1: for protecting American culture and traditions, and it kind of
Speaker 1: requires everyone to sort of behave patriotically and it allows
Speaker 1: people who are acting un American heavily in quotes to
Speaker 1: be punished. And one of the things that entails is
Speaker 1: often the children of people who are seen as acting
Speaker 1: Unamerican are taken away. And this is often being applied
Speaker 1: in the book to people of Chinese American descent and
Speaker 1: Asian descent generally and in particular to anyone who dares
Speaker 1: to speak up on their behalf. And so for me,
Speaker 1: it was kind of an outward manifestation of a feeling
Speaker 1: that is present today in America, the sense that people
Speaker 1: who are East Asian who don't look like they're from here,
Speaker 1: are somehow not American, that they belong somewhere else, and
Speaker 1: that their loyalties lie somewhere else. It's something that I've
Speaker 1: experienced in my own life, people assuming that about me.
Speaker 1: And you talk about the idea of growing up and
Speaker 1: having this feeling of being visibly different from others, Can
Speaker 1: you explain how that affected you. Yeah, I'm realizing more
Speaker 1: and more how it really has shaped a lot of
Speaker 1: my experience and personality. I'm the child of immigrants from
Speaker 1: Hong Kong, so my parents are Chinese American, and I
Speaker 1: was born in the other. I'm from Ohio, but I
Speaker 1: grew up in places where there weren't very many Asian Americans,
Speaker 1: so there really were very few people who look like me,
Speaker 1: and I realized that I stood out. I was lucky
Speaker 1: that I think I had a really happy childhood and
Speaker 1: most people were very accepting but I was very aware
Speaker 1: that nobody else looked like me. And every now and then,
Speaker 1: out of the blue, I'd have an experience where somebody
Speaker 1: would say the thing that I think most most people
Speaker 1: of color and particularly Asians know where. They say, where
Speaker 1: are you from? And I'd say, I'm you know, I'm
Speaker 1: from Cleveland, and they say, know where you really from?
Speaker 1: And there's that sense immediately that they've decided that you're
Speaker 1: not from here, you don't belong here, and you need
Speaker 1: to explain and justify why you're here. And that was
Speaker 1: the feeling that I grew up with, and that's part
Speaker 1: of the feeling I tried to bring into the book,
Speaker 1: that sense that at any moment you might be seen
Speaker 1: as a foreigner, even if you've been here for your
Speaker 1: whole life. Any moment you might be asked for your
Speaker 1: papers exactly, and and that's a reality for many people
Speaker 1: in the world. It's so interesting as a white young woman,
Speaker 1: or I'd like to think of myself as a young
Speaker 1: woman who grew up I can't say I wasn't privileged.
Speaker 1: I was. I was lucky, but you know, to have
Speaker 1: that be such a part, it's almost like having an
Speaker 1: entirely other existence, how unbalanced that is. Did your parents
Speaker 1: help you? How did your parents deal with that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I recognize now how jarring and experience that must have
Speaker 1: been for them in particular, and to try to help
Speaker 1: children my sister and may navigate through this. I think
Speaker 1: they were even more aware of it than we were.
Speaker 1: And I think they were in particular aware of the
Speaker 1: ways that there might be danger, because I think that's
Speaker 1: one of the first things you think as a parent
Speaker 1: is is my child going to be safe? And so
Speaker 1: they would talk to us about it. They would remind
Speaker 1: us mostly that if we were misbehaving, for example, other
Speaker 1: people might assume that this is just how all Chinese
Speaker 1: people behave right And likewise, if we did something good,
Speaker 1: they'd say, oh great, you know now we're we're kind
Speaker 1: of setting a good example. So I think they were
Speaker 1: very aware of it, not by choice but just sort
Speaker 1: of advertecessity. They knew that we would be judged no
Speaker 1: matter what we were doing, and you couldn't own doing
Speaker 1: something good. I think it was both. I mean, if
Speaker 1: we did something good, then in a way it was
Speaker 1: like showing people that, you know, Chinese people could do
Speaker 1: this too. Write Like if I got an a writing
Speaker 1: my English essay. You know, it was like, see, we
Speaker 1: can also do this, you know, but there was always
Speaker 1: this sense of being judged from the outside, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I just think about how they had to
Speaker 1: live their lives that way. I cannot even begin to
Speaker 1: say that I can um, I can understand or I
Speaker 1: can empathize. Though when I went to university it was
Speaker 1: as if in order for me to do well, I
Speaker 1: had to absolutely jump through hoops and do every extra credit,
Speaker 1: every extra thing, because teachers did not want it to
Speaker 1: appear that they were giving me special treatment. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that is a similar experience. There is a kinship
Speaker 1: in those experiences because it's what people think of you
Speaker 1: because of things on your outside, right, because they know
Speaker 1: your name, or because they see your face or whatever.
