Author Archives: Jenny Qi

December updates, 2021 review, & 2022 preview

Hello friends, what a whirlwind last few months this has been! Thank you to everyone who has helped me welcome my first book Focal Point into the world. I am so very grateful for the opportunity to meet, read, talk poetry with, and be read by so many amazing writers.

November/December features & interviews

Reviews

  • Kiyoko Reidy in Nashville Review called Focal Point “A haunting constellation of loss, dreams, violence, landscape, and spoken language springs from the mind of a scientist willing to question the things that resist answers: death, the capriciousness of power, the uncertainty of knowledge.”
  • Angelo Mao, the only other biomedical scientist/poet I know of, reviewed Focal Point for Los Angeles Review, and I really appreciated the unique lens through which he read the book. I don’t know if anyone else could have written this: “For…many first-generation immigrants from Asia, scientific aptitude paved the way for entry into United States and provided the most tractable blueprint for success. However, in parallel with the inability of the speaker’s scientific training to alter the outcome of her mother’s illness, science could (and can) provide these immigrants with scant protection from hostile prejudice and alienation.” Mao’s award-winning debut collection Abattoir was released Nov 2, and I’m excited to read it.
  • Other wonderfully kind reviews appear in periodicities, Tab Journal, and Compulsive Reader.

2021 in publications

This feels sort of incongruous here, but if I don’t do this now, I just won’t do it, so here’s my list of publications in 2021:

2021-2022 events

ICYMI, here are some recently uploaded videos of past events, including my launch event at The Booksmith with Francesca Bell and Mariya Zilberman and “How Words Can Heal,” a reading and panel hosted by Bellevue Literary Review.

Here’s a preview of events coming up next year, including virtual readings with Antonio Lopez at Brookline Booksmith on January 19 and with Susan Nguyen and Annelyse Gelman at BookWoman on February 3. More to come on that front, and in-person events subject to change based on the evolving pandemic.

Other exciting news for 2022: I was awarded a SWWIM residency, so I’ll be in Miami at some point, TBA!

Okay, that’s all. I’ll be taking a much-needed break from the internet until January 10th. Until then, happy holidays and stay safe, everyone.

November news & events

Hi friends, it’s been a BUSY pub month. Thank you to everyone who has bought my book, attended one of my events, read with me, shared one of my posts, or otherwise supported me through this crazy time. Here are some updates from the last month, upcoming events, and recordings of past events ICYMI.

Features, reviews, & interviews

  • For Literary Hub, I wrote “How to Write an Obituary For Your Mother,” an essay meditating on language and grief.
  • For the Poetry Foundation/Harriet Books, Ryo Yamaguchi wrote a lovely micro-review of Focal Point.
  • Interviews in ZYZZYZVA, Sine Theta, and The Racket about science, grief, a sense of place, and more.
  • For Full Stop, my longtime friend Kelly Swope wrote an expansive and thoughtful review that made me feel so seen: “Focal Point, like the Greek epics it frequently references, is… an inner odyssey through illness and loss that imparts the difficult lesson that to live is to grieve.”
  • From Vitni Review: “If contemporary grief writing can be characterized as an ongoing conversation concerning tradition, memory, and death, then Focal Point is among the strongest examples of poets writing on those topics today, and one of the most intriguing poetic debuts in recent years.”
  • Focal Point was featured in this roundup in the Washington Independent Review of Books

Events (learn more here)

  • 11/15 7pm PT: Odd Mondays Reading Series (VIRTUAL)
  • 11/22 6pm PT: Book Jewel in Los Angeles (IN-PERSON)
  • 11/30 6pm PT: Nomadic Press (VIRTUAL)
  • 12/15: Bellevue Literary Review panel (recorded)

Because we are in a Zoom world these days, a lot of my past events have been recorded, so you can watch if you missed them in real time:

The Poetry of Science with Jane Hirshfield, Kimiko Hahn, and Sarah Sala, moderated by Elizabeth Coleman and hosted by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Watch below.

You can also find my reading with Teresa K. Miller at Green Apple Books, my reading and conversation with LJ Moore-McClelland for the UCSF Alumni Author Series, & my Rattlecast episode.

Newsletter

I started a Mailchimp newsletter last month and will use that to send (very occasional) event updates directly to your inbox. Here’s the first one with an option to subscribe if you’re interested. I’ll probably send out another email in January to announce my spring 2022 events. If you follow this blog, you can also get these monthly-ish updates in your inbox.

Until next time.

October (pub month) news & updates

Dear friends, I’m excited (but also, because I’m me, utterly panicked) to announce that we are four days from the official Focal Point release date, and I’ve got lots of updates coming your way, including how to enter the preorder giveaway, signing up for my newly launched newsletter, the Focal Point fall tour schedule, and a peek at early reviews & features.

