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Ada Zhang

@sorrowsofothers

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The Sorrows of Others @apublicspace
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🌸 SORROWS releases today!! THANK U to everyone who has supported this book so far. The gratitude I feel is truly overwhelming. Here r some pics of bb grl in the wild. If u see her in the wild, wherever u r, feel free to send me pics! I love to see her among friends.

🚗 💨 My tour also kicks off today—first stop @greenlightbklyn w Yiyun Li 🦢🦢

Details for all events at the link in bio 😊🌸 by @sorrowsofothers

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3 years ago

A quick trip to New York. Now back to Iowa… by @sorrowsofothers

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6 days ago

Missing them by @sorrowsofothers

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6 months ago

Another from the archives by @sorrowsofothers

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6 months ago

I was so worried bout @georgewbush !!! Baby Texan. Can’t believe we’re back waging war on the Middle East 25 years later. Still wondering what will happen to America by @sorrowsofothers

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6 months ago

Found these books pretty hopeful. Thanks to the authors by @sorrowsofothers

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6 months ago

There is still time to sign up for this four week generative workshop I am leading with @apublicspace. I’ll put the registration link in stories.

James and Baldwin are aesthetically linked, there is no denying their similarity in style; the DNA of James is in Baldwin’s work down to the sentences. These writers knew how to use description as a technique as opposed to simply a function. They both also took America to be their subject and interrogated what Baldwin has referred to as the American crisis: “a certain inability to perceive the reality of others.” I am thinking about this as Americans gun down Americans in the villages where our children go to school. Baldwin defines the American attitude as one of willful innocence, a determination to live inside of a dream and never grow up. I think of writing fiction as the opposite. The written page is somehow (idk how) allergic to small ideas and half-truths; it loves accuracy, clings to what is real. I suppose this is what has always drawn me to fiction, that it’s really hard to bull shit. There is no costume. You can’t force or hide. The page is a way out of one’s delusions.

DM me if u have questions by @sorrowsofothers

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9 months ago

Loved residing in South Texas with all these beautiful angels. Will never forget it. Texas forever and ever.

For anyone in the area I’m doing an event in Carrizo Springs @cafesuzanna ♥️

Fuck u Greg Abbott @governorabbott ur an enemy of the state and a loser by @sorrowsofothers

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a year ago

If ur not a star, just become a writer by @sorrowsofothers

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a year ago

summmeerr ererer by @sorrowsofothers

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a year ago

Thailand, Korea, DC, home ♥️😮‍💨

Tin house class descrip (would love to have u!!):
“Every object rightly seen unlocks a new faculty of the soul.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

By some alchemical combination of capturing and imagining what is there in words, creating a porous line between object and subject—what you SEE and what YOU see—a pure image emerges. What is a pure image? To borrow my definition from Emerson, a pure image is any object rightly seen. As readers we are struck by these images because while they may be written in all manner of style, it is the specificity and accuracy and awareness of the objects, plain though they may be, that remain emblazoned in our hearts and minds.

In this generative class, we will think about language as a vessel for consciousness, and consciousness and beauty as one and the same. We won’t worry so much about “writing beautifully,” or even well, but instead trust that through the process of looking closely and finding just the right words, our images will be as they are: beautiful.

Through prompts and generative exercises, we will sharpen our techniques of observation and envisioning to create images that are not only vivid but also original. We will examine the imagery of Gustave Flaubert, Shirley Hazzard, Toni Morrison, and Marilynne Robinson, among others for a sense of the different ways an image can be pure. Writers of all levels and genres are welcome.

Scholarship
We have one scholarship available for this intensive. Scholarships are conducted through a lottery. by @sorrowsofothers

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a year ago

V v great to teach the past two semesters at Iowa. I learned so much from my students, now peers—their gifts and ideas but most remarkably their vulnerability. It was stunning to bear witness to the work being done in the midst of this chaos. In a time when the word has been brutalized and debased, when the people in power lie and the rhetoric of our media works against us and our history is being rewritten as we speak, I am amazed to find so many still using language the old way, the original way, to travel from one heart to another ♥️

Grateful for all of it by @sorrowsofothers

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a year ago