Speaker 1: It is, versus how you know yourself to be right.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, it is that same kind
Speaker 1: of gap of people assuming something about you from the
Speaker 1: outside and then you trying to bridge that gap from
Speaker 1: where you are on the inside. And I think there's
Speaker 1: that shapes a person, right, But you add to a
Speaker 1: culturally and historically I mean that you that is I again,
Speaker 1: I'm not putting myself in that same type of an experience.
Speaker 1: But I can appreciate that. Now you said your parents
Speaker 1: taught you you have a son, correct, yes, right, do
Speaker 1: you have similar conversations with him? I try to talk
Speaker 1: about it with him a little bit more openly, and
Speaker 1: that not to criticize my parents and all, but just
Speaker 1: because I think that we're living in an era where
Speaker 1: it's more okay to talk about these things, and I
Speaker 1: live in a place where there's more diversity in these
Speaker 1: conversations come up more naturally. But I try to both
Speaker 1: let him know that who he is is great, and
Speaker 1: that he has multiple parts of his identity that are
Speaker 1: okay for him to hold on to. He can be
Speaker 1: both Chinese American and American American whatever that means, right,
Speaker 1: He can hold on to different aspects of his heritage.
Speaker 1: And yet at the same time to let him know,
Speaker 1: you know, the world isn't always kind to people that
Speaker 1: they see as other, and that's something to be aware of,
Speaker 1: but that's also something to take to heart and think
Speaker 1: about when he's interacting with other people. You know, how
Speaker 1: how can we make the world be just more welcoming
Speaker 1: to everybody? What were some of the experiences you had
Speaker 1: when you were his age. That allows you to to
Speaker 1: sort of see the differences, are see the similarities. I mean,
Speaker 1: everything to me is is a now what moment? You know,
Speaker 1: and I'm picturing you as a little girl, and yes,
Speaker 1: you have your parents teaching you, but by the same token,
Speaker 1: you're still a little girl that's dealing with something and
Speaker 1: you have to ask yourself, now, what what what do
Speaker 1: I What am I going to take from this? I mean,
Speaker 1: I can think of a few there, you know, There's
Speaker 1: there's one that we'd say is sort of more positive
Speaker 1: and one that's negative. So the more negative one is
Speaker 1: I certainly remember times that I would just be walking
Speaker 1: on the street or something and people would shout slurs
Speaker 1: at me. There was a particular time that I was
Speaker 1: with my aunt and uncle, who were visiting from Hong
Speaker 1: Kong at the time, and my older sister and we
Speaker 1: were waiting for a bus and this man, who I
Speaker 1: think was somewhat intoxicated, started yelling at us about, you know,
Speaker 1: we should go back where we came from, and swearing
Speaker 1: in us and things like that, and that was really
Speaker 1: jarring because I was I think I was maybe ten
Speaker 1: or eleven at the time, and I just remember thinking,
Speaker 1: what do I do, as you say, now, what what
Speaker 1: do I do about this? Right? What am I going
Speaker 1: to take out of this? And what I took from
Speaker 1: that was there was a woman, a white woman, who
Speaker 1: was nearby and she kind of intervened and she started
Speaker 1: talking to the guy and kind of got in between
Speaker 1: him and us, and then after the bus arrived she
Speaker 1: talked to us about it, and it just made me
Speaker 1: remember that, Okay, somebody out there is also with you.
