Esmé Weijun Wang
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esmewang.com
Esmé Weijun Wang
@esmewang.com
📚The Collected Schizophrenias, The Border of Paradise
🏆 Best of Young American Novelists, Whiting Award, NYT Bestseller
🎓 Writing classes @ unexpectedshapeacademy.com
🇹🇼🌈♿️ she/her
🌱My interesting website @ esmewang.com
Pinned
for people who are interested in writing personal nonfiction/memoir and would like to start small: I made a free 28-paged workbook called Memoir in Miniature for you! grab it here:

www.esmewang.com/memoir-in-mi...
Reposted by Esmé Weijun Wang
“I think I’ve developed a pretty healthy awareness of how small I am.”

—Andrew Garfield, interviewed by @esmewang.com

www.thebeliever.net/an-interview...
An Interview with Andrew Garfield - Believer Magazine
I first became interested in Andrew Garfield and his work not from his starring role in the two big-budget Amazing Spider-Man films (2012, 2014), nor from his famous laptop-smashing scene in David Fin...
www.thebeliever.net
October 28, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Reposted by Esmé Weijun Wang
"...living with limitations means developing a different relationship with completion. Where others might see abandoned projects as evidence of failure, I see them as proof of making an effort despite all evidence to the contrary." www.reasonsforliving.co/p/the-museum... 👏 @esmewang.com is brilliant
The Museum of Almost
on the beauty of unfinished things
www.reasonsforliving.co
July 31, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Reposted by Esmé Weijun Wang
"[Writer's block is] the internal critic gone haywire, the imposter syndrome that whispers you're not good enough, smart enough, or talented enough to tell this story."

www.reasonsforliving.co/p/when-the-t...

(@esmewang.com with some brilliant wisdom on writing, as ever)
When the Thread Breaks
Navigating the Difference Between Writer's Block and Brain Fog
www.reasonsforliving.co
June 19, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by Esmé Weijun Wang
I am obsessed with this Writing Dashboard notion template from @esmewang.com 😍 it's exactly like diving into a fresh planner ugh solid-utensil-238.notion.site/Writing-Dash...
Writing Dashboard | Notion
The Pomodoro technique is a time management system that is used to work with the time you have, rather than against it. Pick a task, and work on it for 25 minutes. Then take a 5-minute break. Every fo...
solid-utensil-238.notion.site
July 2, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Reposted by Esmé Weijun Wang
I’ve found @esmewang.com’s free guides helpful and generative. This class could help get your memoir started!
I’m teaching a new (& free!) class called Shape Your Story: How to Create a Full-Length Memoir with Confidence next week—It’s esp good for people who’ve written short pieces, such as blogs or Substack posts, & want to write memoir. Live class, but recording available: esmewang.com/shape-your-story
Esmé Weijun Wang | Memoir Writing & Personal Nonfiction
Explore Esmé Weijun Wang’s memoir writing courses, The Collected Schizophrenias, The Border of Paradise, personal essays, and living well with chronic illness.
esmewang.com
May 8, 2025 at 9:36 PM
A really interesting (& brutal) piece about the commodification of Black identity in the art market in 2020-2022, & the opportunists who inflated art prices, only to devalue the same Black artists later
Rachel Corbett reports on how the Black portraiture boom went bust. The racial reckoning of 2020 sent prices soaring. Now, no one’s buying.
How the Black Portraiture Boom Went Bust
Rachel Corbett reports on how the Black portraiture boom went bust. The racial reckoning of 2020 sent prices soaring. Now, no one’s buying.
www.vulture.com
May 8, 2025 at 9:32 PM
I’m teaching a new (& free!) class called Shape Your Story: How to Create a Full-Length Memoir with Confidence next week—It’s esp good for people who’ve written short pieces, such as blogs or Substack posts, & want to write memoir. Live class, but recording available: esmewang.com/shape-your-story
Esmé Weijun Wang | Memoir Writing & Personal Nonfiction
Explore Esmé Weijun Wang’s memoir writing courses, The Collected Schizophrenias, The Border of Paradise, personal essays, and living well with chronic illness.
esmewang.com
May 8, 2025 at 9:26 PM
Reposted by Esmé Weijun Wang
eight years ago today we all watched the glory of zendaya falling madly in love with tom holland and the internet was never the same
May 7, 2025 at 1:15 PM
A dorky question (and tailored-made, I think, for @bcdreyer.social): I often want to put a comma after an independent clause even if the clause that comes after it is a dependent one—because I hear it in my head as having a pause. What’s the rule there? What’s best practice w/literary fiction?
May 7, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by Esmé Weijun Wang
SO much good stuff out now and coming up, give our SLR NOW playlist on BNDCMPR a spin and bookmark it for frequent updates!
https://bndcmpr.co/012f6f44
May 7, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Pupdate for people who’ve missed Daphne on their screens.
May 7, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Reposted by Esmé Weijun Wang
all right everybody, here we go

