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| Dear Friends, On the day of my first real birthday party at age six, my dad dropped my cake (or someone did) and someone else (who knew how to drive) had to run out to buy a new one. I cried and cried. The one that got dropped (the real cake) maybe my mom had made it, but in my mind it was some combination of chocolate, lemon, yellow, and with flowers. Maybe my mom made it or did some cake decorating on it. The replacement cake looked plastic, artificial, tall white, anemic little girl pink. Didn’t taste great: it was all sugar and store-bought. The party went well: it was my first mix of school friends and Indian family friends. My mom’s best friend was there to help. She’s in the pictures with her daughter. My older brother planned outside games and led activities for us six and seven and eight year olds. It takes time and help to throw a party. In the days after the party, we ate the broken cake: broken but still delicious. I wished it hadn’t fallen and broken, but it did. Life is like that. Two other big life events, my wedding and my party for my first published book, were eclipsed by events much larger than them. For my wedding, it was my grandmother’s stroke and her care as well as extended family and friends’ stage mothering for their daughters as though it was their event. For my virtual book launch, it was a global pandemic and George Floyd protests and a social media blackout. Cakes break, things fall apart, so many innocent Black people just living their lives, killed. There’s immense sadness and understandable rage. All of that is true. But I also learned this year that it’s important to celebrate the small and big things when you can. And I learned that it’s OK to need help. Thanks to my friends for showing up. And thank you to my assistant, Abbey, who has been helping me with book-related work for almost a year. Today is the anniversary of publishing my first book, This Is One Way to Dance, a journey that took 20 years. Here are 10 things I wanted to share with you today: 1. A family friend sent this article to my mother who sent it to me. (My book is in it.) “11 Books, Movies, and TV Shows the Celebrate Indian American Characters and Stories” by Rudri Bhatt Patel in Apartment Therapy 2. May was AAPI Heritage Month: I loved this podcast episode so much I listened to it FOUR times. Asian Enough podcast with Min Jin Lee. 3. I also enjoyed listening to the in-depth two-hour interviews on David Naimon’s Between the Covers podcast (Elissa Washuta; Teju Cole). Highly recommend. 4. In May, I co-taught a class on epistolary writing with my friend Holly Wren Spaulding. It was wonderful to teach with her. New class from Holly Wren Spaulding starts June 21. 5. Today is my one-year-bookaversary (book anniversary). It was very hard publishing a first book in a pandemic. Especially when I had pinned my book party/launch as being a wedding do-over, five years after my wedding. Here’s an essay I wrote about it: “Come Back to Me” 6. Awards news: This Is One Way to Dance won a Gold Medal for the Nautilus Award for Books for a Better World Lyric Prose category, was a finalist for the CLMP Firecracker Award in Creative Nonfiction along with Claudia Rankine’s Just Us, and was a Silver Medalist in the IPPY Nonfiction Category. 7. I have been enjoying two books by artist and musician Sheila Chandra: Organizing Your Creative Career and Banish Clutter Forever. Highly recommend both. 8. Join me in donating to the Kundiman Campaign. 9. A year and a month ago we lost to COVID-19 a talented writer who also happens to be an alum of Wellesley and the UMass MFA program (my two alma maters). I was very moved by the story of Rana Zoe Mungin, whom I never had the chance to meet. On the day of my virtual book launch (tomorrow, June 2nd) I plan to make a donation in honor of her writing and life. You can join me by donating here at the Go Fund Me for her family. 10. Backyard Lilacs:  Thanks for reading my newsletter. If you enjoyed it, you can help keep it going by forwarding it to someone who might like it or buying my book for yourself or for a friend. Or, buy another independent-press book from an independent bookstore. Warmly, Sejal ___ This newsletter was originally sent out on June 1, 2021. You can subscribe to my newsletter here. |
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