Speaker 1: You're not just by yourself, right, and it's it made
Speaker 1: me realize what a power there is in someone stepping
Speaker 1: in and not just being a bystander. And so that
Speaker 1: made me try to do that for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life when I've seen that happening in other context,
Speaker 1: to try and step in. So that was one. There
Speaker 1: was also, I think more positive ones where times when
Speaker 1: I would see myself reflected in other people's experiences. Mostly books.
Speaker 1: My mom made a real point of trying to get
Speaker 1: books that were written by other Asian, in particular East Asians.
Speaker 1: This is in like the early eighties and so there
Speaker 1: wasn't as much out there as there is now. There's
Speaker 1: a little bit more now, but she would get books
Speaker 1: that were, you know, about living in a Japanese internment camp,
Speaker 1: where she would get books that were about, you know,
Speaker 1: being a new immigrant from China to the US. And
Speaker 1: even though those weren't my experience, it was kind of
Speaker 1: powerful to get the sense, oh, that's a book about
Speaker 1: someone who vaguely resembles me. She's also Asian, and that
Speaker 1: means maybe maybe my stories are also going to be
Speaker 1: worth telling. When I get to read books by other people,
Speaker 1: I get to witness their experience, but in a way
Speaker 1: I also kind of get to be seen. I get
Speaker 1: to be seen as like, okay, they're Asian stories broadly speaking,
Speaker 1: are worth telling. And with the woman at the bus stop,
Speaker 1: I think she was there to witness that. She was
Speaker 1: there to kind of say by her also reacting the situation,
Speaker 1: I see this and it's not okay, and I see
Speaker 1: what's happening to you, And there's something very powerful about that.
Speaker 1: Even though she couldn't stop it, that wasn't her position,
Speaker 1: you know, she wasn't responsible for what was happening, but
Speaker 1: the fact that she was there to witness it with us,
Speaker 1: I think was really powerful and it's important that you
Speaker 1: do point that out. That she may or may not
Speaker 1: have been able to affect change, but in that moment,
Speaker 1: for these young individual girls, she was able to at
Speaker 1: least say I see you, and I'd like to understand
Speaker 1: it more absolutely, and that was really powerful. I think
Speaker 1: about that moment quite a lot, and I think about
Speaker 1: her in particular, and even now as an adult, when
Speaker 1: I'm faced with a situation where I don't know what
Speaker 1: to do, I try to look for ways that I
Speaker 1: can help because I think about how powerful it was
Speaker 1: that she stepped in, and I think about how awful
Speaker 1: it would have held had she not stepped in. Did
Speaker 1: you always know you wanted to be a writer? I
Speaker 1: always did want to be a writer. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that it was really a job than anybody could do.
Speaker 1: I didn't know anybody who had a creative job like that,
Speaker 1: and so for a long time I thought that I
Speaker 1: was going to have to have, you know, like a
Speaker 1: real job, and then writing would be the thing that
Speaker 1: I did on the side. And I thought that, really
Speaker 1: until I graduated from college and I got a real
Speaker 1: job from Harvard by the way from and I got
Speaker 1: a job in publishing, and I think I started in September,
Speaker 1: and I realized in October. This just wasn't the right
Speaker 1: fit for me. And I was really lucky that I
Speaker 1: had a teacher who said to me, you know you
Speaker 1: always talk about writing on the side, why don't you
Speaker 1: try putting it in the front. And it was really
Speaker 1: because of her that I started to think, well, maybe
Speaker 1: I should try. Maybe I should try writing and see
Speaker 1: where it takes me. Did you quit that job or
Speaker 1: I did. I stayed at it for a year because
Speaker 1: I needed to pay rent, and you know, I had
Speaker 1: loans and things I had to pay off. But I
Speaker 1: stayed at the job and I started working on my
Speaker 1: writing and I got together a portfolio so that I
Speaker 1: could apply to grad school. And really what I was
Speaker 1: doing was I was just starting to learn how to
Speaker 1: be a writer. I was reading and I was writing,
Speaker 1: and I was to sing. Talk about a now what moment?
