My writing history is best told through handwriting

In this personal essay-meets-health education piece, I story-tell about how handwriting has been a through line in some of my friendships growing up in 90s India. I also show how handwriting can be incorporated into a generative practice and used for better mental health. If you stick and savor long enough, you’ll see some tried-and-tested stress-relief Yoga asanas for happy hand-writers.

Excerpt: My practice involves taking to the page everyday, pen and grip in tow. I’ll write something, anything. I’ll cook up a list, write this paragraph, mend my mindset, plan the future, feel stuck in the past, plant some seeds in the present—all in cursive.

Vanessa Hua on imaginative inquiry and historical fiction in ‘Forbidden City’

Author and human extraordinaire, Vanessa Hua, talks about sticking with a book idea for fourteen years. Hua persisted and ‘Forbidden City,’ her work of historical fiction set during the years of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution was published in summer 2022.

Excerpt: I don’t outline beforehand; I do afterward. Throughout the revision process, and after I finished writing the draft, I did a breakdown by scene and character and wrote what was at stake. I let inspiration drive the draft, but during the revision, I took a more schematic approach. I asked questions like, “What do I need to put in here?” and “What do I need to research?”