Shanghai Noir

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Illustration of a bird flying.
  • Emily Hahn

    Emily Hahn is what you might call an adventuress. She liked to be called Mickey. She had a deep-seated desire for opium and a pet gibbon named Mr. Mills. Hahn held a degree in mining engineering and a lot of street smarts. Her first book was a satirical look at the way men court women,…

    June 15, 2020
  • Insta-politics

    I watch in horror as America comes undone. Anti-racism protesters meet police brutality meet COVID-19. No leadership emanates from the White House, just promises of more violence to come. Social media feeds me diametrically opposed calls to action. One Instagram commentator says silence is an immense privilege that can imply acquiescence. Another says to shut…

    June 7, 2020
  • Serendipity

    I started writing in high school. My metier then was parody of the sort that only a teenager could find funny. From parody, I went to poetry, from poetry to prose, from novel to short story to the personal essay. My road has been anything but straight. Of course, not all my writerly moves have…

    June 1, 2020
  • All for One

    My father is 96 years old, my mother is 81. My siblings and I are spread across the world. The closest one lives a 3 hour drive away. We worry about what to do and how we can help our parents in this phase of their lives. Lockdowns and closed borders only add to the…

    May 24, 2020
  • Heartland

    The heartland is the breadbasket of America. It grows our grain and meat. In my mind, it’s a verdant plain rich with food for all. Imagine then my surprise to learn from Civil Eats that the heartland can’t feed itself because of the coronavirus crisis. How can this be? Cash crops Farming is a business…

    May 17, 2020
  • The Street Where You Live

    Now that the dust has settled from our trip around the world, it’s time to revisit my novel-in-progress, Peace Court. To be honest, I’m a little scared to venture down that street. What if my trip has caused a reality shift due to time or distance or both? What if I have to rewrite the…

    May 10, 2020
  • Creature Comforts

    Last week, an article caught my husband’s eye. The main photo displays a Japanese hearth sunken into the wooden floor — the irori, a place where family and guests gather to share tea or a meal. A cast-iron tea kettle hangs above the flame. A tripod awaits the stone pot containing the evening meal. Floor…

    May 3, 2020
  • Listening Pleasures

    I live in silence. I can’t write if music plays, let alone while someone talks. Listening with my nose in a book gets a little easier as long as the lyrics don’t distract me. If it weren’t for my husband, I’d probably live out my days in absolute quiet. He listens to music as he…

    April 26, 2020
  • Home Project

    On March 15, when the Netherlands entered its intelligent lockdown, my husband and I were in Australia. From Perth, we watched the initial stages of panic unfold in Amsterdam: the fisticuffs over toilet paper and the run on tinned tomatoes. By the time we got home, the Dutch had recovered their blasé equanimity. Most household…

    April 20, 2020
  • A Covid Conversation

    During our round-the-world journey, we were largely isolated from family and friends. Telephone calls were prohibitively expensive. Postal mail impossibly slow. I learned to rely on email and the occasional video call to keep in touch. Little did I know that I was practicing for a Covid conversation. Let’s define a Covid conversation as any…

    April 12, 2020
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