Speaker 1: I mean, you quit your job and then you all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, how did that feel? It was definitely
Speaker 1: a now what moment because I got to the point
Speaker 1: where I was like, I have to quit this job
Speaker 1: because I need to focus on this other thing. And
Speaker 1: it was very scary. I did some math and I
Speaker 1: was like, here's how much money I have saved. Here's
Speaker 1: how long I can give it to try and make
Speaker 1: this writing thing work. And it was the first of
Speaker 1: several now what moments like that. I think for most writers,
Speaker 1: your life is a series of those now what moments
Speaker 1: until hopefully you managed to get a break. But it
Speaker 1: was a moment of I think, really asking myself, if
Speaker 1: I stay here in this secure place, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be unhappy. But if I leave, maybe I will be happier.
Speaker 1: Can I make it work? Can I? You know? And
Speaker 1: that was a position privilege. I was lucky, I had
Speaker 1: a partner. I was lucky that I had been able
Speaker 1: to save money. But it was a moment of trying
Speaker 1: to reaffirm for myself it's worth it. Did you have
Speaker 1: a structure to writing? It was easier when I was
Speaker 1: in grad school. I was lucky enough to get a
Speaker 1: fellows hip and so I had a little bit of
Speaker 1: a stipend. And you know, your job when you were
Speaker 1: in this program was to sit and right and so
Speaker 1: I would try and write. I would go and sit
Speaker 1: with friends and we were all on the writing program,
Speaker 1: and we'd sit there and we'd we'd work for a
Speaker 1: while and then we'd talk and then we'd get back
Speaker 1: to work, but it was easier when someone was looking
Speaker 1: over my shoulder. When I left grad school, I definitely
Speaker 1: had another now what moment where I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how do I do this without an assignment? How do
Speaker 1: I do this with that? You know, I don't need
Speaker 1: to turn anything in. If I don't write anything, no
Speaker 1: one will care. And then I realized, actually, no one
Speaker 1: will care but me, And so that was really I
Speaker 1: had to find the motivation in myself to get myself
Speaker 1: to the desk and sit there and look at the page.
Speaker 1: I tried to make it into a routine, basically, and
Speaker 1: it got easier when my son was born, because when
Speaker 1: he was napping it was my time to write, or
Speaker 1: when I dropped him off at daycare, I knew exactly
Speaker 1: when I had to pick him up, and I would go, okay,
Speaker 1: I have four hours. I'm paying for those four hours.
Speaker 1: I've got to make them count. I can only imagine.
Speaker 1: But the idea of structure and doing it on your
Speaker 1: own is it's a huge lesson. I mean that is
Speaker 1: a huge lesson because a lot of it is really
Speaker 1: how you you know, how you approach your vocation and
Speaker 1: calling it that and not feeling guilty for it. So
Speaker 1: you're writing when you can. Mostly people sleep when their
Speaker 1: kids sleep, but now you're writing when you're kids sleeping. Um,
Speaker 1: what was your first project? Like, I had been writing
Speaker 1: short stories in grad school. So I published a few
Speaker 1: short stories. You know, you send them to a magazine
Speaker 1: and you hope that an editor likes them, and I've
Speaker 1: been lucky enough to find a few homes for them,
Speaker 1: and I got an agent on the strength of that.
Speaker 1: It was an agent who had read some of my work,
Speaker 1: liked it, got in touch, and she seemed to get
Speaker 1: what I was doing, and she was extremely patient because
Speaker 1: she signed with me. And then I think it was
Speaker 1: about five years before I had actually finished a book,
Speaker 1: and it was a story that I had started working
Speaker 1: on in grad school, and it just took me a
Speaker 1: long time to figure out how to write a book,
Speaker 1: how to tell the story, and then how to kind
Speaker 1: of polish it so that it it said what I
Speaker 1: wanted in the ways that I wanted. There are so
Speaker 1: many times that I think people don't really focus on
Speaker 1: the rejections, but there are usually more rejections than there
Speaker 1: are acceptance. In that five year period, were their rejections
Speaker 1: that stood out to you where you questioned, oh, there were,
Speaker 1: I mean, there were many, and it is, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's even something that people should be
Speaker 1: ashamed of. But I say that even though I used
Speaker 1: to call the spreadsheet where I marked down my rejections,
Speaker 1: I used to call it my spreadsheet of shame, because
Speaker 1: we feel like we should succeed right away. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, I would list all the places i'd sent
Speaker 1: a story, and then I would list down when they
Speaker 1: sent it back, you know, And then I would send
Speaker 1: it out to the next one, and I'd list when
Speaker 1: it got rejected from that. But that's I think part
Speaker 1: of the process. I was learning how to write a story.