Preorder giveaway

I partnered with the wonderful Miller Press to create broadsides of my poem “Postcards From the Living.” All who have preordered can enter the giveaway by filling out this form. All you need is proof of purchase! If you haven’t preordered yet, you can still do so at The Booksmith, Bookshop, Indie Bound, Amazon, or your local indie bookstore.

broadsides (right) made by Miller Press

Newsletter

I started a Mailchimp newsletter and will use that to send (very occasional) event updates directly to your inbox. Here’s the first one as well as an option to subscribe if you’re interested!

Upcoming events

Here are my 2021 fall events! All are virtual unless otherwise noted; there are two in-person events in San Francisco. They are subject to change, so please check my events page and follow me on Instagram for the latest updates and links to sign up for the events.

Below, I am including links to register for my first few October events, including two in-person events in San Francisco at Yerba Buena Gardens (10/17) and Green Apple Books on the Park (10/22):

ICYMI, here’s a link to watch my very fun reading and conversation with Susan Nguyen and Roy Guzmán in celebration of Susan’s book Dear Diaspora, which was released September 1st. Huge shoutout to Susan for your support and for being such an inspiration as you’ve navigated your book launch.

Features & early reviews

  • Frontier Poetry featured Postcards from the Living” in their August roundup of Exceptional Poetry
  • Focal Point was featured by the bookstagram account @asianauthorsbookclub, who described it as “a debut poetry collection that will dazzle your mind and twist your heart.”
  • Novelist A.H. Kim featured Focal Point in her delightful Little Free Libraries Instagram project
  • In Mochi Mag, written by Tria Chang, a side by side interview with Kat Chow, author of Seeing Ghosts, a memoir that is also about losing her mother as a young person
  • A thoughtful review by Rooted & Written alumna Rebecca Samuelson, who took a poetry workshop I led: “Jenny Qi tackles [grief] with a ferocious grace in her new collection…. Focal Point provides a starting point to a journey that will never end but will inevitably change the trajectory of your life.”

That’s all for now! Hope to see you at one of my upcoming events this month!

September news

Dear friends, we’re about 40 days away from the Focal Point publication day, and lots of updates are coming your way. (August updates are here.)

Upcoming events (all virtual):
  • Tomorrow, September 4th at 5pm PT, I’m reading at Beast Crawl with Lyrics & Dirges, a really awesome reading series hosted by MK Chavez and Sharon Coleman.
  • September 16th at 5pm PT, I’ll be reading with Susan Nguyen & Roy Guzmán in celebration of Susan’s book Dear Diaspora.
  • Please save the date for my launch event for Focal Point, hosted by The Booksmith, one of my favorite bookstores! I’ll be reading with my dear dear friends Francesca Bell and Mariya Zilberman. October 13th at 6pm PT, more info to come.
  • Please check out my events page for all upcoming events. I’ll share another update when I finalize my fall tour schedule.
Publications & features:
  • “This is an instagram poem,” a brand new poem not in Focal Point, was published in issue 52 of The Racket. Read it here.
  • @taylorswift_as_books featured Focal Point!
Early reviews of Focal Point:
  • “Jenny Qi’s Focal Point examines the intersections brought together by a dying loved one….  Her poems are stories of deep and incisive searching. Qi’s style and emotion fill her poetry with relatability as the reader understands, expands as the reader wonders. Yet grief makes the heart a kaleidoscope and there is an opportunity to look within for the beyond. As with a frozen pond, or smoke escaping, Qi describes how the heart both expands and contracts with emotional and scientific proof.”—Sara Paye at the Sierra Nevada Review
  • “Focal Point is an attentive study of the human condition—it has immortalized, sculpted something out of a plethora of loss.”—Handwritten & Co.
Other bookish news:
  • I got a bit behind on the Sealey Challenge, but here’s my roundup of the 25 books I did manage to read last month.
  • Onto #SeptWomenPoets, at a time when women’s voices are needed more than ever. Follow along with my Instagram stories or on Twitter, & I’ll also post a roundup of those at the end of the month/beginning of next.
  • I very casually run the bookstagram account @poetry_plus_plants, and September’s feature is Some Are Always Hungry by Jihyun Yun, which also happened to be book 1 for #SeptWomenPoets.

August news & events

Dear friends, it’s been a busy month, and I wanted to share some updates!