links, trackers, webinars, templates, and all the free support you need if you just got that nightmare NEA email on Friday

please share far and wide, you do NOT have to be in Oregon to use these resources
Emergency Alert: Six action steps if your NEA grant was just canceled • Oregon ArtsWatch
Arts organizations can learn how to still appeal the cancellations, including free resources and support on what steps to take.
www.orartswatch.org
May 6, 2025 at 11:51 PM
If you see this, post the most recent photo of yourself from your camera roll. No cheating!
May 6, 2025 at 11:54 PM
I keep thinking I’m getting close to being done with the newest novel, & then I am delayed by things like cancer and depression and whatnot but IT WILL COME EVENTUALLY, I PROMISE
May 6, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Reposted by Esmé Weijun Wang
A quadriplegic man named Normand Meunier died via MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) after being neglected for 4 days in ER. He was denied a specialized mattress, wasn’t turned & ended up with terrible bed sores.

His partner says she was threatened with removal from the ER for advocating for him 🧵
'It was horror,' says wife of quadriplegic man who sought assisted death after ER bedsore | CBC News
A public inquiry into the death of a quadriplegic man is underway in Quebec — over a year after he sought medical assistance in dying following a hospital stay that left him with a severe and painful ...
www.cbc.ca
May 6, 2025 at 3:17 AM
this made me laugh in the most delighted way…
anyway you want some really unhinged literature about a fucked up asian family... ever since i read THE BORDER OF PARADISE by esmé weijun wang in 2015 i haven't been able to stop thinking about it. on and off it haunts me. i'm like damn she went there
May 6, 2025 at 10:45 PM
Reposted by Esmé Weijun Wang
ever since i read her excellent book, the collected schizophrenias, i've looked up to esme weijun wang as an amazing #mentalhealth role model. here she is via bbc ideas talking about her diagnosis & how to break the stigma

youtu.be/vYrkcZTFllk?...
Schizophrenia: Breaking the mental health stigma | BBC Ideas
YouTube video by BBC Ideas
youtu.be
March 19, 2025 at 2:02 PM
I don’t promote all of my Reasons for Living posts here—but most of the posts are free, and if you can’t afford a paid subscription, just DM me and I’ll comp you one, no questions asked ❤️
A very nice article by Esme Weijun Wang, the author of The Collective Schizophrenias.

The Courage to Question Your Doctor www.reasonsforliving.co/p/the-courag...
The Courage to Question Your Doctor
(when they're questioning your sanity)
www.reasonsforliving.co
May 6, 2025 at 10:41 PM
for people who are interested in writing personal nonfiction/memoir and would like to start small: I made a free 28-paged workbook called Memoir in Miniature for you! grab it here:

www.esmewang.com/memoir-in-mi...
May 6, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Reposted by Esmé Weijun Wang
“but #waiting is also labor. It takes up #MentalSpace, demanding attention like a low-grade fever: not acute enough to be all-consuming, but persistent enough to unsettle and discomfit.”: buff.ly/LQLxTqF

by @esmewang.com
#MentalHealth #MentalHealthMatters #patience
On Waiting
the strange, unbearable art of living in the in-between
buff.ly
April 25, 2025 at 12:31 PM
@janecasey.bsky.social Back when we were both on The Bird Site, I could at least send you a DM—but alas, searching the internet top to bottom is not helping me find a direct mode of contact. Perhaps I can ask my agent to get in touch with your agent?????
April 25, 2025 at 6:58 PM
getting a call for a Chotiner interview: *one pill is poison and the other is a Smartie*
April 22, 2025 at 9:10 PM
C and I are thinking of getting me a wheelchair for situations like museums, touring gardens, rallies/marches, etc. Does anyone have a rec for a reliable, decent wheelchair for someone who wouldn’t be using it all the time?
April 15, 2025 at 10:07 PM
I am having weird imaginings of China v USA and being put in a camp. everything seems possible.
April 15, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Reposted by Esmé Weijun Wang
Welp it’s gotten real real if you can please help. If you can’t it’s really hard out here so share

gofund.me/a5ee0064
April 10, 2025 at 9:27 PM