Speaker 1: I was learning which magazines were fit for just what
Speaker 1: I write. Not every magazine is right for every story.
Speaker 1: And so I did have a bunch of rejections in there.
Speaker 1: And in particular, I remember there was one story that
Speaker 1: I kept sending out and sending out and it kept
Speaker 1: coming back and I really believed in it. And in
Speaker 1: the middle of it, I had my son, I dealt
Speaker 1: with some postpartum depression, and I was like, maybe this
Speaker 1: is just never going to work out. Maybe I should
Speaker 1: just give up. And then a magazine took that story
Speaker 1: and then they submitted it for an award, and then
Speaker 1: it won that award, and it was this sort of
Speaker 1: amazing boost at a moment where I had really been
Speaker 1: questioning myself to get that kind of affirmation from, you know,
Speaker 1: from this magazine and then the award. Yes, it's worth doing. God,
Speaker 1: I hope you framed that list. I hope you have
Speaker 1: that list, and I hope you frame it showed everybody.
Speaker 1: I have it saved in my computer. Well it is.
Speaker 1: It's a long bar. I color coded it so that
Speaker 1: I could see some rejections are red, right, and then
Speaker 1: ones that are out or yellow, so you can just
Speaker 1: kind of see visually without having to look at the
Speaker 1: no no no column. You can just see it. And
Speaker 1: then there's this one green line at the bottom and sometimes,
Speaker 1: I mean it only takes one it's always going to
Speaker 1: be read until it gets to that green. You mentioned postpartum.
Speaker 1: I too had postpartum rather severely. Um I wrote a
Speaker 1: book about it, Celesting, and you well, I remember that,
Speaker 1: and I was so grateful for that. Actually, I was
Speaker 1: so grateful that you talked about it, because I felt
Speaker 1: like it was this thing that no one talked about
Speaker 1: that everyone was somehow embarrassed about having, ashamed of having,
Speaker 1: and that no one had really you know, they mentioned
Speaker 1: just like, oh, this might happen, but it kind of doesn't.
Speaker 1: And I was sort of shocked to find that it
Speaker 1: was happening to me and that it actually happened to
Speaker 1: lots of people. And so I was really, honestly so
Speaker 1: grateful to you for talking about that with your platform,
Speaker 1: because it would be so easy to just pretend like
Speaker 1: it hadn't happened. Well, I appreciate you saying that. Really.
Speaker 1: I had a person say to me, an agent at
Speaker 1: the time, and he said, you have to tell this story.
Speaker 1: And my first reaction was, who wants another celebrity on
Speaker 1: some soapbox complaining about how terrible it is, you know,
Speaker 1: to have this baby, and you know, and I could
Speaker 1: afford IVF and you know, so there was just just
Speaker 1: a sort of self indulgence that I was afraid of.
Speaker 1: And then once I started asking around and realizing that
Speaker 1: I wasn't the only one that had experienced that, it
Speaker 1: became a journey to tell other people's stories or give
Speaker 1: other people the context to feel their stories exactly. You
Speaker 1: do that beautifully well. And I love that way of
Speaker 1: looking at it too, because I've been in a position
Speaker 1: is you know, Chinese American writer and Asian American writer
Speaker 1: that's had some success. I don't want to speak for
Speaker 1: other people, but I want to give more context and
Speaker 1: more space and sort of like you know, elbow out
Speaker 1: a little bit more room for other stories to be heard,
Speaker 1: because they can only be told by the people that
Speaker 1: experience them. But it is so affirming to to see
Speaker 1: someone else, and especially somebody who you know is incredibly
Speaker 1: well known, talk about something that they experienced that you
Speaker 1: also as. There's this sense of shared humanity that I
Speaker 1: think that we don't often get a lot of times,
Speaker 1: and certainly around topics that are difficult, like issues around
Speaker 1: pregnancy or postpartment depression. So it yeah, it sincerely mean.