Upcoming events:
  • On Friday, August 27th at 6pm PST, I’ll be reading with my friend Preeti at KSW Presents Preeti Vangani with Jenny Qi. The event is fully virtual. Click on the link to learn more and sign up to read with us!
Publications & features:
  • Frontier Poetry’s Jose Hernandez Diaz featured my poem “What Grows in the Desert” in their roundup of “exceptional poetry from around the web.” This poem appears in my forthcoming collection Focal Point, and you can read the full poem at SWWIM here.
  • As mentioned in a previous post, my poem “Postcards from the Living” was published in The Atlantic—a dream! This poem also appears in Focal Point.
  • New work alert: “This is an instagram poem” will be in issue 52 of The Racket.
Reviews of Focal Point:
Other book news:
  • Focal Point is once again the #1 New Release in Asian American Poetry on Amazon. Thanks to everyone for supporting!
  • Earlier in the month, I received my physical books and made an unboxing video (and quite possibly my first video ever), which you can watch here.
  • I’ve unveiled all of my blurbs, and you can read all of these kind and generous words on my social media or my book page. You can also navigate to my book page to find pre-order links & other information about Focal Point.
  • I made a graphic (see below) on how to support authors, based on a post by Tin House friend and fellow debut poet Susan Nguyen, author of Dear Diaspora. Feel free to use this, but please credit both of us. Here is Susan’s original, prettier post!
  • I’ve been doing the Sealey Challenge this year and reading one collection of poems each day in August. Follow along with my Instagram stories or on Twitter, & I’ll also probably post a roundup of all of the books I’ve read at the end of the month!

Poem in The Atlantic

I’m thrilled to share that I have a poem in The Atlantic today! Truly over the moon to have such a great home for this poem that is so dear to me.

Focal Point cover reveal & pre-order info

Friends! I’m so excited to finally share my book cover, designed by my brilliant friend Hilary Steinberg. I also have a book page here, and pre-order is available through Steel Toe Books and elsewhere (all links are available on the book page).

Some backstory on this cover: I took the photo in Mammoth Lakes, CA last summer, before I found out that my book would be published. What makes this cover extra meaningful for me is that Hilary is one of my oldest friends and one of so few people remaining in my life who remembers my mother. It’s so special to me that I was able to work with her on this.

Day 275: book announcement

I’m excited to finally share that after being a finalist in a number of contests, my debut poetry collection, Focal Point, was selected by Dustin Pearson for the Steel Toe Books Poetry Award and will be published next fall. Link to the announcement & words from Dustin Pearson on the book here. So grateful for this at the end of such a long year.

Day 215

Though I have continued to not update this blog, I have been tracking every day since COVID-induced shelter-in-place started in San Francisco. Today is Day 215. It’s the third day of another heatwave, temperatures up to 95 degrees. I don’t remember it ever being this hot in San Francisco for this many days in a year. Granted, this is in part because I used to live in the Sunset, closer to the cooling ocean breeze, but it is without a doubt also due to climate change. When I moved here a decade ago, I yearned for summer days like this, but now they fill me with a deep sorrow.

Here are some updates and things I’ve been up to this year, in part for whomever follows this blog and in part for me to mark the passage of time in a year when time feels so altered:

  • At the beginning of this year, I started a new remote job. It has been a tough year and a steep learning curve, but I’m getting used to it and like the people. I still struggle with my science and writer identities.
  • Right after starting aforementioned new job and before the pandemic, I participated in Tin House’s Winter Workshop. It felt like a dream then. It feels even more like a dream now.
  • At the beginning of the pandemic, I worried it would be terrible, but did not anticipate how terrible it would actually become. The first few months, I was burned out – from work, from grad school (STILL), even from writing – and aside from the terror of the circumstances, I was okay with slowing down. I read a lot of books, including a lot of not-very-literary, probably problematic, purely escapist fiction, and I saw no one, did no readings, and became so isolated I didn’t know how to become a part of society again.
  • This summer, I was sort of forced out of my cocoon by fellowships and workshops, and it has been challenging and necessary and ultimately quite rewarding. I started my stint as a Grotto Fellow, completed IWL and wrote about the weirdness of my reemergence into society for KSW, started doing readings again in August. (You can watch one of them here.)
  • On day 90, I moved to a new apartment, and in this larger apartment I finally have a little separate writing nook, from which I am typing this update.
  • The wildfires in California and all of the West have been the worst in history. On day 177, the sky was orange.
  • My poetry manuscript has been a finalist for two book prizes this year, the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry and another that I’m not sure I’m allowed to disclose yet.
  • Today, day 215, I taught/facilitated my first-ever poetry workshop for Rooted and Written. Zoom is weird, and teaching is weird, but I think it went well. So wild that this time last year, I was a participant. Wilder still that this time three years ago I had just finished my PhD, had not yet started my first real-person job, and I was just starting to be more involved in the literary world and knew absolutely nothing.
  • My grandmother is dying of kidney failure. She’s 95, and she never really accepted the limitations of old age. I think on some level she has been ready to let go for some time. I’m not really ready to say more than that.

There is so much to grieve, so much to be grateful for, this year and in this life. So difficult to hold them side by side. This is all I have in me for now. Be well, friends.