425: Understanding Lives that Are Not Our Own through Short Stories - Interview

Today, Lori is interviewing May-lee Chai. They'll be talking about understanding lives unlike our own and her book Tomorrow in Shanghai and Other Stories. May-lee Chai is the author of eleven books of fiction, nonfiction, and translation, including her latest short story collection, Tomorrow in Shanghai & Other Stories. Her last story collection, Useful Phrases for Immigrants, won the 2019 American Book Award. She teaches in the MFA program in creative writing at San Francisco State University. Her writing has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, Bakwin Award for Writing by a Woman (selected by Tayari Jones), Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, named a Kiriyama Prize Notable Book, and recipient of an honorable mention for the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Book Awards.  Her short prose has appeared widely, including in Seventeen, New England Review, Longreads, Paris Review Online, Kenyon Review Online, Los Angeles Times, Best Small Fictions anthology, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and cited as Notable in both the Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays anthologies.  You can find her on her website or follow her on Twitter or Facebook.   In this episode May-lee Chai and Lori discuss: Creating a journey through a short story collection using the placement of stories Using short stories to inhabit lives that are different from your own How to evoke a specific mood in a collection of short stories Plus, her #1 tip for writers. For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/425