Speaker 1: It did mean a lot to me to see that
Speaker 1: you were talking about it, and I didn't remember anybody
Speaker 1: else really doing that. I think it really was one
Speaker 1: of the first and people were shocked, you know that
Speaker 1: I that I was, And it was interesting because they
Speaker 1: talked about how brave and what's so interesting. I couldn't
Speaker 1: quite get my mind wrapped around the concept of that
Speaker 1: being a brave move. It felt necessary. That's similar to
Speaker 1: the way that I look at it, where I hope
Speaker 1: that what I write resonates with other people, but I
Speaker 1: do write it first and foremost because it matters to me.
Speaker 1: You know. I hope that it's going to speak to
Speaker 1: other people, but I couldn't write it if it didn't
Speaker 1: also feel important. I don't think people really understand the
Speaker 1: sort of trajectory between when a book is written and
Speaker 1: then if and when it gets adapted to a screen.
Speaker 1: I would love to hear a little bit more about
Speaker 1: what that is like and what you grapple with when
Speaker 1: it's presented to you. It was such an interesting experience
Speaker 1: to have Little Fires Everywhere made into a mini series
Speaker 1: and I had a really wonderful experience with it, actually,
Speaker 1: and I think there were two reasons. One was that
Speaker 1: I went into it kind of thinking, I want this
Speaker 1: project to have space to be something different, the freedom
Speaker 1: to evolve into something else, because it should be different.
Speaker 1: It's an adaptation, it's on TV that's a different language
Speaker 1: than writing on the page, and thinking about it that
Speaker 1: way kind of made it easier for me to let
Speaker 1: go and be like, let it grow into what it's
Speaker 1: going to be. But the second reason that I think
Speaker 1: I had a great experience is that I got to
Speaker 1: work with the great people. I was really lucky um Reese, Witherspoon,
Speaker 1: and Carry Washington and their production teams. I think started
Speaker 1: the project because they love the book, and so they
Speaker 1: were always kind of holding the respect for the book
Speaker 1: in their hearts. Even when they were changing things. They
Speaker 1: were doing it in ways to explore the same issues,
Speaker 1: but just in a different angle. And I think that's
Speaker 1: really made it successful. And I feel very fortunate you've
Speaker 1: gotten to work with them. But it was it was fun,
Speaker 1: and it was I'm not lying when I say that.
Speaker 1: When I watched it, I watched it, you know, in
Speaker 1: early like everyone else did. UM. I sat on the
Speaker 1: couch with my husband and there were parts where I
Speaker 1: kind of gassed and I like leaned in and I
Speaker 1: was like, what's going to happen? And he looked at
Speaker 1: me and said, do you not know? Like you wrote
Speaker 1: this book? But I was so caught up in what
Speaker 1: was going on the screen that I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I but it feels new. And that for me
Speaker 1: was such a pleasurable experience to encounter the story differently. Well,
Speaker 1: that is a very arrived way of looking at something,
Speaker 1: and I'm in awe of that, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: take that to heart, just because you know, when you
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you have this book, you call
Speaker 1: it your book, and now people have opinions on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did they feel personal? They always feel personal, But I
Speaker 1: try to remind myself that they're not. And I think
Speaker 1: it's a good thing when people read your book and
Speaker 1: they have reactions to it, and that's how it should work.
Speaker 1: And Patrick, who's a writer that I just adore, she
Speaker 1: has a saying that the meaning of a book is
Speaker 1: not made between the writer and the reader. It's made
Speaker 1: between the book and the reader. And I really like
Speaker 1: that idea because in a way, it means that the
Speaker 1: reader is going to bring their own experiences to whatever
Speaker 1: they read or you know, whatever they view, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever the art form is. They're going to interpret it
Speaker 1: the way that they see it because they've had certain
Speaker 1: experiences and it might not be exactly what I had
Speaker 1: in mind, but it doesn't mean that it's invalid. And
Speaker 1: if they take meeting from it, to me, that's great, right.
