Books – Jenny Qi, Ph.D.

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.

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*

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!

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:

Handwritten & Co., a literary magazine based in South Asia, kindly reviewed Focal Point and included two poems from the book, “Point At Which Parallel Waves Converge & From Which Diverge,” originally published in Tin House, and “Writing Elegies Like Robert Hass,” originally published in The Intima.
Bookstagrammer @bookshelf.blooms wrote a really nice review of Focal Point here, as well as on Goodreads.

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!

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.

The universal constant

I finally finished reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. I also finished putting together the audio for a Bone Lab episode featuring our interview with a bioarchaeologist. Together, these things are giving me a less despairing lens with which to view this strange and tragic era. And can’t we all use a little less despair right now.

Last week felt more than ever like the plot of a dystopian novel. In 2015, we have self-driving cars, inexpensive personal genetic sequencing, eyeglass computers guiding surgical procedures, and an apple that is engineered to resist bruising. We seem to have the tools to create a utopia. And yet, people around the world lack food and clean drinking water. Entire villages, countries are raped, pillaged, and murdered. In 2015, North Korea executes its citizens for gaining exposure to the outside world, old men can marry and rape young girls without repercussions, and a Hitler-like Donald Trump is a viable presidential candidate in a country that is supposed to represent freedom. In 2015, ISIS, in spite of its technological savviness, tortures and beheads prisoners, commits unspeakable acts of terror and barbarism reminiscent of the Dark Ages or the ancient Middle Kingdom.

What the fuck.

How can this read as anything other than a work of dystopian fiction or an absurdist play? How can we, on a global scale, be doomed to constantly repeat the same kinds of mistakes, enact the same ridiculous tragedies?

Continue reading “The universal constant”

Category Archives: Books