The Shin Yu Pai Papers

I’m very proud to share that Yale University’s Beinecke Library is now home of the Shin Yu Pai Papers and my literary and creative archives, which will join the collections of Arthur Sze, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Eileen Myles, and other literary luminaries. The collections are currently being processed and won’t be available to researchers for another 9 months to 2 years.

Bushwick Book Club artist Tomo Nakayama

Tomo Nakayama shared an incredible song at the Ink Aloud showcase called “Mantra.” His song explores the strength, compassion, and openheartedness it takes to keep practicing and turning towards the world, even when confronted with horror and difficult beauty. He brings in the sacred chant from the Lotus Sutra into this amazing song that reminded me that even 14 years ago, I was turning towards writing as a way to process trauma, violence, loss and grief and to try to better love the world.

Bushwick Book Club Artist Gary Mula

My dear friend Gary Mula who built and ran The Dutchman Studios wrote a song inspired by my poem “Altar” – a poem on sacred space that lives both within and outside of ourselves. Gary approached my poem with a care and fidelity towards my words and built his song around my language using melody and rhythms that speak in his own beautiful and direct language of music. I hear a little bit of Radiohead and some Jeff Buckley.

Bushwick Book Club artist Drea Marilyn

I’ve had a chance to get to know Drea Marilyn’s work now over a few years – from her punk rock songs written for guitar (she wrote an amazing song in response to Sasha La Pointe’s memoir!) to her piano compositions that are often jazz inspired, like what she wrote in response to Adamantine. I was very touched that Drea dedicated her performance to In Soo Chun, a Korean immigrant that I wrote about in my poem “Recquiescat. Drea went to school at the University of California of Riverside, which is in the very town where I grew up. Knowing that she’d experienced that strange and empty cultural landscape firsthand that was so devoid of Asian Americans when I was growing up, I more deeply felt the resonance of her words and song.

Bushwick Book Club Ink Aloud showcase

This past Saturday, The Bushwick Book Club Seattle celebrated my book Adamantine (White Pine, 2010) in an event that involved commissioning songs inspired by poems from the book from songwriters Tomo Nakayama, Gary Mula, nance! and Drea Marilyn. It was a beautiful night of song. Watch it here.

An update on Ten Thousand Things

Dear Friends,

After three years of making Ten Thousand Things with KUOW Public Radio, the station has decided to not renew my show.

Ten Thousand Things was a love letter to the Asian American community, created at a time when there was a spike in anti-Asian hate crimes when all the stories about Asian Americans in the media somehow felt like they were about  harm and loss. Just this Fall, the Asian American Foundation released a survey on public safety conducted in Seattle, where 2 in every 5 Asian Americans reported being the victim of an ant-Asian experience, with 3 in 5 reporting feeling unsafe in public settings. In the face of these kinds of statistics, the incoming political regime, and the lived experiences of the Asian American community, Ten Thousand Things and its stories feels more necessary than ever.

Over its 3-year run, the show won awards from the Asian American Podcasters Association, The Signal Awards, and The Edward R. Murrow Awards. We were funded by The Common Counsel Foundation and received an inaugural Hope Corps Grants from Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture. I also designed a talk about Ten Thousand Things for Humanities Washington which is regularly requested by libraries, schools, and cultural organizations around the State of Washington.

I own the IP for Ten Thousand Things and will be taking it with me and raising funds to produce it independently. In 2025, there will be a revival of interest in the show as The Wing Luke Museum mounts an exhibition on objects from Ten Thousand Things, and University of Washington Press brings out a book about the show. I’m hoping to have a new season ready to launch in time for these milestones and to potentially spend the next year producing some live shows for Ten Thousand Things and to continue gathering stories from the community. For me, Ten Thousand Things has always been an anti-racist project about narrative change with a deep commitment to the art and poetry of storytelling. In this next iteration of the show, I hope to go back to making it as weird and delightful as possible, with elements of high and low culture, and deep emotional complexity.

If the show has been meaningful to you, I’d appreciate it if you’d take the time to write to [email protected] with your feedback on the show’s cancellation. KUOW reads every piece of audience feedback that it receives and shares it at their staff meetings. 

If you’d like to invest in the future of the show, the project is fiscally sponsored through Shunpike and accepts donations, which are fully tax deductible. If you are considering making any year-end charitable donations, I hope you’ll consider making a gift this year to support Ten Thousand Things and sharing this ask with others.

Thank you for your support. 

Shin Yu 

Jaipur Literary Festival in Seattle

Jaipur Literary Festival has expanded outside of India and has been producing satellite literary festivals all over America. One of them came to Seattle where I presented my work as part of a panel with Vijay Seshadri. Thanks to Amber Flame for facilitating the conversation.