Speaker 1: In a sense, I have to get out of the
Speaker 1: way as the author and let them make a relationship
Speaker 1: with the work whatever it is. They're going to feel
Speaker 1: that they know me. They might make judgments about me,
Speaker 1: but that's okay. They're allowed to do that. I have
Speaker 1: to kind of remove myself from that equation and let
Speaker 1: them engage with the work. So that's how I try
Speaker 1: to look at it. Anyway, That's very how it's hard.
Speaker 1: I think that's what real art is. I mean, art
Speaker 1: allows interpretation and allows individual experience. Um, this show, Now,
Speaker 1: what is about pivotal moments? And I think we women
Speaker 1: humans have had multiples in their lives, and I just
Speaker 1: want to wrap up with just talking to you just
Speaker 1: about some of those. Now, what pivotal moments where you
Speaker 1: you were stopped in your tracks and you had to
Speaker 1: make a decision. Can you talk about any of those
Speaker 1: in your life? Sure? Well, one that comes to mind
Speaker 1: first and foremost is becoming a parent. I thought before
Speaker 1: I became a parent that I understood who my parents
Speaker 1: were and what it would be like. Probably many parents
Speaker 1: think that, And then once I actually was holding my baby,
Speaker 1: I had this sudden, terrifying realization that I did not
Speaker 1: know what I was doing. You know, I had this
Speaker 1: moment of going, oh God, I'm responsible for this tiny
Speaker 1: little creature. How do I do right by him? And
Speaker 1: it made me see both sort of my life going
Speaker 1: forward and then my whole relationship with my parents in
Speaker 1: very a very different light. I was realizing how much
Speaker 1: they had done for me and for my sister and
Speaker 1: kind of appreciating that. And I was at the same
Speaker 1: time sort of looking forward towards, you know, the future
Speaker 1: I was going to have with my son and thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: what do I want to try to give you right
Speaker 1: if in the time that I've got with you, because
Speaker 1: it seems like it goes so fast it does, what
Speaker 1: do I What do I want to try and pass
Speaker 1: on to you? Right like? What are the most important
Speaker 1: things that you need to have before you go out
Speaker 1: into the world? And that, I mean, that's a transformation
Speaker 1: that's still ongoing. It's it's sort of a very long,
Speaker 1: extended now what moment where I'm constantly trying to figure out,
Speaker 1: you know, what are the most important things? I think
Speaker 1: that's the frame that I'm living my life in now.
Speaker 1: And you know it starts when their babies. It's it's
Speaker 1: ongoing and it's exhausting. Because it ever, let's up, and
Speaker 1: then this unbelievable moment happens when they start to teach
Speaker 1: you yes, And that's That's been one of the joys
Speaker 1: of parenthood, I have to say, is seeing like you
Speaker 1: say these things and you don't know if it's really
Speaker 1: sinking in. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm listening. And
Speaker 1: then when you actually see them do something that kind
Speaker 1: of shows that they've taken in the values that you're
Speaker 1: trying to teach. It's a really great moment. You know.
Speaker 1: I hope I'm giving that moment to my mom now
Speaker 1: as I get older. But it's nice to see it
Speaker 1: in my son where I'm like, oh, that was a
Speaker 1: kind thing you did, and he's like, oh yeah, it
Speaker 1: just seemed like the right thing to do. I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: did it. That's it for us today. If you enjoyed
Speaker 1: my conversation with Celesting, be sure to pick up a
Speaker 1: copy of our new book, How Our Missing Hearts. You'll
Speaker 1: be happy you did. Now. What is produced by the
Speaker 1: wonderful Julia Weaver with help from Darby Masters. Our executive
Speaker 1: producer is Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Bahed
Speaker 1: Fraser and Christian Bowman. A special thanks to nicky Etre
Speaker 1: and Will Pearson. If you liked this episode, please subscribe
Speaker 1: to the show on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your shows.